Wisconsin - Part 3

OK, it's time to get the rest of these photos up.

After a week in Kenosha with the Benetti fam, is was on to Verona for some time with the Kilpses.

Graydon had another wonderful birthday celebration.

With a little help, he blew out his two candles.

My dear friend Jenn and her family live about a half hour from Andy's parents. I'm so happy for any opportunity I get to hang out with her. Our daughters also had a good time together.

Here are the snapshots from our week in Verona:

Popcorn each night is a given. 

Jacob read the bedtime story that night.

The whole family.

Some randoms from our time together. . . 

Jacob and Tyler got new snowboards for Christmas and they shared with Bella.  It's hard to tell in the photo, but there is a slight hill that they played on.  These kids all rocked the snowboards!  Pretty cool to watch.

Fun in the snow!

By the end of our trip, Curtis was sleeping like a newborn again.  It's always hard to say goodbye to family, but I was definitely ready to get him back to a normal routine and get some sleep again for myself.

We arrived back in New Jersey just in time for another snow fall.  Kind of like we brought a little bit of Wisconsin with us.

Photos from Bella's Party!

The theme:  RAINBOWS!  I was inspired by Bella's artwork.  Give her some paper and crayons/markers/paint and you'll get a beautiful rainbow picture.  I saved some of her rainbow artwork from the past couple of months and displayed that at the party. 

About twenty of Bella's friends (plus some younger siblings) filled our church basement to celebrate Bella's fifth birthday (a couple of weeks early).  It was loud and crazy, but so much fun!  We had rainbow bingo, pin the cloud on the rainbow, and topped it all off with a pinata - something Bella has wanted at a party since she saw it on Dora. 

Bella loved her party and the icing on our cake was when she whispered to Andy just before blowing out her birthday candles, "I love you and Mommy." 
 

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl! 

There's still more celebrating to come when the actual birthday arrives in two weeks!

Halloween 2010

Our cast of characters includes: a train conductor, Princess Belle, and a little pumpkin.

We went to my friend's house for a good ol' fashioned Halloween party.  All the kids went trick-or-treating together. 

There was a total of five trick-or-treaters and two little baby tag-alongs.  Curtis transformed from a pumpkin into a red hot chili pepper!  Doesn't he look thrilled.  :)

Bella ran up to us after each house to show us what candy she got.

Graydon was feeling a bit shy and was pretty much carried by Andy or myself for the entire night.  He looks pretty excited here but, in fact, he was really yawning in both pictures.    

One little boy - sleepy but satisfied. 

Happy Halloween!

Happenings. . .

There's been a lot going on with our little family over these past couple of weeks.   

Graydon Happenings:

He had a doctor check-up at the beginning of the month.  Our little guy is growing up in height just fine - two inches in the past three months.  He is now 34 inches tall and in the 75th percentile!  His weight however, that's a different story.  He didn't even gain one pounds in these past three months and his percentile dropped from 25th to 10th.  He currently weighs 23 pounds 1 ounce. 

Our doctor isn't too concerned at this point because he is growing in inches, which means he is still getting proper nutrition.  She just wants us to try pushing foods like cheese, peanut butter, avocado, etc. and we'll see how things are at his two-year check-up. 

Part of me just wonders if he is already getting Daddy's high metabolism.  We'll see how things look in the next few months. 

Another big event in Graydon's life is that he got his first haircut last Saturday.  Here he is before:

The summer's humidity gave Graydon adorable curls.  With the humidity gone, his hair just started to look messy.  I tried to push this off for as long as I could, but it was time. 

Here he is after.  Sort of.  Andy did end up taking a little more off the top a few days later.  I haven't taken a picture of it yet. I'll admit - I was a little sad that the curls were gone.  But he does look so handsome.  (And like such a big boy).     

Bella Happenings

I went with Bella on a class field trip to the Adventure Aquarium.

We saw all sorts of fish, sharks, sting ray, seals, penguins, etc.  It was nice to do an activity with just her (and her school friends). 

Unfortunately, she had a bad dream about the jellyfish the other night.  The price you pay for a little education.  :)

Later in the week, she had a visit from her friend Katelyn who moved away last spring.  These two played for hours at the park and were very sad to have to say goodbye again.

Curtis Happenings

He continues to be one of the sweetest little babies that I know. 

He had one of his best nights of sleep last week, going from 9pm - 6:30am.

He still is up usually once and sometimes twice, though.  And it often takes him a little while to actually fall asleep at night.

We'll get there.

Family Happenings

I feel like these days have been crazy busy lately. So I'm very thankful that we could steal away some family time to go apple picking.

Bella picked pretty much all of our apples.  

Graydon found all the stray apples on the ground and tossed them around like baseballs.  Such a boy. 

We really couldn't have asked for a more beautiful fall day. 

Later on we made some mini caramel apples and apple pie.