Halloween 1, 2, 3, and 4

I mentioned before how excited the girls have been for Halloween. I now realize why: Parties, parties, and more parties. They have basically been partying and celebrating Halloween since last Friday night.

Party #1:

 Party #2:

Party #3:

 Party #4 (trick-or-treating tonight with friends from church):

Please notice the different costumes for every party. Some of you are VERY good at creating beautiful costumes. I tell my kids, "go downstairs and pick something out" and call it good. Despite the plethora of opportunities to wear costumes this year, neither Audra or Claire chose to wear the costumes they originally picked out: a bunny for Audra, Snow White for Claire.

Happy Halloween!

Trick Or Treat Street

We are in full Halloween mode here, and the girls LOVE it! Claire believes that she should be allowed to eat candy for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all snacks.

Last night we went to the Trick Or Treat Street at my old school of employment. It was great to see some old co-workers and my old stomping grounds. It's also where Ben went to High School (I was NOT his teacher, though he likes to tell people I was), so it was fun for him, too.

 Here they are with Audra's best friend Superwoman and "the green guy":

 They got their faces painted:

 This was a favorite room: Tangled

Camille, of course, was perfect the whole night. She didn't say a peep the whole night. After we got home and she was playing cutely in the Exersaucer, Ben said, "Camille really is a great baby." Yes, she is.

More tricks and treats to come...

Fall Leaves

Last Saturday we got out the rake and took care of the leaves.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to enjoy the beautiful leaves for very long this year. They finally turned color, and then we had a huge windstorm, and literally over night just about every leaf on the tree fell off. It's really too bad, because I LOVE the leaves when they change color. Oh, well.

The girls really enjoyed raking up the leaves this year. It's fun that they get so excited. Audra really wanted to be a good helper, and for the first time, she actually was:

 Notice her lack of shoes. She hates wearing shoes.

 It has actually become quite an issue-

 and not a good one:

 Finally, Claire got tired of working and decided sidewalk chalk would be more fun. She LOVES sidewalk chalk:

Pretty Girls

The World Of Camille

 Audra LOVES to read to Camille. It is super cute:

 Getting stronger:

 Camille LOVES her feet. She is constantly grabbing things with her feet, she loves to play with them, and she loves pressure on them. If you grab her feet, she wraps her toes as fiercely around your fingers as possible, as shown below:

 Playing nicely:

 And, she LOVES sticking things in her mouth. Last night at dinner she kept grabbing Ben's plate and trying to eat it. We all got a good laugh out of it:

Pumpkin Carving

Two little girls in our house are more excited for Halloween than pretty much anything else on the planet. In fact, on my Birthday Audra said,

"I'm glad it's your Birthday. That means it's Halloween!"

I sure feel loved.

Every day I get asked when Halloween is. Multiple times.

Last week we bought some pumpkins. We dreaded actually carving them. In 7 years of marriage we have never carved pumpkins. They are so yucky!

But when you have two girls who are completely obsessed with all things Halloween, you make sacrifices.

Last night we got to work.

I told you they were excited:

 The finished products. I let them draw the faces and then I cut them out. Claire's in on the left, Audra's on the right. Audra was going for a silly pumpkin- that's its' tongue sticking out.

Five Months

Really?!? Five months have already passed since this cute little bug joined our family?!? Wow.

Here are some of her milestones:

-Rolling from front to back. We decided that she is so happy whether she is on her front or her back that she has no motivation to work on rolling over.
-She is playing with toys and sticking them into her mouth.
-Her schedule is getting more settled. I have really tried hard this past month to make sure we are home in the morning for a nap (this is REALLY hard with two older siblings!!!) and to only feed her every three hours. It has been tough, but we are getting there. As the third child, tough, she is going to have to be a little flexible. That's just the way it is.
-Sleeping in a crib! This was a big one, and no- I wasn't ready to put her in the crib. But, she wanted to be in the crib. She wasn't sleeping with me as she would just keep trying to snuggle close to me and want to nurse every 1-2 hours, so we really had no choice. She made the transition like a champ and is doing great in her crib for naps and night time.
-The last couple of days she has only been waking up once to nurse. I actually made her "cry it out" a few days ago. I don't really believe in the traditional sense of crying it out- I go in every 10 minutes to comfort until they finally fall asleep on their own. In her case, though, she only cried for about 3 minutes before she fell asleep.
-Claire and Audra are still the only ones who can get her to laugh- and boy do they have a lot of fun trying! Camille really doesn't make a lot of noises (seriously, she is the quietest baby- it is quite remarkable), but when she does it sure is cute!
-She LOVES sticking her tongue out at us (as evidenced in the first picture above).
-She has graduated from her swing during the day as well, so we are very excited to be getting rid of the swings! Wahoo!

We really just love this little girl to pieces- she really is practically perfect in every way!

Children's Museum

On Friday I took the girls to the Children's Museum. It had been awhile since we had been, and both girls had been asking to go. They are both on "Fall Break" (they get over a week off of school- I LOVE this modified schedule!) so off we went.

We had a great time- Even Camille, who didn't make a single peep the entire time we were gone. What a great baby!

Jokes

The girls are getting into telling jokes. Unfortunately, they still don't grasp the concept.

Here's the proof:

Audra: Knock knock.

Me: Who's There?

Audra: Banana.

Me: Banana who?

Audra: Hahahahahahaha!

And another one:

Claire: Knock knock.

Me: Who's there?

Claire: Ghost.

Me: Ghost who?

Claire: Ghost Poopy.

(then laughs hysterically)

Comparison

Here is Camille reading the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar:

 Here is Audra at about the same age reading the same book in the same outfit for a comparison:

It's too bad Audra is looking down instead of at the camera! Oh, well. You can still see some differences- mostly in the hair.

Here is a better one of Audra's face:

 And here is one of Claire at about the same age:             And Camille again:

I think Camille and Claire definitely look similar. What do you guys think?