Jack is FOUR!

Jack turned four on the 21st!  He wanted me to say: “I’m glad I had a birthday.  I loved my birthday.  I’m glad I got a Joker House.  We went to Jungle Joe’s. We went on everything that’s there.  An obstacle course, lots of slides and lots of games.  The games were my favorite.  Then we came home and ate  my cake and ice cream.  My cake was a dinosaur cake.  It looked like Spot [his stuffed dinosaur].  Then we opened presents.  I got a Joker House! And some cards.  And a airplane card.  And a camera. And a my workbook. And that’s everything! That’s everything I did at my birthday!”

We can’t believe our little guy is four….and that he’s ONLY four.  He is a happy, happy kid. His preschool teachers call him “smiley Jack.”  He loves learning about animals and nature at school and playing with his friends. He loves playing pretend, especially “Batman” and “bad guy” and “cooking” in his kitchen.  Jack loves to play games of all kinds.  He is starting to play very nicely with Cole, and is great with Annie.  He is a terrific little helper and always asking to help.  He is a joy to have around and we are so glad to have him in our family!  We love you Jack and hope you had a great birthday!

And just an extra one of Annie.

I’m a little behind...so I'll be quick. We had Christmas with just our little family at home. I have almost no pictures….sorry, Mom. Jack got the “rest of a pirate costume” he asked Santa for…I realized when I was getting it ready to wrap that it may look more like a little Hugh Hefner smoking jacket than a Captain Hook style pirate costume. Oh well. Santa tried and Jack was happy. Cole asked for (and got) a “spider and a snowman”. I didn’t get pictures somehow. They are both just plush and Cole regularly sleeps with one on his pillow. Annie got a rather annoying singing puppy that she loves. She also got a doll that we are pretty sure she thinks is a person.

We were going to spend Christmas in North Carolina with Matt’s family, but Western Michigan football got a bid for a bowl game on the 27th….as our schedule revolves around college sports this year, we had to adjust our plans. We still went and saw his family, but only got one day when we were all there. It was fun to see everyone! Last time we were all together was at Matt’s and my wedding. We finally got to meet his sister’s two kids and our newest little nephew. Sadly, I again have no pictures. My talented sis-in-law, Rebecca, took some great pics of the kids while we were there and I did manage to get a couple of the kids in their Christmas clothes. New Year’s resolution? Take more pictures!!

Just pretend your eye doesn't go right to the bottom of their shoes.

And just for fun….Cole was having a hard time getting his pants on and asked for help. I tugged them up for him and he went on his way. A little while later I looked at him and realized they were Annie’s pants. Size 9 months. On my two year old. I’m glad we weren’t on our way out the door!

I think they’re going to be friends!

I keep finding Annie and Cole like this.  She’ll be playing somewhere and he climbs right in to join her.  She loves it (except when he climbs in via her head).

Sometimes he just goes in to say “good morning!”

I think they’re going to be quite a pair.

Halloween

Halloween was fun this year.  Both boys were old enough to “get it”, but not to be obsessed with candy or to make crazy costume requests.

We went to Trunk or Treat the Saturday before, which was fun, but a bit of a chaotic mess. The kids loved wearing their costumes and getting their faces painted (monkey and airplane…in case you can’t tell). 

You may recognize Cole’s elephant costume from past years.  I’m glad we’ve been able to get some mileage out of it as it was such a pain to make!  It’s also kind of dug me a hole…I feel like since I made Jack’s first costume I need to make costumes every year. While I enjoy sewing, I don’t necessarily love the deadline (though, they probably wouldn’t get done otherwise). Jack informed me the day of trunk or treat that his costume was not a dragon.  It was a dinosaur, because dragons have wings.   Luckily, he was good with being a dinosaur

On Halloween we thought we’d go trick or treating  on our street, but there was not a single soul out.  So we drove to a nearby neighborhood where there were lots of people out.  Last year Jack told us he wanted to go to “five houses”, this year he said he wanted to go to “seventy eighty five” houses.  I think he’s got the concept down.  Cole was really into it this year, too. Since we didn’t know the neighborhood at all we went to the one person we knew and houses that were obviously happy to have trick-or-treaters.  Cole did not like skipping houses.  We ended up going to 10-15 , which was perfect !

Cole’s Birthday

Cole’s 2nd birthday was the 27th.  He got spoiled rotten, but had a great day!  He really got into the birthday thing and talked about his “happy birthday” and happy birthday presents” and “happy birthday balloons” all day long.  He probably would have been perfectly happy with a balloon bouquet, but he got lots of great presents.  I think the biggest hit was a Lightening McQueen car from Uncle Chris!

This boy loves trucks…anything with wheels really, so not surprisingly he got quite a few.

He is really into planes right now. He hears and sees them before I do and gets really excited.  So, we did a plane cake.  He thought it was wonderful. (And it came out of the pan on the first try! I only had to make one cake this time!)

We also went to Chuck E. Cheese’s for dinner, which the boys LOVE! Since it was a Thursday night, there was hardly anyone there. (which I loved!)

We sure love having Cole in our family!  He is such a tender heart and loves his brother and sister (he loves Annie so much I worry he will smother her with hugs one day).  He is smart and creative and extremely articulate for a 2 year old.  He loves animals, especially birds and really anything “up in the sky'”.  He is my little helper and especially loves putting things in the garbage.  (If he can’t get to the garbage, he thinks the washing machine is an acceptable alternative…I’ve found many dirty diapers in there!)  He is a joy to  have around and we can’t wait to see him continue to grow!  Happy Birthday, Cole!

What we’ve been up to.

Annie doesn’t sleep for more than a few hours at a time lately.  So, to accommodate my lack of sleep, we stay home a lot. Luckily Jack still loves school and it’s worked out well that he is in the afternoon class (I’m not sure we’d make it in the morning these days).  Good thing we have a nice playroom! 

This is Cole’s latest favorite.  He’ll often ask me, “wanna put cars on the  web with me?”.   He’s like a little spider collecting matchbox bugs.

Jack does a lot of pretending.  Lately it involves shooting ice cream at pirates and giants. (Once we give them ice cream they  are nice and help us shoot the ice cream at everyone else.) He is also into ride on type toys.

Annie likes to hang out in the exersaucer, where she is relatively protected from big brother Cole. (although I’ve caught him trying to climb in with her a couple times…hasn’t worked very well.)

We’re pretty exciting!

Annalee had her first real food last week.  She wasn’t super excited about it, but she definitely was not opposed to opening her mouth for the spoon more than once.

…and, maybe I’m biased, but aren’t those eyes just unreal?

Jack had his first (and sadly, only) field trip yesterday.  We went to a local farm and picked apples, had delicious donuts and cider, learned about pumpkins and other fruits and veggies, rode on a cart behind a tractor, raced some rubber duckies, and went down a really cool big slide.  All three kids were great!  (good thing, too… We were the only ones who brought brothers or sisters, but I think everyone else in his class is the youngest or only child)

I took lots of pictures.

After his first trip down the slide, Cole decided it was a little scary. He still liked hiking up the hill and tried to slide down the dirt path.

Annie was happy or sleeping the whole time!

Jack told me his favorite part was the duck races.  I think they could have played with this all day!  They were cracking me up with how seriously they took it.

These are my favorites.