Halloween 2

Here is our whole crew. Somehow I thought it might be easier for all of us to be together since the daddys were traveling with work. I think may have turned out to be double trouble. But we did have fun! Just think, last year when we did this with Tony and Tara, it was just 2 boys and 2 pregnant mommies (and Anthony). Now here are our cute little pumpkins.

I think MJ and Tony had a good time. We set out later than we anticipated, but as a result, they were ready for bed at the end of the night. I was excited that an older kid complimented our costumes. Some group of about 8 year old boys passed by MJ and said, "Wow, Mario, that's a great costume." I had called Mario's name and they either thought it was his real name or I was just calling him by the costume. Either way, it was cute that they noticed. Then they said that I should have been Luigi, so I pointed to Joey in the stroller. Their response "Awesome costumes!" I didn't mention my princess costume in the car.

Joey and Xavier were quite the troopers considering they did all this and didn't get any candy.

And here are the tired babies at the end of the night. They were playing so well together!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! We stayed in most of the day to continue to work on this potty training thing. I know it's not neccesary to stay home, but MJ has been doing so well with this, I don't want to mess anything up. He spent 2 hours at St. Theresa with me while I taught yesterday, and managed to mostly make it to the potty in time there.

So, we passed the time today and carved a pumpkin. We have a book called Joey the Jack O Lantern. I remember reading that with MJ last year and thinking how we would have a little Joey with us for the next Halloween...and here he is! Whenever he sees a jack o lantern, MJ thinks it should be called "Joey the Jack O Lantern."

MJ did a nice job of helping me. I am learning to give up being a perfectionist (one of the many personality flaws that being a mommy has helped me to work on). This may not have been our best pumpkin, but we did it together. By the way, I am not fond of pumpkin innerds... yuck!

Tara, Little Tony, and Xavier had us over for dinner and trick or treating tonight. Here are my little Super Mario Brothers!

Halloween Party

Saturday night, we went to the BAH Halloween party at one of the partner's homes. They host this (and several other parties) every year. It is always a good time. We were totally rushing out the door at the last minute, and the house was still a disaster after having returned from the trip. But the babysitter seemed to understand and took care of the boys just fine. Can you tell who we are?

Since Mario and I started dating, I always wanted to be Mario and Princess for Halloween. Thankfully, he's supportive of my creative/cracy ideas.

I hope to get a family photo of all of us in our costumes... of course, Mario is traveling this week, so it probably won't be on Halloween, so, here are the boys pictures again from a previous post.

Tales of Toilet Training

I woke up this morning and decided to re-start toilet training with MJ. Why, because I like to torture myself. Plus, we won't be traveling for the next few weeks, so this seems to be the best time. Besides, he did it before Joey was born, so I was hoping this would be an easy thing to do. Appearantly the kid is a little trigger shy, but is happy trying to sit on the toilet. After his nap today, he awoke with a new sense of toilet training purpose. He sat down and decided to read a "magazine". Actually, it was the Toys R Us ad. Nothing came of this as I didn't think it would b/c his diaper was wet and soiled before he started, but he had some cute lines. For example, when he got to this Cars page he said, "Oh, check this out!" Which I guess Mario and I say to each other when we are reading things. Also, I gave Joey a toy while MJ was having his toilet time and he said to me "Oh, good sharing."

In fun Joey news, he seems to be babbling more. I guess he is in a loud house, so he's bound to find his own voice soon. Also, he continues to keep me on my toes by putting small chokable things in his mouth. Yesterday he had that "I'm sucking on something I shouldn't be look" and I ran over to pull a peanut out of his mouth! Double good news: 1) he didn't choke 2) it seems he isn't allergic to peanuts.

Our visit had come to an end

So, I tried to grab a few more photos before we left. I had some cute ones of my parents and the boys on the couch, but I took that with their camera.

We left Thursday at noon, and arrived in Stuebenville, OH late that night. Justine's family kindly hosted us (basically we just walked in the door and slept) but she had breakfast for us in the morning and let us play and hang out for a bit. It was a nice stop over for our long trip. Then we finished the drive Friday afternoon.

It is good to be home!

STL trip

Joey continued to grow even on vacation. He still likes to pull up on things, and his Aunt Kathy even saw him cruise around the coffee table. I tried to get a video of that, but we used the camcorder instead.

Both MJ and Joey liked Papa's chair a lot.

And we learned that giving Joey little bits of food to eat while we were eating kept him entertained. So here he is eating Cheerios for breakfast.

More from ND

These pictures were from October 20th (the ND vs USC game). I think I had one picture of Joey in the Pack N Play at the tailgate, but it turns out, when a younger sibling is in it, it is really cool. So MJ was asking to go in too. Mario put a blanket over the top so they had their little fort.

Here they are watching the drummer's circle at Bond Hall. I like how MJ is clapping over his head.

It reall was a gorgeous day, I wish I had a few more pictures, but here are some from around the lake.

Our attempt at a cute family picture.