Thanksgiving

My parents and niece were here for Thanksgiving. We made Turkey hats (see my mom modeling).

Fall Party

Erik and I had a shopping extravaganza today; we shopped for fall decorations and Aiden's birthday. We came home ready to celebrate the autumn season. We made an apple crisp, drank hot apple cider, and made decorations for the house (we made these with the help of Keli and her 3 boys). We decided it was a good time to try on Halloween costumes. Aiden really likes his Spiderman costume! The fake muscles are really funny. Aiden told us that his peck muscles are like breasts--I'm still laughing!

A Real Pumpkin Patch

Being from an area where going to the pumpkin patch involves looking at picked pumpkins on hay bales, I was excited to go to a real pumpkin patch and actually "pick which pumpkin to pick." We went to a place that you rode a train to the pumpkin patch and took a boat ride home. It was great! After, we went to lunch. All of this happened with a bunch of women and their children who I've met through my neighbor, Keli. It was a great day!

Zander Smiles! A video!

Aiden growing-up!

Aiden started preschool. Here is a picture of him on his first day. He loves school and his new friends. He has also started setting the table! This was his first attempt. He's starting to put the silverware in the correct spots. He also seems to know "right" and "left" now. He's amazing us daily!

Zander turning over

Z-man decided that he was no typical baby...none of this turning onto his back from his tummy first. He decided, repeatedly, that he wanted to roll from his back to his tummy. A day or two later he decided to roll from tummy to back. I talked to my doctor about this--I was feeling like a proud Mama. I proceeded to admit that Zander does not get much tummy-time. She told me that was fairly typical for second kids as the moms are running around more. I explained that my reason for not putting Z down on his tummy was that he spits up a lot, even if it has been an hour or more after eating. Since Zander is gaining weight very slowly and dropping in weight percentiles (he was at 15 and is now at 4), we are now exploring the possibility that Zander has a problem with acid reflux. We're hoping that we'll see better weight gain in him now.

Spelling

We're beginning to find that Aiden knows the words we're spelling (you know those times when you don't want to be understood by little ears). The first time it happened was in early August. Granted, the word we were spelling sounds a lot like the letters...OREO...try spelling it outloud. Aiden knew exactly what were saying. In the past week, we spelled MOVIE. I think we were trying to decide if we were going to let him see one. Aiden immediately wanted to know why we were talking about a "movie."