Happy Halloween

I can't believe my last post was back in September!! I was hoping I'd never get to that point where I was "too busy" to do things like updating the blog, but I fear I am. Or maybe it's just the busyness of the season...?

Anyway, here are some pictures of the kids from Halloween...

Jenna as Cinderella and Grant as a cowboy

LOVE this picture!!

Howdy Pardner...

Drew was traveling that week for work, so Kelley and Brian offered to join us for trick-or-treat night. Brian was GREAT and pulled Grant (and sometimes Jenna) the entire time!

Afterward we stopped in to see Paw-Paw and Maw-Maw.

August Recap

Wow, I'm WAY behind on updating the blog! I just realized I haven't posted the random everyday pictures from August and it's already almost October!!! Oh my!!

Jenna and Grant love the jungle gym from "B"!!

Boy has Grant slimmed down since this picture was taken. His legs look so much chunkier in this picture!

Jenna enjoyed pushing Grant around in his car.

Opening Grant's birthday gift from Grandma Borton. She sent us some money and we thought this would be a good gift for him (and his sister, of course) to play with, especially in the wintertime when we're stuck indoors.

I loved the teeter totter when I was little. I think they'll have a lot of fun with it!

I was moving the baby bath to the basement, but Grant decided it would be fun to sit in first.

Drew and I went to Cincinnati for our anniversary weekend. We were celebrating 7 years and wanted some time kid-free. We had a great weekend of shopping (we finally got to update our wardrobe, which was so much easier to do without kids), went to a movie, had quiet meals together, and RELAXED!! Thanks to my parents and my sister and brother-in-law for watching the kids for us!

Jenna playing with her Cheerios book at breakfast. Such a cute book!

Bailey taking a snooze by the back window. It must have been when the kids were down for their naps because he usually sleeps with one eye open when they're around! ;)

I love his morning bedhead!

And Jenna's too...!

Countdown

Let the countdown begin!!

Aunt Cathy had a GREAT idea to help Jenna countdown the days until we leave for our Borton family get together in Galveston. This is a great idea because the concept of time is still difficult for her to understand. She just knows we're leaving in a few weeks (although she still says "a few months" which is what we taught her to say....a few months ago). Anyway, Cathy sent Jenna strips of paper so she could make a paper chain - each link representing a day until we leave. Then we can remove a link each day until the day of our trip. Love it!!

Jenna and I had fun making the chain together. Jenna was in charge of the gluing, which she did a great job with, while I put them together. We have it hanging on our light fixture above the kitchen table and each morning Jenna's wanted to rip off another link. She enjoys it, plus it gives us practice counting, especially since we're counting above 10 right now. :)

Thanks Cathy for the fun project!!

By the way Cathy, this scrapbooking lady LOVESSSSSSS the paper you sent!!! Hmmm....wondering where you picked it up so maybe I can add it to my collection...?? :)

What a big girl!

We've been talking up what being a "big girl" means...how big girls go on the potty and not in their diapers or underwear and they also sleep in "big girl beds". :) She's loved the idea of being a big girl and has done a great job with potty training. We've found that by keeping her naked, she'll ALWAYS go on the potty. So we did that this past week and she was accident free and even running in from the outdoors to go on the potty. So proud of her!! Today I put underwear on her and we've only had 1 accident - all the other times have been on the potty. We told her that once she's going on the potty all the time, she can get a big girl bed.

So we've taken Jenna to a few furniture stores to look at "big girl" beds so that she knows what exactly that means. Then we went to Walmart and picked up some princess bedding - she LOVES her princesses! After doing some price comparison, we just couldn't justify buying brand new beds - let me back up...we've been planning on buying bunk beds since we're planning on having a 3rd child at some point and realize Jenna and Grant will have to share a room. Since their rooms aren't that big (about 10x10), putting 2 twin beds in 1 room would make it tight and we'd lose a lot of floor space. So we decided a bunk bed would be better. We really wanted one that would come apart so we could have 2 separate twin beds if we wanted. So needless to say, we just couldn't justify buying a bunk bed from a furniture store. So we went to Craigslist. We found a bunk bed that we liked at a price that was great! We went Saturday to pick it up and put it in her room on Sunday afternoon.

We kept it a surprise - she knew Drew was assembling it, but we didn't let her see it until it was assembled and the bed was made. She was so excited!




I was a little fearful how our evening and night would go now that she has the freedom to get out of bed on her own, but she did WONDERFUL! I watched her on a video monitor and initially after we left the room she laid there and then sat up on the edge of her bed looking around. Then she slowly stood up and it looked as if she was tip-toeing over to her toys. Haha! So I went in and told her it was bedtime and that she was supposed to stay in bed unless she needed to go potty. I tucked her in, kissed her, and left the room. She got up once more, but then after we tucked her back in and explained it to her again, she didn't get up the rest of the night. So proud of her! She's becoming such a big girl!

Miami County Fair

A few weeks ago we took the kids to our county fair. We thought it would be fun to walk around looking at the animals and for Jenna to ride some rides. Jenna's first ride was in the car and all it did was go around in circles. After a few rotations, she was ready to get off and kept yelling, "Daddy, I done!" Then after that she didn't want to ride any of the rides. I'm not sure if the first one "scarred" her, but she didn't want to get on alone. We thought she might be done, but then we ran into my cousin and his two boys. Right away Jenna wanted to ride the rides with them and loved it! We were so glad to see her enjoying herself!

There was also a big inflatable that Jenna enjoyed bouncing in. She did that one quite a few times.

There was a petting zoo there and Jenna really enjoyed all the animals. There was a llama, alpaca, cow, bull, pigs, camel, and goats. She loved petting them and even gave some hugs.

Then we walked around the animal barns to look at the sheep and cows.

Of course Drew had to get a classic fair delicacy...a funnel cake. Jenna had a few bites too.

One of Jenna's favorite "rides" was the big slide. Drew and I both got to ride it with her and each time after we were done, she'd jump up and say, "Do it again, do it again!" Haha!

Jenna with her (2nd) cousins - John and Silas

John 5 yrs (almost 6), Silas 3 yrs, and Jenna 2 yrs

Grant was such a trooper! It ended up being a late night for us and he just zoned out in his stroller while Jenna rode the rides. He eventually fell asleep just before we left around 10:30pm.

This was one of those "whirly" rides that spins around. Jenna and the boys wanted to ride it, so I rode it too. Drew and I had bought 6 tickets so we could each ride 1 ride with her. (Can you believe that the rides are 3 tickets each and tickets are $1/each?!) And my cousin, Phil also rode with his boys.

Jenna also enjoyed the carousel and fortunately it was free for parents to ride with their kids, so Drew and I each rode that ride with her too.

After Jenna rode some rides with the boys, she felt more confident to ride some rides on her own. This was a bumpy one, but she did great with it.

We had a great evening!!