Spootakular

Auntie Heidi and Uncle Steve (or Uncle Steven as the kids for some reason call him) invited us over for a Halloween themed lunch today.

 

Mike, Boo and Sully before lunch...

 Quick family photo...

 Greta looks thrilled:).  And Gibs had just been crying.

11 Months!

Greta was 11 months on the 25th!  I forgot to ever take her 10 month pic, so if you read this in the future, Greta, I am sorry.  It is not from a lack of love for you.  It is simply that I am getting more forgetful in my old age:).  And being the third kid, I'm sorry, but the other two do take up a lot of my time.  We certainly love you and constantly dote on you as our "baby" (now and forever you will be my baby as the youngest). 

 

Greta is still as sweet as can be and even though she's been sick the past few days, she has still hardly been grumpy.  I experience getting puked on for the first time ever this week.  Greta napped pretty much all day on Thursday and wouldn't drink or eat much so I figured something was up, but was still pretty surprised with vomit suddenly projected out of her mouth all over me Thursday night.  And then again when it happened about ten minutes later.  Joe ran to get some Pedialyte quick at 11pm at night (definitely nice being closer to a 24-hour store now!) and keeping her on that the next day seemed to help.  She still isn't totally better, but no more puking, so that's good.  Layla has only thrown up once in her life (and it was last spring so she was old enough to make it to the bathroom) and Gibs maybe did a little bit, but not much, so it was sad to see her so sick:(.  Thankfully she's on the mend.  Harper got sick less than 24 hours later and Gavin, Gibs and I have been struggling with colds/not feeling great, but so far Layla has been good so hopefully it stays that way and this is the end of sickness in our hosue for awhile (oh, who am I kidding, I'm sure the next time Gibs and Greta go to nursery they'll pick something up).  We have already started the trend of go to church on Sunday, sick on Wednesday, stay home the next week, go to church the next, get sick again, and so on and so forth.  Normally that's our winter norm, but seems to have started earlier this year.  Greta has had MANY colds since being born, poor girl.  Gibs gets quite a few too, so it's amazing that Layla has hardly ever even had a cold in her life (a few, but they last like a day and then she's fine).

 

Here is our little thumb sucker.  I didn't think I'd ever think it was cute to have a kid that sucked their thumb, but she's liked it since a little while after birth and we think it's adorable.  We may not think that when we're trying to make her give it up.  With Gibs and Layla, they both LOVED their pipes.  A thumb may not be as easy to take away:).

Greta is in 9 month and some 12 month clothing and size 3 diapers.  She is still cruising around furniture and crawling as her means of getting around.  She can stand for maybe 10 seconds, but tends to only do that if she's busy playing and doesn't realize she let go.  If you try to get her to stand on her own, she just sits down.  Same with if you try to encourage her to walk to you, she just gets down and crawls on over.  She says "mama" and "dada" but not sure she knows who is who really.  She will sometimes say "baba" for bottle and last week one time said "nigh nigh" really clearly while waving goodnight to us but since then it's been hard to get her to say it good (hard to tell if she's just making "na" noises or if she's actually trying to say "nigh nigh").  And sometimes she sounds like she's saying "all da" (all done) after eating.  She started clapping and pointing this month and waving more consistently.  She is just growing so much and sadly seeming less and less like a baby:(. 

 

 I think it's so cute that lately she LOVES baby dolls and some stuffed animals.  This is typical Greta holding Donald Duck in one hand and a baby in the other.  She carries them around the house now and also enjoys stealing them from Harper:).

 11 month pic that I remembered to take!

 This is what I get trying to get a cute pic of Joe with the kids...

Her schedule now is to wake up around 8:30 and have a bottle and breakfast (a quick breakfast or on-the-go breakfast on days I bring Layla to school), nap (quick car nap on Layla's school days), bottle and lunch, 2-3 hour nap, bottle around 4 after she wakes up, supper, and then a bottle around 7 followed by bed at 7:30 or a little after.  In the next couple of weeks I'll be starting to wean bottles.  I was so ready for my other kids to be done with bottles by 11.5/12 months, but with her it is so easy to just have her drink a bottle on the way to school in the morning depending on when she wakes up (we have to leave for school around 9), so I think it'll be harder (on me) having her give up bottles.  My other two also never had night time bottles like she does (they'd have one around 6ish with supper as their last bottle), so hopefully she does fine not having her 7pm bottle.

 

 Sweet girl normally doesn't fall asleep on people anymore but did a couple of weeks ago and also now since she's been sick.  I love seeing them sleep.

 

 

We love our little Grets so much and are excited to see her keep growing into her own little person, yet loving every stage she goes through too and enjoying each while they last.  She just has such a quiet and relaxed sweetness about her yet has such a curious and adventurous spirit all at the same time.  It is fun to see our third little love developing into her own unique persona.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Joe's dad turned 63 today so we went there to celebrate.  I thought this was a cute picture of him with the kids...

Pumpkin Parade

Layla was in her first parade today and was so excited about it!  It was a cold day, but thankfully the rain held off (except for a few sprinkles near the end of the parade).  Layla said she had fun and stayed warm all bundled up.

We had to wake up Greta and Gibs to go to the parade.  Gibs was half sleeping for awhile and Greta remained in the same position the whole time I'm pretty sure since she couldn't move in her big coat:).

Here they come!

Mommy and Layla after the parade...

Step One

We have FINALLY finished step one in the building a house process.  It took a bit, but we closed on our land this past Wednesday!   We are excited to start building and hoping to start within the next couple of months.  We have our prints pretty well set, we just need to finalize everything with the builder so we can get our plan to the bank--hopefully soon! 

 

1. Buy land - completed 10-03-12

This picture we quick took (without a flash on my phone as you can tell and before Joe brush-hogged it) the night we closed on our land.  You can how the weather has changed the past few days!!  Poor Gibs fell and hurt his hand that night on our property (just got a cut on it).  Then Thursday night before getting in the tub he slipped and hit his face on the toilet which led to a nice bruise on his face.  Friday he decided it'd be a fun idea to lay underneath a barstool and tipped the whole thing over on his face which then bruised his cheek worse and bruised his eye lid. And then tonight he tripped at our land again.  Thankfully tonight he just got a very small scratch on his eye lid (the same one with the bruise).  That kid is always getting hurt in some way!

 

Alma Mater

Greta and Harper sporting their HC shirts...

Quick Trip and Fun with Cousins

Greta LOVES cousin Harper and loves to give her kisses.  Poor Harps:)...

Layla and Greta both had panda shirts on the other day and Gavin and Gibs both had Mickey shirts so I thought I'd take a pic:)...

Popcorn and movie time at Auntie Em's!

Harper and Greta in their coordinating outfits:)...

Goofy kids being goofy...

Joe and I were able to go to Joe's cousin, Tim's, wedding a couple of weekends ago in Minneapolis.  We were so happy to be able to go to celebrate with Tim and Becky and to also enjoy a couple of days away from the kids.  Gibs and Layla stayed home with Gigi (which was easy since I didn't even have to pack their stuff since we live with them!) and Greta was in good hands with Auntie Kristina.  I can't believe that I forgot to even have a picture taken of Joe and I at the wedding though.  It's not very often that we get dressed up so I'm bummed I forgot a pic!  I did get one with cousin Paula though:).  We had a little time to waste in between the wedding and reception so we quick made a stop at the Mall of America.  We also stopped there right when we flew in late Friday afternoon.  We then went to an outlet mall Saturday morning before the wedding and even had time to stop quickly at Ikea on the way to the airport Sunday morning.  It was a quick trip but we fit lots in (for the time we were there) and had a great time enoying lots of adult time.

I was looking quick through my recent FB mobile uploads and saw this and thought this was a good one to show what the kids are like on a typical day.  Gibs and Gavin wanted to be pulled and Layla was great with pulling them saying "I can pull anything heavy because I'm the mom".  That is true, us moms are tough:).  Layla LOVES pretending and often is "the mom".  I am afraid she is going to be a typical oldest child as she all too naturally tells Gibs what to do. 

This was one of the other pics I took while in Minneapolis...it was so nice to enjoy lots of meals without kids.  Love them, but it's definitely easier and quieter eating without them!

A few weeks ago we went with Mike, Em, Gavin, Harper and Gavin's friend/neighbor Justin to Binder Park Wild Animal Park.  The kids of course loved it.

Greta gives kisses to certain people.  Baby Zachary was one of those lucky people (mom too, not dad:(! )...she really loves babies (real and pretend) and a couple of times recently I have said "baby" to her and she'll try to copy me which is cute.

 The girls while we were getting haircuts...Layla, Greta and Natalie...

Harps and Grets playing nicely together...

 Very typical Greta, this is how she drinks her bottles.  I may have put this on here before, I can't remember and am too lazy to check:), but this is how she drinks her bottles best.  She gets WAY too distracted if anyone tries to feed her.  She does best on her own:).  Also, she had her last helmet appointment last week!  Her head is basically about as round as it can be.  We are going to keep it on at night just for a few more weeks, but she's totally done with it during the day!  I'm hoping she still sleeps good at night without it! :)

 We went to the mall Friday night and I took a pic of Greta pulling Harper's headband off since this is so typical them.  Greta just won't leave Harper alone:).  She also won't leave her own headbands on:(.