Studio portraits gone horribly wrong

Ok, they weren't that bad for a 10 minute session that was running 30 minutes late.

You'll notice that Alice has the perpetual dazed and confused look on her face. Trust me, I was jumping up and down and shaking some bells trying to get a laugh or smile. She wasn't about to give anything up.


Ewwww...boy cooties!


Ack!!!!

Get this monkey off my back.

Wha?


Freaky fake Santa hands


You're not fooling me with those fake hands, lady.


Seriously, an empty box?




Finally one of her smiling.

Lounging on the couch. Still not sure what's going on.


We're getting there.


And the winning picture...

I actually like Lu's face better in the one above....hmmm, maybe some photoshopping is in order.

Visitors all the way from Texas and Halloween

Um, so how is it half way through November already!

The Wednesday before Halloween, our good friends Kyle and Erin and 7 month old baby CamySue came for a visit. It was so great to see them.

The two girls had tons to catch up on.






CamySue is actually 3 weeks younger than Alice but is much bigger and on.the.move.

We all attended Lucius' Halloween parade on at daycare.

Look! It's Sportacus! For those of you not familiar with LazyTown click here.


And Stephanie!





We hung out at the Rowan Punkin Chunkin


Lucius and Tom carved two pumpkins.


We spent Halloween Day in Philly...liberty bell and cheesesteaks (one from Pat's and one from Geno's/ wiz wit)


Lucius loved them. He actually ate more than I did. I keep forgetting that he's old enough to get him his own meal instead of sharing ours.


Then back home for some trick or treating...







and the annual Angelone Halloween Party. Costumes are mandatory.

Erin, Kyle and Camy





Big Sportacus and Big Stephanie


I should mention that Lucius still wears his sportacus costume. Every day. As soon as he wakes up he gets on his spiderman costume and then puts sportacus over it. He's spiderman sportacus.

7 months

My little Alice is 7 months today. Still no teeth and no moving (at all) but still the cutest thing ever. She can finally feed herself puffs (she's very proud of that fact) and loves to grab fistfuls of hair. She's a pretty laid back baby...could sit for hours and play her piano.

Alice is my little baby doll. l love dressing her up.





Brotherly love.

6 months

Can't believe Miss Alice is six months! She did well at her check...cried for her four shots but settled down quickly.
Here are her stats:
Height: 26 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 14.4lbs (25th percentile, I thought for sure she'd gain more with all of the solids she's eating!)
Head: 40cm (10th percentile)

No teeth. No crawling. Sitting up really well and enjoys playing (aka putting all her toys in her mouth). She's still stingy with her smiles but we can get some good ones out of her. And Alice still loves rubbing things with her hands. Ever since she was a newborn she had to rub her sheets before she could go to sleep...picture her making a snow angel on her belly...that's all you'd hear on the monitor. When she breastfeeds she has to pet my chest. She's always loved to pat our cheeks too.

Alice eats two solid meals a day. We finally got her solid foods/poop situation figured out. NO BANANAS. PERIOD. It's instant constipation and that makes for one cranky girl!

Look who's sitting up!

It's Miss Alice!


No teeth yet.


Contemplating life.


Don't you just love baby heads from behind?



Dog boy.

Lucius and his darn brain.

Lucius hasn't been napping at daycare.

Tom: Lucius didn't take a nap today.
Me: Uh oh. Lu why didn't you take a nap?
Lucius: Well, my brain told me to keep playing so I couldn't take a nap.

Next day.

Me: Lucius' brain.
Lu: Yes (said in a robot voice).
Me: Please let Lucius take a nap today instead of playing.
Lu's brain: OK Mommy. He can take a nap ( in robot voice).

Oy vey. That kid and his excuses. He's also turning into the quintessential older brother.

(in car)
Lu: Mom, Ah-yes (that's how he says Alice) is looking at me.
Me: Well, you're her big brother and she loves you. She likes to look at you.
Lu: But she's making a face. I don't want her to look at me. (pulls the carseat visor down so Alice can't look at him...and is instead left staring at the underside of her visor).

And so it begins...

3.5 Year Check-up

Because of the move we're 1/2 year off for Lucius' check ups. Anyhoo, he had his 3.5 year old check up on Friday.

Height: 40"
Weight: 36.5 lbs

He's pretty much stayed at 90th percentile for height and 75th for weight for the past 3.5 years. So consistent!

He started fussing about the "pinchers" and saying he didn't want the doctor to hurt him. What??! Where did he get that from?? He's never been bothered by shots before so I'm blaming someone from daycare.

He ended up getting two shots, one in each arm...he didn't even flinch...but still had to tell me how painful it was ;) He hasn't mentioned them so I'm assuming his arms aren't sore.

I didn't really have any questions for the doc. I guess he seems on track. We go back in two weeks for Alice's 6 month check up. Now I can expect screams from that girl...

Back to work

Now that I'm back to work full-time (yay!) the blog will not be updated as often as I'd like. However, I'm going to try to jot down some notes here and there.

Alice slept until 6am this morning without eating! The solid foods (banana, sweet potato, and avocado) are really helping her sleep through the night. Sleep is such a glorious thing!
Of course she's now constipated from the food and does little rabbit turds throughout the day. Which makes her scream due to a red butt. I might try giving her a little prune juice to see if that will help push things along.

Lucius is Lucius. We still got the 3 year old attitude over here, but he makes us laugh a lot. Likes to pretend to read and still loves dramatic play. That's the fancy way of saying pretend. I learned that at his daycare's open house. They're really great over there.

Ah. Time to get ready for bed so I can read...I must finish The Time Traveler's Wife! I started it before Alice was born...and two interlibrary loans later and I'm still not done.

Good night.

Birthday parties and friends

We went to Chuck E. Cheese for a birthday party.

Poor, poor Lucius got stuck in the tube crawl on the ceiling. I was getting my picture "sketched" with Alice when I realized I hadn't seen Lucius in awhile. I looked up to see his tear and snot filled face pressed up against the plastic window at the end of tube crawl. He couldn't figure out how to get out. I had to send an older friend up to get him down. I felt really bad...but it was kind of funny too.


Alice chilled in her carseat.


We then went to the pool party afterwords.
Alice tolerated the pool.


Lucius loved it. Oh wait. That's not Lucius.


There he is.


Alice hung out with her girlfriend. Addison is one month older than Alice, yet acts (and looks) about 1 year older! They're really cute together. I love how babies "know" other babies.

Playing

Missy loves her cow and dollies.



New glow in the dark skeleton shirt.



Alice Anne has started some grunting thing. It's kind of annoying...she just growls and grunts. Not sure what it's about.

We started her on bananas and she LOVES them. Tomorrow we'll try some sweet potatoes. I really hope that eating solids twice a day will help with her sleeping. I don't know what happened to my sleeping baby, but she doesn't like to sleep anymore. Needless to say, I'm up a lot!