The tree is up...

we'll see if it stays up. So far Charlotte has been interested in the tree, but not obsessed. Which means that while I do have to keep her from eating it/pulling it down a good portion of the day, she is able to be distracted with other toys. Tonight I was even able to snap some pictures of the girls playing and "decorating" the tree. 

This year Anabelle has her very own tree in her room. She took decorating it very seriously. We took a trip to the dollar store today to get some lights, beads, and candy canes; add in some ornaments and garland and you have a pretty great little tree. She also got a new penguin blanket for her bed and I plan on trying to make her a snowflake pillow to match.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we are home for Thanksgiving and had a great day at my Mom and Dad's. Although I generally like to host, it was nice to take a year off and enjoy some of Mom's cooking. Thank you to my family for a wonderful day, I love you!  

Food coma.

Charlotte has learned how to wave.

Almost

Happy Halloween!

It's Halloween! We celebrated by staying home and playing all day. Seems like we have been so busy lately with all kinds of pre-Halloween festivities, that by the time actual Halloween got here we were ready to take it easy. I had fun making special meals for Anabelle all day, and while last year I don't think she got it so much, this year she seemed to think it was more fun. There are tons of cute ideas out there, but for now Anabelle doesn't really know what certain Halloween things are yet, for example a Mummy or Frankenstein. So we stuck with the basics of ghosts, spiders and pumpkins. 

We started with ghost and spider web pancakes. The ghost pancake I just added chocolate chip eyes, but the spider web one was much cooler (it just didn't photograph well)  I tried out a recipe from Pinterest for cinnamon roll pancakes. You make a regular pancake and then you take a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, and melted butter and swirl it into your just poured into the pan pancake. Then I took a toothpick and pulled the lines from the center out- sorry hard to explain. Anyway it creates a spider web effect and tastes awesome. Add a grape "spider" and your all set. 

For lunch it was just a pb&j that I cut into circles using cookie cutters and added chocolate chip eyes, and string cheese legs. She also got a jack-o-lantern fruit cup and "spooky" milk (green food coloring)

Finally dinner was sloppy joes with a jack-o-lantern cut out cheese face, and bat/ghost/pumpkin Mac & Cheese that I found at Target, with orange carrot sticks.

During dinner some trick-or-treaters started to come, Anabelle loved handing out the candy.

Finally it was time for us to head out and get some candy of our own. Miss Piggy, Animal, Fozzi Bear, & Kermit the Frog. I made our costumes this year, and I am pretty proud of how they came out. Even though you can't see Charlotte's face, I think that the Animal mask/hat is awesome! (I wish it fit me-lol!)

Grandma came with us to join in on the fun! She wore her "silly hat".

Last Sunday night we carved our pumpkin. 

 Daddy and Anabelle admiring the glowing jack-o-lantern.

Happy Halloween!!

8 months

Charlotte turned 8 months old on the 24th so I gathered some pictures from the last month to showcase how much she has grown. She seems like such a little peanut, still wearing 6 month size clothing and not a lot of chub on her body. It's hard to get chub and baby fat when you are on the move as much as she is. She has gotten noticeably taller within the last 2 weeks, things she couldn't reach before are suddenly within her grasp.  She is really on the move lately, crawling all over, attempting to touch and play with everything her sister is playing with. She loves the cats and tries to catch them any chance she can. Merlin is way to fast and wants nothing to do with her, so he usually just runs away. Morgan is much slower and lazier and so she is often able to pet him and taste his fur. He is so patient with her, allowing her to "pet" him. We are working on the term gentle and what that means.  She pulls herself to standing on almost everything, even if you would think it was impossible. The other day she pulled herself up to stand next to the oven (not on) by smashing her face into the door and using her arms to spiderman her way up the wall, the whole time with her mouth wide open licking the oven door the whole way. You can't help but laugh at her determination and spunk. She is frequently seen clinging to my legs, standing up while I try to do something in the kitchen.  I feel like she'll be walking in the next month or so. She now has 2 teeth on the bottom with a third growing in, and 4 teeth on top. She has begun to eat real food (soft foods) cut up into very tiny pieces, we are mostly done with purees.  She sleeps from about 7pm till anywhere from 5:00 am till 6:30 am.  It would be fantastic if we could get more days where she sleeps till at least 6 am.  She is very inconsistent and will frequently wake up at some point in the middle of the night for no apparent reason other than to have a baby party. She naps ok, taking a few small ones and usually one longer one throughout the day, but when those actually take place is pretty inconsistent. She is full of toothy smiles and laughs, and loves when you make sounds at her and goofy faces. She has begun to make lots of noise herself, showing off by screeching at the top of her lungs- it's lovely. John and I are wondering if somewhere in my lineage there is a little bit of pterodactyl? Because it seems like that is what she sounds like most of the time. Enjoys the pics!

At the Arboretum

Showing off her pumpkin shirt that Mama made her.

At Two Toots, a train themed restaurant, she loved watching the choo-choo.

Eating bagels for the 1st time, and showing of her new shoes that grandma got her.

PUMPKINS!

Early in the month she discovered the front door, hmmm..... what's out there?

She made it up one step, she hasn't tried again since. I'm ok with that :)

Pumpkins at Brookfield Zoo.

Trick or Treating at Safety Town, modeling her new pumpkin hat that Mama made.

Finally figured out that she could stand up and look out the front door, one of her favorite things to do now, so much to see.

Riding the train at Johansen's pumpkin patch.

So cute!

Look Mama, I caught Morgan!

Nice kitty.