Girls Weekend Plus Luke

When Brian headed out of town for a bachelor party, we were excited for Mimi, Baba and Alli to come into town for some girl-time, Fall-time fun!

We started things off with Addie (in her newly delivered Black Cat costume) and Baba deep in conversation on the front porch. I looked out the front door and saw this sweet scene. I love the bond between these two. They were out waiting for Mom and Collins to get home from school, and I heard them talking about car washes among other things. :)

Luke in his newly delivered bat costume....he didn't even try to take the ears off!

Saturday morning, Baba made the girls' day by giving them each $10 to spend on whatever they wanted at Target. Addie zeroed in on a Doc McStuffins doll pretty quickly, and I convinced Collins she really needed a Lite Brite in her life! And Luke pushed the cart for us ladies...

Just as I suspected, Collins loved the Lite Brite and could not stop making neat designs all weekend. I remember Lite Brite from the St. Stephens church nursery- so that tells you how old it is!

I watched not one, not two, but THREE movies over the course of the weekend! This never happens, but it was so relaxing. The weather did not cooperate at all (not Fall-like at all but hot and muggy instead) so it was so fun to stay inside and watch movies and munch on this "monster mix". 

  

And yes, of course, this was one of the movies we watched! We even let the girls watch it this year; Addie didn't love it, but Collins did and has already asked if we can watch it again before Halloween.

Baba turned 84 on October 2nd so we were excited to celebrate her birthday while she was here. Alli cooked country style steak, Collins made her a potholder, and Baba prepared her own birthday pies! We had a great celebration.

Why have one pie when you can have two? We had sweet potato and pumpkin which was a special treat.

 

When Sunday came around, we were excited to head to the pumpkin patch. Unfortunately, this is when things went very awry. As we were headed up Glenwood Avenue, the Suburban started sputtering and jerking, and I knew we were in trouble. We had run out of gas. What an idiot I am. I knew we were low, but I didn't realize we were that low. NOT GOOD. Brian was out of town at a bachelor party, and we were out of luck. Alli hiked it up to the Sheetz up the hill, but they didn't have any gas cans. We called Roadside Assistance and they said they'd head over, but it would be 40 minutes.

The kids were getting hot and restless, when all of a sudden a police officer and a white truck pulled up behind us. The white truck had a front Tar Heel vanity plate. "The Tar Heel angels are here to save us!" I cried. Sure enough, these people had seen us across Glenwood Avenue and asked if we needed help. I had told them that Roadside Assistance was coming, and that we were okay. But they had seen the car seats in the back of the car and turned around to go home and get their gas can anyway. They came back to fill up our tank! I was touched by their kindness. After getting some gas in the tank and checking on the battery, we were good to go. 

I felt terrible for getting us into that situation, and as Baba reminded me- "Brooke, never let that gas tank get below a quarter of a tank!" But I was so impressed by the way my kids handled the situation and was so grateful to that nice couple who saved us.

We never made it to the pumpkin patch, but we did make it to Guasaca where we all enjoyed a delicious lunch (especially Luke).

The girls were disappointed that we didn't make it to the pumpkin patch so I had to make it up to them. I came up with the idea that we should have a pumpkin painting party. So we went up to Highland (who had just put their pumpkins out earlier that day) and all picked out a small pumpkin. 

Then we all got the creative juices flowing and painted a pumpkin...

some of us using more paint than others. :)

They all turned out cute and unique.

Luke did not create pumpkin art, but he did create a mess! Brian got home from his beach weekend and made us some spaghetti and meatballs. 

Loved spending our weekend with the girls (and Luke) and doing all things Fall!

Tons of Tailgating

It seems like every Saturday that rolls around we are going tailgating. To the point where the kids are over it. :) As Collins said, "All you do is eat a bunch of food!" Exactly, Collins! But they appease us and get all cute in their State gear. 

Brian upped his cooking game by making jambalaya...so good.

We figured out that Luke could have fun playing in the car (and be contained temporarily) which worked out well...

and Addie and Collins got to play with Adair which made the tailgate more fun for them. We're taking a couple of weeks off from tailgating these next few weeks which hopefully will make the girls excited for more later this season!

Luke At 9 Months

Nine months was a big month for Luke because that's when he officially started his transition from baby to big boy...

He decided that standing was no longer good enough...

so he started walking with the grocery cart and other push toys. I couldn't believe he could balance well enough to walk forward with the grocery cart but he could. He also started cruising around furniture. Walking will not be too far away for this boy mark my words.

Luke can no longer sit still in my lap. Hence why we now play in the car at gymnastics- he needs to be moving and climbing at all times. And I would prefer he not do that all over the nasty gym lobby floor! He moves all over the car and can now climb into Collins's booster seat!

  

Sweet angelic Luke is also sneaky mischievous Luke because he loves to play games with us now. I say, "Luke don't knock over those books!" and he smiles at me like this...

and then knocks them over as quickly as he can! He also likes splashing me in the bath, closing the door in my face, and guess who kept unplugging the monitor from INSIDE HIS CRIB?!? Again I say, this boy is going to keep me on my toes.

Luke is also not super interested in breast feeding for long any more. He is definitely transitioning to be a normal little eater, and that is fine by me. I know this because he is more interested in smiling and talking to me instead of eating these days...and gets really distracted when his sisters pop in the room with something loud and interesting to say!

Speaking of food, Luke is often hangry and screams at me until I get food on his tray. He then shovels it in his mouth as fast as he can creating the biggest mess you have ever seen. Eggs are his favorite food right now, and he eats two every morning. Is this normal? Not sure, but am sure he is just hungry!

He is also sleeping more like a big boys these days (see previous post) so between the sleeping, the playing, the moving and the eating, my baby boy doesn't feel so babyish anymore. Oh, and we also got a "bye bye" and a "mama" out of his little mouth this month. Wow Luke- what have you got in store for us in month ten? :)

Finally...SLEEP!

It has been a long nine months, Luke Fork. For you and for us. We thought sleep would come easier with baby #3 because we had things figured out by now (nope), because we used no sleeping crutches for you (like the paci), and because you are supposed to be the easy third baby (you are in other ways but not in the sleeping way).

Last week (a few days before he turned 10 months old) for the first time since he was born, he slept 11 straight hours. It felt like a miracle. Maybe it was a miracle because he didn't do it again the next night. Sigh. But he is consistently sleeping 7 or 8 hours stretches at a time now which is a huge improvement. He is also putting himself back to sleep (sometimes) which is a new and wonderful thing.

After almost a year of sleepless nights and tired days, I think we might finally have this thing figured out.

Brian and Dr. Gessner actually figured it out...get rid of that 9 p.m. feeding. I had been putting Luke to sleep around 6:30 p.m. every night and then about three hours later he would wake up to eat. I would feed him because I was still awake and because I thought I was filling his tummy so he would sleep longer at night. Wrong! Apparently, this feeding set up the expectation to be fed later in the night when he woke up and stirred naturally.

So after trying to sleep train Luke on and off for about a month by letting him cry it out, we realized that things were not getting any better and called the doctor. Turns out I was probably just confusing him instead of training him to be a good sleeper. I am so hopeful that those painful nights of him crying (for HOURS) are past us with this new plan.

One of these days you will see me, and I will look well rested and bright-eyed and you will know that the new sleep strategy worked. I am praying that day comes very soon!

Church Pictures

So I waited until the very last possible day to get our family picture taken for the new church directory. It was total procrastination because I had heard they were a bit of a nuisance. But turns out it was not so bad, especially when I got this adorable picture of my kiddos before we went in...

So the final shot we selected for the directory is not super great (Luke had his hand in his mouth), but I am happy if we get a decent shot of four out of five of us. We can't ask for too much here, people! The girls had fun being models, and then we were done!

Trying Again

So last Spring Addie was traumatized by her swimming lessons. Her instructor dunked her under water and scared her to death. So it has been a slow process getting her comfortable in the pool since then. Her confidence took some tiny steps forward over the summer at Northbrook so we thought this might be a good time to try lessons again.

We enlisted the help of Jessica- the instructor who taught Collins and Reeves to swim! Now that the big girls are official swimmers, it was time for Addie and Tyler to get going. Addie automatically trusted Jessica because she had gone to all of Collins's swim lessons and was comfortable with her. She's not put her head fully under water yet, but I think she will soon. So glad to see her happy in the water again!

  

Park Days

When the girls were really little (guess they are still little now!), we went to the park almost every day. Now with the busyness of school and activities, we don't go nearly as much. But with this recent gorgeous weather, we have been a lot lately. Last weekend alone, we went to three parks in 24 hours!

Luke is now officially a slider thanks to a little help from his sister...

He is no longer a passive viewer at the park, but an active participant. It was helpful to trap him in this playground contraption! :)

 No playdates last weekend which gave the girls plenty of time to have fun with each other...

 

Look who is dressed like a big boy!

The girls are pretty comfortable at Lacy because we play there all the time so they were pulling out all their big tricks...

 

Hope this perfect Fall weather holds out as long as possible because we need more park time!