October: Pumpkin Patch 1 & 2, Fall Festival, Halloween

 Baby Girl not loving the costume...

 They loved trick-or-treating and acted like old pros this year...

 Bubs decided he was pictured out...

 Isn't the Bean striking a perfect little princess pose here?  They were picking leaves before we left for trick-or-treating.

 Picking out a pumpkin...hmmm, which one?

 The pumpkin patch had this cool see-saw thingie...

 Roasting his stick, I guess... :)

 Proof that Baby Girl and I were in attendance. :)

Loving the birds...

 At at the school Fall Festival.  It was chaotic, so this is the only pic I got.

 Attending a friend's birthday party at Oak Mountain stables.

 Group pic at Faith Pres

 This was hard!  Even I couldn't hit it hard enough to ring the bell at the top!

 Just waking up...

 Face paint...it's always a toss up between butterfly, crown, and rainbow.

I think these pics are in reverse order, but hey, they are here and that's what matters!  I know it's almost June 2012, but today we're blogging about October 2011.  I'm persevering, people.  :)

In October, we went to not one, but two pumpkin patches!  The first one was at Faith Presbyterian near our house.  It wasn't so much of a pumpkin patch as it was inflatables meets farmer's market meets fall festival with a small handful of pumpkins thrown in the mix.  :)  But the kids had fun.  And it was free.  :)  They jumped on the inflatables, the Bean got her face painted, Bubs tried the "test your strength" carnival game thingie, and we got some of the best apples I've ever had.  Baby Girl slept through the majority of it and woke up just as we were leaving to go to McDonald's afterward.  

The second pumpkin patch was the real deal.  We went to a pumpkin patch down Hwy. 280 (I forget the name.) with some other families from our Sunday School class.  They had a little playground while you were waiting for the hayride, then a hayride to the fields where there was a tee-pee, a petting zoo, and a firepit to roast hot dogs and such. The kids loved it all, but they both especially liked holding the birds and petting all the animals.  They both enjoyed their hotdogs as well.  Baby Girl took a nap, ate, took in the sites, and napped again before we got home. 

We also went to the Bean's school Fall Festival.  It is always fun but very crowded.  We made the rounds and did most of the games, inflatables, and had dinner.  We all had a ball.  Baby Girl was a trooper. 

Lastly was Halloween.  The Bean wanted to be Sleeping Beauty...the exact same thing she was last year.  Perfect!  We already had the costume.  I bought Bubs a dinosaur costume at Babies R Us, and he proceeded to live in that costume the entire Fall.  He loved "scaring" people and roaring at them.  He even slept in that costume frequently.  Baby Girl was a pumpkin.  I borrowed her costume from a friend, but she ended up napping through the whole trick-or-treating process, so when we got home I put her in costume and took a few pics (which she was not happy about) just for the memories.  :)

Not a whole lot new going on with Baby Girl this month...not rolling over yet, no teeth, still smiling a lot, still sweet and content, still sleeping like a champ.  We had such a fun month, and I am so thankful for my little family!

September: baby announcements, Bubs first day of school, random pics

Here we are at September already! :) It's only the last day of February as I type this. Better late than never.

September brought first smiles from Baby Girl, and Bubs had his first day of school. We also send out birth announcements, which is kind of a funny story. A friend of mine offered to do our announcements for free, and so we were emailing back and forth on all the details. Long story short, after I had them printed I realized the wrong birthdate was on there. I had told my friend Baby Girl's due date instead of her birthdate. Oh well! I guess I was more sleep deprived than I thought!

Bubs goes to 3 year old Mother's Day Out one morning a week, and he loves his teachers and going to class. He looks forward to it every week. He's not so much into learning or sitting still, but he loves the playground, snacktime, and especially playing with his friends. He is our social butterfly for sure. He will walk up to kids at the park, iJump, McWane, wherever and ask them to play. And in two minutes he's made a new best friend. :) We are interested to see how he does in K4 next year, when there will be actual learning and teaching taking place. He is doing better on his attention span though, and a few times a week we work on our letters. He recognizes his name now and can name the letters in it, and can even roughly trace them if I can get him to sit down long enough to do it. :) He knows all his colors and can count a little past ten. He's not big into arts and crafts like the Bean, but he does like painting and cutting with scissors. He's always very proud of the crafts he does in school and can't wait to show them to Daddy. Even though he requires a lot of my energy, I will be a little sad when he's in school three mornings a week next year! He is such a precious little boy, with his charming little grin!

Trying to get a pic for birth announcements...have I mentioned that I'm terrible at taking pictures??
Bubs assisting with the photoshoot...

This is the pic we ended up using for the birth anouncements...

I thought this one was sweet. Bubs LOVES Baby Girl and dotes on her a lot.

Baby Girl with her great-grandfather at my parent's house.

Bubs on his first day of school!

Snoozing away...Baby Girl prefers sleeping on her tummy...

What a sweet smile! Don't you just want to squeeze those cute cheeks?!

Nothing escapes the Bean's craftiness, including Baby Girl. Those hearts on her jammies are stickers. The Bean decorated Baby Girl when Mommy wasn't looking. :)

Just being precious...

Random pic having fun in the rain...

August: church, first day of school

Getting back to church...you can't really tell in this pic, but a sweet family friend made all three kids matching outfits. Baby Girl has on a dress almost just like the Bean's.
Bubs shorts match the girl's dresses. He didn't want his picture taken...

Sweet baby girl is/has been a great sleeper from the get-go!

She's about 3-4 weeks old here...

Our first Sunday back at church...note the Bean's necklace. Her friend Lynley made it for her and she wanted to wear it everywhere for a while. The Bean loves her accessories. :)

Bean on the first day of school

Bubs, as usual, wanted to make friends immediately even though this was the Bean's class. :)

More church pics...

Baby Girl was very mobile in her first few weeks! She rolled over at 8 weeks several times (then didn't do it again for a few months), and would "crawl" over her boppy. I found her like this one day. I know she looks uncomfortable, but this sweet content little girl didn't fuss one bit. :)

Baby Girl made transitioning to three kids very easy for us. She is/was a great sleeper, and got up every 4 hours in the middle of the night from the day we came home. There literally was never a night that she fussed and wouldn't go back to sleep. Not one. She would just drift right back off into dreamland. :) And during the day she was content to be in her swing most of the time. During the day she ate every 2 1/2 hours or so, and would sleep most of the other time. She is definitely the "laid-back" third child. So precious and happy!

The Bean started K5 in August as well! This was probably a bigger transition than having another baby. :) We all had to get used to the Bean having to be at school by 8 am EVERY morning. Her school gets out at 11:45 am each day, so I am thankful that I still have my afternoons with the Bean. Next year she'll go until 2:20 pm, so I am trying to soak in every minute till then! She didn't know any of the girls in her class initially, but she has made some good friends. She loves her teacher and continues to do well in school. Kindergarten has been more "academic" than I thought it would be...the Bean has already had two "reports" that she had to research (with help from Mom and the internet, of course), write out (even though it was only two sentences), and present to the class. She is reading all the books they send home, which is amazing to me, since she wasn't reading at all at the beginning of the year. We are so thankful that she enjoys school!

July part 2: Coming Home and Firsts

Leaving the hospital! No "coming home" pics, since my parents still had the kids when we got home, and we didn't try to conjure a coming home family pic later that night or next day. :)

Baby Girl was/is the center of attention around our house!

The kids wanted to make sure Baby Girl knew she had her very own toys. :)

My first outing with all three kids by myself: we went to Costco, ate lunch, got diapers and a few other items, and went back home. Baby Girl slept through the entire trip.

First bath: Baby Girl was not a fan!

I had good helpers!

Whew - it's all over!

Mainly just wanted a pic of Baby Girl's "lil sis" daygown...apparently she didn't want her picture taken!

At the Baron's game...always a fun event. Ray's office has it catered on one of the balcony area thingies, and they have bounce houses and face painting for the kids. It was hot, and the kids were having a ball running around...hence the sweat. :)

The three Skinner kids. Not sure what Bubs was doing here. :)

The rest of July was a blur. Having a newborn is crazy enough, but long story short, I ran a fever off and on for 2 1/2 weeks and had a few doctor's appointments after Baby Girl's birth before they figured out I had a retained placenta. That is what it sounds like, and I had to have a procedure to get it all taken out, and after that had no problems. Other than that we were just settling in to life with three kids under age 5! These pics of random little things we had going on, and a few from a Baron's game...a client event that Ray's office had.