The Christmas tree farm down the road kicks off their season Thursday and I’m actually pretty psyched to get a tree this year.  Jen and I are both pretty excited to see how much fun Alex and Avery will have this Christmas.  I think they’re at an age now where they’ll enjoy the tree, the decorations and Santa. They’ll also get excited about seeing family.  Another nice thing lately has been using the “Santa is watching” line to get them to behave.  It doesn’t work much, but sometimes if you throw enough out there something works.  It’s nice to have another one to add to the arsenal, even if it’s just for another month or so.

Jen has finished all of the Christmas shopping for the kids already, which is very cool.  It seems like we’re always running around at the last minute.  Thank god for the Internet, it really does make things so much easier and with free shipping available most of the time, it’s really a no-brainer.  I need to get my butt in gear and get some of my Christmas shopping done.  Luckily Jen handles most of it so I really just need to focus on her

I also plan on catching up on some of the pictures and videos that we’ve taken lately here on the site over the next few days.  We’ve got a few good videos of Adam and his new tricks to share too.  He somehow has developed dancing skills in tht past day or two and yesterday started to cruise around a little bit on the couch and transitioned himself from the coffee table over to the couch.  Man, he’s going to be walking soon!  It’s so cool to see how much he loves Alex and Avery and how he wants to be right in the middle of whatever they’re doing.  It’s really cute to see them run down the hall with him following closely behind doing his “turbo army crawl”.  They’re in trouble once he can keep up with them at full speed.

So if I don’t get anything up before Thursday have a good Thanksgiving and be sure to spend some good quality time with YOUR family!

Please go and get me a bib for Adam…No!
Do you want to take a bath now?…No!
You need to try and go potty before we leave the house…No!
Let’s go, we need to get in the van…No!
You need to pick up your milk from the floor so Adam can’t get it… No!
Pick up all the coins you dumped out all over the floor…No!

So when it’s an inappropriate time for saying no, I’ve been telling them it’s disrespectful and that they are not to tell mommy and daddy no.

A few minutes ago, Alex said he wanted to go outside. I told him no, not until he needed to clean up all the money he dumped out all over our bedroom floor. His reply? “You don’t say no to me mommy. Dat’s disdapeckful.”

*shaking head*

Adam has slept through for the past two nights now I believe.  While he still wakes up fairly early, and sometimes thinks it’s time to be up for the day at 5:30 or so, I know Jen is happy to log a few nights of solid sleep.

Avery has also been dry in the mornings for the past few days.  She really has done so well with the potty training, it’s amazing!  I can’t wait for the day when we don’t have another single diaper in the house!

Wow, Halloween is this Friday.  I can’t believe that October is over this week.  Time is moving at a pace that I didn’t know was possible.  I think (for me at least) part of what has been making the time go by faster than usual are the longer hours that I’ve been having to put in at work lately.  People ask me how I’m doing with my mom’s passing and all that and what I tell them is that honstly I have been too busy with everything lately to sit down and soak it all in.  Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely moments and occasional reminders that pop up that get me sad, but I think I just haven’t taken (or had) much time to sit and just think deeply about everything.  I guess I don’t know if that’s bad or not?

Things here are doing well.  Adam is doing something new every day and is crawling around like a rocket and is even starting to pull up on things.  Today, for example, Jen went in to get him from his afternoon nap and he was standing in his crib.  That’s a first.  I got a call from her telling me “guess what your son did…”  Usually that means Alex did something and somebody has a new bruise.  Luckily this time it was something new Adam did, which apparently he was pretty proud of.  I’m sure Jen snapped some pictures of it, which we’ll get uploaded this week.

Speaking of pictures, if you haven’t already checked out the October album you definitely should.  You can see the kids with lots of farm animals and those lovely pumpkins I was taking about.  We have a ton of videos too that I am going to get uploaded to Google in the next week or so.  I’ll post them up here as soon as I do.  There you’ll see fun clips of Adam crawling around, Alex chasing around chickens, and all kinds of wacky stuff.

Let’s see, what else is new….

Oh, Avery decided she was ready to be potty trained and just picked it up like a champ.  Now both kids are wearing under pants and regular old potty pros.  Avery picked it up so quickly it’s amazing.  She also seems to have a much better ability to hold her pee in, which helps.  Also, she has switched to a big girl bed.  Geeze, a big girl bed, going potty, she seems to have changed overnight from a baby to such a big girl.

Where does the time go?

Yesterday as I was getting the twins ready for their nap, or maybe it was up from the nap, I heard Alex say pee-pee. He had a run a couple of weeks ago where he decided he wasn’t potty trained anymore, so I’ve been more alert than usual for potty words. He was sitting in his bed, and I asked him if he needed to go, and he said, “No, my flying monkey pee-pee on my milk.” He has this toy from a Happy Meal Pop-Pop got for him:

I asked how his monkey was peeing on his milk. He held up the monkey and showed me. The monkey’s head was turned totally backwards so the wings and tail appeared to be in the front. The tail didn’t look like a tail from that angle. And sure enough, my son said, “See? There his penis, pee pee on my milk.”

Then there was the incident two weeks ago when we were headed into a store, and Avery and Alex were getting out of the back of the van. To do that, they have to sit down and hang their legs over the bumper before jumping down. Alex was first and Avery sat down behind him a little too quickly, accidentally kicking him in the back. As we were walking in to the store, with both of them holding on to Adam’s stroller like good little angels, Alex unmistakeably looked at Avery and said, “Aisy knuckle sandwich.” His usage was a little off - he was calling her a knuckle sandwich rather than offering to give her one, but I realized it’s definitely time to start watching what I say around them!

On to the Kitchen child who IS actually behaving nicely this evening. Adam turned 6 months old on Saturday. He continues to surprise me with how quickly he learns new things and how easy he is in general. He is still full of smiles and happiness. He’s mobile now, rolling and spinning 360s with ease, and as of the last couple of days, creeping forward to get to something he wants. He’s not always into toys, though he does like the piggy bank. He far prefers paper to eat and the crinkly sound of the wipes package. He’s babbling “dada” among other things, which is adorable. Luna’s his favorite pet and Alex is his favorite person, with the rest of us coming in far behind. I cannot believe he’s been with us for 6 months already. I say it all the time - he’s growing up way too quickly and I just want to keep him little for a while longer.

I started him on cereal on Sep. 12, and he took a few days to warm up to it, but now he gets very excited when he sees me start to mix it and I put him into his high chair. Tonight was the first night that he ate all the cereal as well as some squash and peas.

The biggest news is that he is now sleeping in the crib. Hooray! I had been dreading Sunday, which I’d set as yet another mental date when, come hell or highwater, he was getting out of the swing. I was mentally preparing myself for hours of crying like we had last time we tried, but instead, Adam really surprised us. He cried for 30 minutes at bedtime and then slept for hours, waking up at his normal feeding times ( 10 and 2ish) and going back to sleep in his crib with no crying at all. I had planned to wait on naps and keep him in the swing for that, but he did so well that I put him in the crib for those as well, and it was the same - minor crying and then 3 naps of his normal, hour or so length. Since then, he’s gotten himself to sleep faster each night and is even getting better about not waking up so early. He likes to think 5:30 is a good time to begin the day, but I’ve been putting him back in and he’ll babble for a while and then go back to sleep until around 7.

I’ll post his 6 month stats and picture soon. His original dr. appt. was postponed this week, and I can’t take his 6 month photo in the rocking chair until I figure out where I’ve misplaced the camera. Mommybrain…

My mother, Pam, passed away this past Wednesday morning. She fought for over three long years after she was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer over Labor Day weekend 2005. Her fight came to an end on September 17, 2008. It’s a testament to her strength and will to live that she surpassed every expectation doctors had for her survival.

Even though she did not get to spend as much time with her grandchildren as she wanted to, I know that she loved them with all of her heart and more than anything. She was a wonderful mother and made me the man that I am today. I hope I make her as proud as she made me.

The twins didn’t get to spend enough time with Grandma, but they have great memories of the times they did share with her. Both still talk about “Grandma’s Beach House,” which was really a condo where we stayed for only one night in Ocean City with her back in May. It was their first beach trip, and it made quite an impression on them. They drive their couch pillow cars there, push their strollers there, and even occasionally ask with a hopeful tone if that’s where we are going when we get in the van. It’s a shame there won’t be any new memories to be made, but we will make sure the kids know her through stories and pictures as they get older.

She will be dearly missed by everybody and will be in my thoughts every day.

We’ll miss you grandma!

——–

In an effort to keep friends and family informed about details regarding a memorial service, I have setup a page on this site where I will post all of that information. Please check back there if you have any questions regarding a memorial service, any donations, etc.

http://www.kitchenfamily.org/pam

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