Afternoon outside

The time between afternoon nap and when Travis gets home is usually the hardest part of my day. The kids are whiny and bored, and I'm pretty much spent from dealing with them all day. So I'm always looking for entertainment during those witching hours. Today we hung out at my friend Celeste's house and played with her daughters, Abby and Lily, and their dog Sandy. The kids were happy and entertained, and I even managed to drink a glass of wine and chat with another adult. A successful evening, all around!

Juliet spent the afternoon playing at the sand table with Lily and Abby (you can see the back of Lily's head here). Check out the adorable black and white outfit she's wearing! Her very favorite (and only) aunt Angi, along with her uncle Jeff and cousins Lauren, Christan and Evan, sent it for her birthday. I wish I had a better shot of the whole thing because it's so cute, and I really do love it.


Woo sand table!


Scott chillin' on the swing.

Travis carves a pumpkin.

Travis decided at 10 last night that it was time to carve the pumpkin. It was very festive, what with him carving pumpkins and me sitting around in my pajamas and not helping.

He is such an artiste.


Stay away from my pumpkin. I'm not kidding.


The design.


Sorry, ladies, he's taken.


He's totally cute, isn't he?

Mayhem at the pumpkin patch

We took the kids to the pumpkin patch yesterday. It was not a hit. Scott hadn't napped (crazy kid sat in his crib for THREE HOURS babbling and playing by himself), and Juliet was being her usual, uncooperative self. Not to badmouth my kids or anything, but whatever. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Everyone started out fairly happy, when they had little mini-pumpkins to shove in their mouths. We later put those pumpkins back into the bin at the patch, which I'm sure is some sort of health code violation.


Then we thought, "Hey, we need to get rid of those stupid mini-pumpkins so we can get some pictures of our adorable children, all sweet and smiling and loving one another." Um, yeah.


Ahem.


This is pretty much the best picture of the day, even if Juliet looks like she just spotted Lindsey Lohan walking by (she's actually shouting, "Ball!" at all of the pumpkins). But Scott looks relatively pleasant.

What kind of idiot thinks it's a good idea to dress their kid in a glowingly white shirt for pictures? Oh, right, that would be me.

I don't know, I guess this one's not so bad.


"Word to ya mutha."


Watch out for the vampire.


Scott weeps at the injustice of not being allowed to bite his sister.


Juliet shouting her favorite word - "BALL!" - in reference to the pumpkin. She's kind of obsessed with balls.


Scott checks out a pumpkin.


This would be a picture of Scott throwing a tantrum in my lap. Fun times. I totally played it off, though, right? Like, No way, my kid's not writhing around in my lap in a desperate attempt to get away from me while screaming bloody murder! Pshaw! We're having an awesome time at the pumpkin patch!


But see, he can be pretty cute.


Wait. Never mind.

Check out the fat lip. That would be from Friday evening's incident at Trunk or Treat.



Juliet can't believe her good fortune - "balls" everywhere!


Travis attempts to contain his excitement about being at the pumpkin patch.


As you can see, an awesome time was had by all.

Walking!

Juliet is taking a few steps! Little monkey. We managed to (sorta) get it on video, although she was only marginally cooperative.


Um, and just so everyone knows, I didn't style Scott's hair that way because I think it's super awesome. He'd just gotten out of the bath.

We had Trunk or Treat with our MOMS Club tonight, and the kids had a good time. I don't have any pictures because I was there on my own with them for most of the time, which means I had no opportunities to snap a photo. And then Scott fell down and busted his face, and there was blood everywhere, and it was very upsetting, so yeah - no pictures. But bloody faces aside, the kids enjoyed themselves and looked cute in their costumes. I'll get pictures on Halloween, I promise. I can't believe it will be Juliet's birthday.

No rest for the weary.

Yawn.

Juliet is getting up before the sun these days, and I'm not really excited about it. I try ignoring her until an hour I deem appropriate rolls around, but man, she doesn't care for being ignored. The kid can be LOUD. So I deal with her pre-dawn risings, lest she wake her brother, and that would be BAD.

I attempted to catch another few minutes of shut-eye this morning by closing Juliet's bedroom door and lying down on her floor while she crawled around and played. Except, there was no playing - only crying. Unless I sat up; then she was happy and would laugh. But the second I would lie down, she'd start with the hollering again. Fun times.

In other sleep(less) news, Scott started hollering about two hours after we put him to bed last night, for reasons unknown to both Travis and me. He has a mild case of poison ivy, so maybe that's it. He doesn't seem to be uncomfortable, and he isn't scratching, but whatever - we'll take any excuse to give the kid Benadryl. So we doped him up and put him back to bed. But not before he spent a good half hour laughing at the hilarity that is Tad Smith.



Crazy kid.

Yay for great weather!

October is here, and the weather is beautiful. We've been spending a ton of time at the park lately, which is totally the kids' favorite place on earth. I know this because they both scream bloody murder whenever we have to leave. Yes, even Juliet will throw an impressive tantrum when it's time to go home. Which is frustrating to me because HELLO, you are only 11 months old, you don't even know where you are half the time.

Scott is practically gleeful.


He loves hanging out at the bottom of the slide. Which can be kind of a hazard. Hello, roadblock.


Juliet is a huge fan of the swings.


She's also really into climbing all over EVERYTHING. Little monkey.


Scott went through a phase where he absolutely loved the swings. And then he hated them and would scream whenever we tried to put him in one. Now he's back to loving them. See?


As you can tell, Scott is wearing a bib almost all of the time these days. Unfortunately, the medication the ENT prescribed to help diminish his drooling doesn't seem to be working as well as it once was. He definitely drools less while on the meds than he does off them, but I'm longing for the day when I don't have to change my kid's bib once an hour. *sigh*

In other Scott news, Mother's Day Out is proving to be a big adjustment for him. His school is wonderful, and his teachers are great, but being away from home from 9-1 just wears the kid out - by the end of the day, he's a weepy mess. I've talked about it with his teachers, and we've decided to do a shorter day with Scott - he'll continue to go Tues/Thurs, but I'll pick him up at noon instead of 1. We'll do lunch here at home instead of at school, since Scott wasn't eating a thing while there, anyway.

Scott tends to have really great mornings at school, so I think this shorter schedule will work well for him. We'll reevaluate in a month and see if we can try pushing him through until 1 and offering him lunch with his class again. I hope it works out because I'd really like to have that extra hour of free time!

As for Juliet, she accompanied us to a wedding in Natchez last weekend while Scott stayed behind with Nana and Grampa. Travis and I would have liked to have left Juliet, too, but seeing as I'm her main source of beverage at this time (girlfriend is such a pill about drinking out of a cup!), that wasn't a possibility. Oh, well - there's always next time. Not that I'm trying to ditch my kids or anything. Okay, fine, maybe I am.

She looked awfully cute, though, didn't she? Her daddy's not bad, either.




She was a real trooper - did great during the ceremony (well, she hung out in the cry room and banged toys around, but whatever), and powered through the reception until a little after 9, when she started getting really droopy. Travis, best husband EVER, took her back to the hotel and put her to bed so I could enjoy an evening with old friends. It was a really nice weekend.

And this weekend was a good one, too, capped off with a pumpkin painting party at a friend's house. Scott had a good time, as is evidenced by the fact that he is covered in food and juice.


Juliet hung out with her boyfriend Theo.

Check out the bow in her hair! Hee.

And finally, here are some random photos of my kids, just because they're cute:

Scott, about to go to bed.


Juliet in her super scary skeleton jammies.


The countdown is ON until Juliet's first birthday. I can't believe my tiny baby will be 1 on Halloween!

11 months old!

Juliet is 11 months old! I know, it's crazy. I took this video of her the other day showing off some of her tricks:


At 11 months, Juliet is standing up on her own and taking a few steps at a time, but I think we're a little ways away from being a walker. She is into everything - cabinets, drawers, bins, baskets - I am constantly pulling her out of stuff. She has a few words - ball, uh oh, book (sounds like ball), and bye-bye (sounds like dada). She waves and blows kisses, and she will do the signs for ball, milk and baby.

She's a busy, little baby.

All you Scott fans out there - I'll do better about getting some video of him for the blog. He's just not as cooperative for the camera as his sister these days.