Halloween

Halloween pictures up less than a week after the fact! Hurray!

The oldest three were ninjas, and Brandon put their costumes together. Hurray for a creative dad. I sure don't enjoy doing stuff like this, so I'm glad he does. I love their intense poses.

Liam


Andrew


Colin
(So maybe his pose is more cool then intense?)


Aidan got it into his head somehow that he wanted to be a bird. Never mind the fact that we had a cool dinosaur, skeleton, Power Rangers, or multiple other costumes to choose from. Luckily our next door neighbors saved the day with this get-up. He insisted on carrying a sword while trick-or-treating, so we called him a Bird of Prey.

Logan was the usual blue dinosaur. He loved finding Nerds boxes. He didn't want to eat them, just carry them around and shake them.

We had a fun day, with dinner and trunk-or-treating at our church, then dinner and trick-or-treating with cousins (notice TWO dinners there? Put with all the candy, I'm off to a bad start for holiday weight gain!!).

One Year Old and All BOY!

Logan dove right into his very own cupcake (we opted not to give him a full cake).

He ate the WHOLE thing, not just the frosting (if only I could say as much for all his brothers).

My mom made a beautiful, yummy cake that was enjoyed by the grown-ups.

Ready to play video games with his brothers.

Sir Logan on his gallant steed, sword at the ready!

Thoughts on Parenting

Logan's not crawling yet, but he's sure trying hard!

Today I took Logan in for his 6-month checkup. He's doing great, coming in at 14 lb 4 oz, 26" long, and his head is in the 25th percentile (very small for our family--we're usually in the 90s!). He had gone from 25th to 5th % for weight, which is the norm for my kids. As long as he's a good eater, the pediatrician says it is just a sign of how active he is. I couldn't help but compare both my attitude and the doctor's to my experience with Liam as a baby. He also dropped in his growth curve significantly over the first year, but by the time he was 1 yr old the (different) doctor had him on a high-fat, high-calorie diet, he was going in for weight checks every week, and they were running all sorts of blood tests to see what was wrong. They didn't turn up anything. Eventually, Brandon's mom found his baby records, which turned out to be almost identical to Liam's. Now we know that "travel-size kids" just run in our family. I love being a mom for the 5th time around instead of the 1st!

Our high school marching band at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last year

But at the same time, I'm still hitting all the firsts with Liam. This week he had the opportunity to sign up for 5th grade band as an after-school program. He wasn't interested at all, even after our fabulous high school marching band came and played for their school and he thought it was very cool. I would love to provide him with the chance to belong to a group like that. I think his reticence is mainly because he doesn't like the unknown, but how far do I push him? He did sign up for chorus instead, which is also great. And, of course, he's taking piano from a fabulous teacher (hee hee), in Cub Scouts, and playing soccer. Maybe Andrew will want to be in band in a few years...(oh no, am I just trying to live through my children?!).

And my last thought for today: 2-yr olds will be 2-yr olds, especially when all their entertaining brothers are away at school. I heard, "See my rainbow!" several times before I went to see it, and it was a beautiful pink one, indeed.

Luckily it washed off without any problems, and he got to draw circles on paper afterwards.

Ahhh, Sweet Sleep!

Logan slept for an 8-hr stretch last night. Hurray! That's the best he's ever done, and I felt so refreshed this morning. I was starting to feel like I'd never get some decent shut-eye, since for the previous week he'd been getting up not once, not twice, but THREE times a night, positively screaming each time. I'm sorry, but at 5 months old that's just not acceptable (I know it could be teething or something, but still . . . my grumpiness threshold with my older kids was getting a bit on the low side). Oh, how I hope last night wasn't just a fluke.

Over the past week I've also switched from swaddling him and putting him in the swing during his naps to just laying him in his crib. He rolls all over the place and fusses a little bit, but goes to sleep fairly quickly. I'm liking this, too!

Nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby! (Logan in June)