Tricks and Treats

Drewie is now 11 months old and has been working on a new set of tricks to amaze and delight us all!

His favorite game to play is "catch."  He gets so excited when he even sees a ball that he starts screeching and squealing.  At first he got great delight out of the just tapping balls together, but he's gotten pretty good at throwing now.  He has a pretty mean arm!

Dapper Drewie has learned what to do with a comb.  He reminds me so much of Tess when he does this!

Drew has finally figured out an army crawl.  His version relies heavily on arm power and is employed only when its to his definite advantage.  He's gotten a little faster since this video, and he can get into what he likes now.  That being the crayon box.  A whole box of long cylinders--another favorite plaything!

Drew loves music and will often start clapping his hands or "dancing" along if he likes your tune.

And he's had the "adorable cutie-pie" trick mastered for some time now.  With his four little teeth, round little head and cute eyes that squint into a triangle shape when he smiles, I haven't been able to resist calling him my baby Jack-o-lantern this season.  Ryan doesn't like it when I call Drew that--but it's not my fault that he lights up when he smiles!

Of course, we'd be willing to trade just about any of these tricks for the ultimate, show-stopping trick:  "Baby sleeps through the night with no bottle and no crying."  Ta-daaa!  We've been practicing this trick, so here's clip from one of our 3 am sessions.

I'm too scared of jinxing myself, so I won't tell you that Drew has slept through the night for the past 2 NIGHTS!!!!!  But you didn't hear it from me.

Here's a trick from Tessie: "Miraculously falling asleep when she's NOT SLEEPY AT ALL."

But Tess has been more about the treats lately.  In an effort to increase her courage, I've devised a "Brave Basket" system through which she can earn fabulous prizes through feats of bravery.  And by "fabulous prizes," I mean pink, uber-girly stuff which goes against my moral fiber and makes her three-year-old heart palpitate with excitement.  Here is the pink and purple eyeshadow.  I'll post pics of the play high-heeled shoes another time.

Of course, she's excited for all the treats that the season has in store.  Here's a cute fall painting she did at Danielle's house.  I love the pumpkins and the falling leaves.  

And a fabulous Halloween drawing of trick-or-treaters that she did for Nana's birthday.  I love how they each are carrying a treat sack.  As she explained to me:  "There's a person under that cat.  It's just a costume, you know."

Trick or Treat!

Pumpkin Pics

We had a wild time at the Pumpkin Patch festivities at Lake Ridge Nursery, just down the street from our house.  Tess loves pointing out the ghosts and all the decorations every time we pass by, so she was pretty excited to go.  Tess' favorite was the big blow-up slide and the potty rides are always a good source of amusement.  Drew liked patting all the pumpkins.

 

The Croup and the Couch

So it's been kind of a rough month for us and I haven't felt much like writing about it.  Here's recap so hopefully we can push past these bumpy weeks.

Drew had his 10-month birthday, so of course Tess insisted a party was in order.  We told her it was just a little birthday, so we only had a little celebration.  We had chocolate ice cream and Tess made Drew a card.

We had a fun zoo day with friends, which sounded like a good idea.  But in retrospect....[insert foreshadowing here].

  Danielle and Tess

 Tess came home and wanted to make her own zoo.

Then Dipsy came for a visit!  Hooray, hooray!  Tess loves her Dispy and I was hoping a fun visit would lighten the mood around here.

We started in on a usual fast-paced Dipsy visit with the mission:  "Find Miriam a new couch!   Pronto!"  Surprisingly, we found something we liked at the first store we visited.  Tess had a meltdown at the store because she would miss her red couch with the holes.  She hid under a coffee table and cried.

That night Tess came down with a 103 degree fever and I knew she had caught the croup from a friend at the zoo.  It kept getting worse and worse until she completely lost her voice and was pretty listless, and we were essentially housebound for the rest of the trip. Not the funnest vacation ever, but I was glad to have Mom to help with the kids because Tess was very sick. 

Hey, that's not a red couch that Tess is passed out on!  We may have been housebound, but that didn't stop us from completing our mission!

One last kids-on-the-red-couch picture.

 A picture for Tess so she can sit on our new couch and look at pictures of the old red couch.  

And here it is!  I keep waiting for a time when the house is all picked up and put neatly away so that I can take a better picture, but that just hasn't happened yet.  I'll let you know when it does.

So Tess was sick a good solid week and we had a lot of downtime.  She's better though, but still tired from being sick.  When she asks to take a nap everyday, I know she's still not 100%.

Kind of sad because this is our FAVORITE time of year.  The days have been golden and beautiful (from what I hear).  We planned activities for the weekend, but instead spent it fighting off one Tess tantrum after another. We were finally able to make cookies late Saturday night.

But Drewie's been sick too.  This is not my usual happy-go-lucky boy.  He's starting to feel better now.  I'm giving us until Monday to get all our grumps out and then we are going to be the shiny-happy Higginbotham family again!