Living History Farms - Family Halloween Night

Last night we checked out the Family Halloween Night at Living History Farms.  It was such a great event for small children with several activities to keep them busy for a good hour and a half. 

The kids trick or treated from house to house.  They had the nicest volunteers working the event.

Great photo ops.  You can see Henry already checking out his candy stash.

Missing the daddy.  He is such a good Joe Photo though.

How cute is this little piglet??!!  Both hands full of candy = one happy piglet.

The kids had tons of room to run around.  I recommend checking it out on a Thursday night - not nearly as busy as the weekend. 

Once trick or treating is over the kids get water, popcorn, and get their hands stamped with a tattoo of their choice while we wait for the horse drawn hay rack ride!

Biggest pumpkin ever!  Henry proceeded to slide down it as soon as I snapped the pic.  He stuck the landing.

Roasting marshmallows.  I think this is a first for both of the kids!

Marshmallows were a tiny bit messy, but it all cleaned up well and it was totally worth the fun!

Yet another great Halloween event.  What a fun time of year!  I just hope to make it out without any cavities...

Trick or Treating at the Mall

Last night marked the 1st Halloween event of the year.  We met up with our friends Erin and Peyton and took the kids to Valley West Mall for their Annual Beggars Night. 

Hannah had a few outfits to pick from.  A couple of full body costumes (cow, piglet and pumpkin) and then her lady bug costume from last year that she still fits in.  Since it was inside, I decided to go with the outfit that wouldn't make her super hot.  One great thing about your kids being so small is that they fit in their clothes from the previous year!

Henry got to choose between Batman and Spiderman.  He went with Batman this time around.  He has four more events where he gets to dress up, so we will see if he decides to change it up or not. 

Can you tell Henry is excited to Trick or Treat??!!

Peyton the cutest garden gnome ever (wasn't so fond of the hat), Hannah (crying for her paci) and Henry (ready to run free!).  Pretty accurate representation of the night!

Hannah and Peyton made it in their strollers all the way around the mall.  I kept Hannah in her seat by giving her a sucker (you can see the remains of it in her left hand).  Doesn't she look so big in this picture??

Hannah and Peyton sitting still for 2 seconds!

Henry made it past two stores, until he saw the large inflatable in the middle of the mall.  At that point he threw a fit because he wanted to jump on it.  Luckily Andy was with me, so he took Henry around to all the kid stops (coloring station and inflatables), while Hannah and Peyton trick or treated around the mall. 

We were there just over an hour, which is perfect timing for the attention span of my 16 month old.  I would call it a successful event - and it was all free!

COLLEGE!!

I loved college.  I love Iowa City.  I love the Iowa Hawkeyes.  I love my husband.  I love my friends.  I love to party.  Put all of those together and it pretty much sums up my weekend. 

My weekend started on Friday, around 4pm when I attended FAC for the first time since college.  My sister and I went to Martini's, a bar that is owned by the same owners as Vito's, which is the restaurant/bar Andy and I met at and worked at in college.  Who would have known 10 years ago that getting a job at Vito's would have led to this life!!  And to think Buffalo Wild Wings turned Andy down for being a cook - I can't thank them enough!!  By 6pm my girlfriends and their husbands started to trickle in to join us, bellied up at the bar.  It was so fun to all be back to our old stomping grounds!

We ate dinner at Givanni's, a fabulous Italian restaurant in downtown Iowa City.  We had our own upstairs area, which was perfect for our group of 12. 

Saturday morning Andy and I were up bright and early to set up the tailgate.  Props to my wonderful husband for picking everything up the night before and for setting everything up Saturday morning.  I have to say, he did a great job.  By 9am the troops were rallied from the night before and our day began!

My parents were down at CoralRidge Mall getting the kids pictures taken.  So I had them bring them by to meet everyone.  I was so excited the girls got to meet Henry and Hannah.  It meant a lot!



Amy (8th month prego!), Anne and me.

 

Anne having a heart to heart with Henry about the train and how his mommy is 'so silly'.





Warming up Amy's yummy chili on the grill!

 

The girls!  Jessica, Anne, Emily, Megan, Me and Amy.

 

Tailgating.  So.Much.Fun.



Even Henry and Hannah got to join for a few minutes!

 

Megan's 4th time holding a baby!!  Honored it was our little Hannah!!



Train ride to Kinnick!



Go Hawkeyes!



Me and the hubs.

Beautiful day for a great game!

Lucky for us, my phone died, so I was unable to capture pictures of us later in the day.  Here are some bullets that sum it all up:

• Watching Iowa win and chanting I-O-W-A!
• Airliner for pizza and beer after the game
• Union front bar for shots of patron and lots of dancing
• Megatouch!! 
• Marco's grilled cheese sandwiches
• Losing phones, jackets, and forgetting to close out tabs
• Losing husbands
• Learning that the new trend for college kids is 'Doc Shoes'
• Having so much fun it hurt bad the next day

I'm already looking forward to the annual XO tailgate next year!!  Until then, get ready Iowa City.   



3 Year and 15 Month Check

Yesterday I took the kids to their regular check ups.  Henry only goes once a year for his 'physical' and Hannah still goes every few months to get her shots.  They are both perfectly healthy and developing right on track.

Check out the stats for my tiny, perfect, peanuts!!

Hannah:

Weight: 19 lbs at the whopping 1 percentile!!
Height: 29.3" at 13%

Henry:

Weight: 30.2 lbs at the 32%
Height: 35.8" at the 11%

The Dr. isn't worried about the kids being small.  And I'm not either.  Especially since Hannah eats so much at every meal.  She just runs so fast that she burns it all off.  And after talking with my mom, it sounds like I was exactly the same way.  Check out Hannah's 12 Month check up stats.  Looks like she has gained a few ounces since then, but she has also started sprinting since then too. 

Hannah is starting to talk more and more, and really understands everything you tell her.  She has started throwing tantrums, and she literally sprints everywhere.  Anytime we are out in public we at least get one comment from a stranger on how fast she is.  Guess she will be a sprinter like her mommy!

Henry was such a good boy at the Dr.  He listened to every direction they gave, and didn't throw a fit once.  I am so proud of him.  Here he is measuring in at just under 3 feet tall.  Such a big boy!  Here are a few of Henry's 3 year milestones:

• He talks in 7 - 12 word complete sentences.  On Tuesday this week he brought a dollar he found on the floor to his teacher and said 'Here Miss Roxie, my mom found this on the floor in the kitchen.'  Everyone that heard was so impressed!
• His vocabulary has skyrocketed.  He is starting to understand the concept of yesterday, today and tomorrow.  Though things that happened two weeks ago always happened yesterday:)
• Henry listens a lot better than he used to, and is very good at saying ok when you tell him something and then follows up with it.
• He hardly throws tantrums anymore, which is a breath of fresh air for us since he entered the tantrum stage around 14 months old. 
• He is completely potty trained and has been since about 33 months.  He still wears a pull up at night, which mom and dad need to work on limiting liquids before bed before stopping that. 
• He loves to tell on his sister, but also love on her.  He is very protective of her, and watches her every second.  Hannah is very lucky to have an older brother like Henry (or maybe not so lucky in her eyes).
• Henry goes to bed between 8:30pm - 9pm and sleeps all the way until we wake him up around 7am.  We still have to sit in his room at night while he falls to sleep, which we should probably get away from.  But it is nice for us to be able to just sit there and have time to use our smart phones and play words with friends (if it is mommy) and search news articles (if it is daddy).  So part of that is us being selfish which is ok once in awhile, right?

Have a great day!

Henry driving his sister in the firetruck at the mall.  They could play on that toy island for hours!

Last Week was a Rough One

Last week was a rough week.  Starting Sunday night Hannah woke up in the middle of the night, just screaming.  We could tell that she was getting a cough, and it was sounding croupy.  We had been through croup before with Henry, so didn't totally freak out, but were still concerned.  We sent her to daycare on Monday since she seemed fine during the day.  She made it until 3pm when they called saying she had only slept for one hour and they could tell she was uncomfortable.  This girl LOVES to sleep, so when she isn't sleeping, we know something is wrong. 

Andy took her to the walk in clinic (which was fabulous by the way, he got in and out in less than 30 minutes!!), they diagnosed her with croup, and gave her a oral steroid.  We started the night out very ambitious, only to be awakened again by that same uncomfortable screaming noise.  Andy didn't want to mess with it, so took her to the emergency room.  They gave her a breathing treatment to help with the croup, well some of it since she was not sitting still, and they sent her home two hours later.  So night two of zero sleep.  It felt like we had a newborn again. 

Hannah stayed home from daycare on Tuesday with her daddy, Wednesday with her Grandma Schmidt, and Thursday with her daddy and me splitting the day (thank goodness our busy schedules were at opposite ends of the day).  We thought she was over the croup on Wednesday, but then awoke Thursday morning at 2am with a high temp.  Come to find out she not only had the croup, but all 4 of her 12 month molars were breaking the gums at once.  I knew the croup was part of it, but it didn't explain all of her symptoms.  So it finally made sense.  The fever, loose stools, and constant screaming all lead to these 4 molars coming in at once!  Poor little girl.  Andy made a midnight run to Hy-Vee and came home with 3 different kinds of Orajel, two bottles of Tylenol and Ibuprofin, one of which we completely finished by the end of the week.  

The good news is we got all four of them cutting at the same time, instead of breaking each one of them out over a four week period.  Still, it was one long week of torture for us, and for poor little Hannah.  It has been six full nights of sleep this week, and I peeked inside her mouth last night to see those big girl teeth almost all the way through.  Another one to mark off the books. 



Hannah snuggling with her daddy.  This girl never snuggles, so we took full advantage of it last week!



Birthday Traditions

A fun tradition that we had in our family growing up was, each year on our birthdays, the morning of, we would wake up to a present waiting at the bottom of our beds that we got to open first thing. I love this tradition and have decided to continue it with our little family. It started Thursday morning when Henry woke up on his birthday morning. He loved it. Watching him as he opened his eyes and saw that present Thursday morning was priceless.

And what did we get him??  His very own vacuum!!  He loves it so much and vacuums pretty much every day.  The vacuum is battery operated, lights up, makes vacuum noises (loud, but as long as he is in a different room it is tolerable) and even sucks up a little dirt.  Oh what fun!

Henry Turns 3!

It is hard to believe - but my little boy turned three years old last Thursday!  We celebrated in style on Saturday with family and friends.  Henry got to pick out his cake and decorations, and got so many new, cool presents.  Hard to believe how much our lives have changed for the better in just three short years. 

On his actual birthday he brought birthday treats and prizes to school.  He was so excited to pick out each sticker sheet and put in his friends mailboxes.  Dora for the girls and Cars for the boys.  It was so cute. 

Here is Henry at the store picking out his very own balloon bouquet.  Aren't those little shopper carts the cutest??!!

Friday night Henry came home to Papa and Grandma Deaner at his house.  The first thing he asked my mom was 'Where are my presents?'  She had called him the night before to wish him happy birthday and she told him she had a present for him.  So of course, that is what he was most excited about.  We have our annual Salwey family trip coming up in a few weeks, we are going to the Wisconsin Dells where there are fun water parks and pools, so my mom got him a kick board (Spiderman of course), and some other fun pool toys. 

Hannah just loves books these days.  She was so excited my mom and dad were here Friday night she decided to stay up with my mom from 11pm - 2:30am the night before Henry's party.  Boy was that special of her!!  It may also be do to her four 12 month molars that she has breaking her gums all at the same time.  Ugh!!  We spent all last week dosing her with medicine, orajel, and teething rings.  Poor girl.  I think she has finally turned the corner though. 

Henry and his auntie Bri. 

The Shrek cake Henry picked out from Hy-Vee. 

And the Shrek and Batman balloons of course.

Birthday boy!!

Hannah ready to watch the pinata fun. 

Bennett, Camron and Henry all took turns trying to break open the pinata.  It was quite the entertainment for all of us!

Camron's turn.

Even Bowzer came to celebrate Henry's birthday!!

It finally broke open!!  Look at the kiddos run for the candy!

Present time.  Henry was a little overwhelmed at this part.  He just went from present to present, not even taking the time to look at what he got.  He got dinosaurs, games (puzzles, chutes and ladders, cooties and memory - doesn't that bring you back a few years!!), and a scooter!

I couldn't resist buying Hannah her own present too.  She has her own 'smart phone' now.  Can you see her saying 'Hi' to her friends in this picture?

Playing with all of the toys. 

Time for cake!!  Check out how photogenic this 3 year old boy is.  Can you tell his mom makes him take a lot of pictures??!!

Mom and dad with their big boy. 

The Schmidt Family. 

Henry did a great job blowing out his candles. 

Crazy to think three years have just flown by.  But the crazier part it that I can hardly remember my life without him in it.  You bring us so much joy Henry. 

Band Day Parade

Friday night we drove to Carroll to spend time with the Schmidt family.  Saturday morning was the Band Day Parade in Carroll, so the kids had all sorts of fun chasing down candy and watching the bands play. 

Henry got a great spot for candy grabbing.  He left with an entire bag full!

Watching the bands.

We have been so lucky to have such nice weather these past few weekends!

Running into the street to get the candy. 

As you can see - Henry's mouth is full of candy.  Each time he would pick up a piece he would run to me and ask 'Will you open this please mommy'.  I lost count of how many tootsie rolls he had...

After lunch we headed back to Des Moines in time to party with our friends Jake and Erin to celebrate their little girl Peyton's 1st birthday!  Peyton was born on October 5th last year, which is the day before Henry's birthday.  So each year going forward the beginning of October will be one big party.  How fun!