Trick or Treat!

We had lots of fun trick-or-treating this year. With the confusion of whether people were trick-or-treating on Saturday or Sunday, we ended up going twice. We had planned to go on Sunday night with our friends at their neighborhood. Mimi and PopPop were still here on Saturday and wanted to see the kids trick or treat too, so when we saw that the neighborhood besides ours was officially trick-or-treating on Saturday, we decided to go there for a few minutes too.

Catherine especially decided that trick-or-treating is her gig. She became little Miss Independent and wanted to go up to the doors all by herself, with Will tagging along of course. Jay tried to walk up with her to help ring a doorbell and she yelled "No, Daddy. Stay in the street. I can do this by myself!" Well, okay then.... A little bit of attitude from the angel :)

They are the cutest angel, pumpkin, and fireman though. Will was very excited to help rescue people. Anna did not appreciate her pumpkin head.
This is the best way to enjoy the festivities--just hanging out in the stroller.
Our friend's neighborhood has some houses that get very excited about Halloween decorating, like this one. The people here live across the street from our friends and made personalized gift bags of Halloween candy and surprises for the kids, including ours and we don't even live there!
I really enjoy watching the kids get dressed up and go trick-or-treating. Prior to having children, Halloween was my least favorite holiday of all. I guess it's because I only went trick-or-treating once or twice as a child. So now I'm enjoying taking our little people (and eating their candy when they're not looking).

They Just Keep Growing....

....and growing and growing!

This morning I took Will for his 3 yr checkup and Anna for her 6 month checkup (although she's 7 months already--we had some scheduling difficulties).

Will weighs 31 lbs (43%) and is 37 1/2 inches tall (53%). Will did great for his checkup. He even cooperated for the hearing test and read the shapes on the eye chart. His asthma and allergies have been very good for the last 6 to 9 months, so we're not going to start him back on the Pulimicort nebulizer as a preventative treatment. If he starts having any problems this fall or winter we'll have to, but hopefully he's outgrowing some of it and the Zyrtec and Nasonex seem to be keeping it manageable.

Anna weighs 16 lbs (30%) and is 27 1/4 inches long (80%). Her weight percentile dropped again (how is this the same baby who weighed 9lbs 5 oz when she was born 9 days early??) but our doctor is not worried about it at this point. She is eating well and everything else seems great, so we'll just watch to see where her body weight naturally ends up. She may be small and petite like her sister (who is usually in the 5% for weight). We're still avoiding dairy products since we don't know about the milk allergy and will wait until she's a year old to really find out what's going on there. I'm still trying to convince her to drink some of the formula that she's not allergic to, so I think I'm going to just offer her a bottle of it every afternoon in hopes that she'll become familiar enough with the taste to drink it. These things (as are so many decisions of parenting) are always trial and error.

So with our combined total of 7 vaccinations, we're ready to go! We're thankful for healthy children. I know there are so many people who wish they could have simple and easy checkups like this. Sometimes I forget how blessed we are to have these 3 healthy children.

7 Months Old

Anna is 7 months old today!! That is both exciting and makes me a little nostalgic--we're on the other side of 6 months which means soon she'll have a birthday which means she's growing too fast!! But oh she's so much fun. Her little smile just melts my heart every time I see it.

This past week sitting up "clicked" and she's suddenly a pro! Every now and then she'll still tumble over (especially with some help from her big brother) but she's pretty sturdy.
She is also starting to crawl (really scoot) a little bit--backwards! And now that she can sit up, she's figured out how to push herself from her hands and knees to a sitting position. I think she'll figure this crawling movement out pretty soon.
Since she can sit up by herself, it has made running errands a little easier. I had been still putting her in the Ergo carrier or taking a stroller in each store, but we're now able to use shopping carts and high chairs.
She also is eating lots of baby food--carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, broccoli, apples, pears, bananas, oatmeal, rice cereal--and can use her fingers to pick up cheerios and puffs. She's keeping her two teeth very busy. We're still working on drinking a bottle and occasionally taking formula. And we're introducing the sippy cup with water too. Maybe she'll catch onto those this month. All of that eating and growing is hard work!

We love you, sweet Anna. I'm excited to see what you'll learn in the next month and to keep watching you grow.

Hatten Family Day at the Cradle of Forestry

Yesterday was our 3rd annual Hatten Family Day! Jay and I pick a special activity each year and totally set aside the day just for our family to do something fun together. For weeks, we build up the anticipation with the kids and they get so excited about our family day. (They're going to think we're big dorks for this in about 10 more years, but who cares?)

We went up to Hendersonville to the Cradle of Forestry. A friend had recommended this as a great place to go hiking and enjoy being outdoors with little ones. It was a lot of fun!

They have a small indoor museum that you can do a scavenger hunt throughout. Catherine thought that was great--just like a hidden picture challenge, only in real life! And Will's favorite part was the helicopter. It's an old helicopter that served in Vietnam and was then used to put out forest fires. It is now retired and you can sit in it while it simulates putting out forest fires. Will was a little nervous at first, but then he found this rafting helmet and he was suddenly no longer scared. I guess he thought it protected him!

We spent probably 3 or 4 hours outside on their trails. It was a beautiful fall day and the kids had so much fun just picking up colorful leaves and "walking" sticks. One of the trails has kid activities spaced throughout it, so every little bit we'd stop to do an activity: ride a tractor, pretend to ride a horse, climb on tree stumps, investigate with the magnifying glasses, etc.
The favorite activity on the trail was the train! You could climb on it and ring the bell, and Will thought that the 3 on the front was just for him since he's 3 now. We spent a good bit of time playing on the train.
Anna was very excited about her first Hatten Family Day. She rode along in the stroller and took a little nap when she was tired. She really loves being outside and is happy to watch Catherine and Will run around.
The second trail is more historical-based, with old buildings and houses that were used when the forestry service began on this land in the 1800's. The kids favorite was the old school building. They also liked the houses, general store, and how they washed their clothes outside in a pot of boiling water.

Each trail was 1 mile long, so by the end of the day the kids were tired, especially considering that we did most of our hiking during nap time. By the very end, little Will was lagging way behind the rest of us and Catherine was worried that we were going to leave him in the forest! Sweet big sister always watching out for the rest of them. We finally did convince her that we would not lose Will in the forest and that if we kept walking he would catch up with us. I think Will was asleep in the car within 2 minutes of leaving the parking lot.

We had a great day and I loved spending it with my family! The kids already want to do know what we're doing next year for Hatten Family Day.

A little bit of laundry

Isn't she the cutest basket of laundry??

Play Ball! Party

On Saturday morning, Will celebrated his birthday with a few of his friends by playing ball. Will's favorite thing is to play sports outside, so that's what he wanted to do for his party. The little guys had fun playing baseball, football, soccer, tennis, and golf.

Will had an awesome birthday cake. My really great friend (who doesn't want credit for the cake) made a baseball field with the players. This picture doesn't do a very good job of showing the whole cake, but it looked amazing, tasted great, and was enough cake to feed 2 birthday parties!

Little guys taking turns at bat. This "organization" lasted for about the first 5 mins of the party, and then everyone just played whatever they wanted.
The Birthday party friends inside the soccer goal we borrowed from our neighbors.
Instead of people bringing Will presents, each guest brought a ball to be donated to the Miracle Hill boys' home. Jay and Will took the balls by later that afternoon. Will was really excited about other boys having new balls to play with.
For dinner on Saturday night, we told Will he could pick any restaurant he wanted to go to. He thought about it for a couple of minutes and then said "How 'bout that one with the fire stuff?" So we headed to Firehouse Subs, with Will in his fireman costume, where he pretty much ate Cheetos for his birthday dinner.
We had a great weekend celebrating Will's birthday (and Catherine is now on the count-down to her's.)

It's Good to Be Three!

Will turned 3 years old today! He is such a fun little guy. And as he says "I look handsome too!"

We took cupcakes to his school today to celebrate. Here's Will with Birthday Bear for their class, saying the blessing.
Will really enjoyed his cupcake! And he has learned to hold up 3 fingers, which still takes a lot of concentration to hold down that pinky finger.
Will was very excited all day to open his birthday presents. Every time we mentioned something about presents, he said "Maybe I get a baseball bat"--so he got a new baseball bat. Will also got his very own bike for his birthday. Now he can give Catherine back her pink Barbie bike that he had claimed as his own since this summer. I think Catherine was just as excited about Will's bike as he was so that now they can ride bikes at the same time instead of arguing over whose turn it is. He's pretty quick on his bike!

Happy Birthday, Will! We love you, little buddy.