Silly Kids Update

I know I am WAY behind on this blog! So much has happened in the last month; a pipe burst, two birthdays, Thanksgiving, decorating for Christmas.... just to name a few. I don't have time to do a big elaborate post with pictures and proper grammer( ha ha) so I will just give you something to giggle at instead. Without further ado, the things my kids say these days

Annie to her daddy one night: " I love you soo much Daddy, embarrass me"  Well there you have it folks, Annie has given us permission to embarrass her in the future!

Perhaps with this picture?

Annie singing in the back of the van on the way home( To be sung to the tune of God is so good, kids edition)   " God takes me home........God Takes me home.....to Jelly and my pink house"

Annie to me one night as I was tucking her into bed " O.K here's the thing. You need to go downstairs and do your work with Steph. OK mom?"

Elias to me as we were getting in the van on the way to run an errand
Elias  " Mom, how can I sit in my car seat?"
Me " I put it back in the car"
Elias " WOW, you are a Genius!"
Why thank you my son, I agree.

Elias to Annie while dining at Burger King one morning: " She can't have those!" (pointing to the hash browns) "I can have 4 because I am 4 years old and I don't have tonsils. She has tonsils, she can't have those!"

Me to Elias: "Elias, it's all saints day, do you know what a saint is?"
Elias: "Ya"
Me" What are saints?"
Elias " They make cookies"

Elias practicing his sweet dance moves

Elias protesting eating his oatmeal one morning :" Only water makes us stronger! Oatmeal makes us little little little!"

Me to Annie the morning after our pipe burst: " You guys had a rough night, hua?"
Annie: "Ya, we killed a monster"

Me to Elias: "Elias, what do you like about being the biggest brother"
" Ummmmmm, Eating Apples!"

Have a great weekend!

Yes Old Lady

So lately Brandon has been having Elias respond "Yes Sir" to certain things (Potty before bed , go to bed, and go take a bath are the three), I not sure why, maybe because he thinks it's cute, maybe because he thinks Elias will take those three commands more seriously , not sure. Anyways, when I am being "Serious mommy" I often say "young man" or "young lady". Such as" sit on your bottom right now young lady" as Annie is standing on every surface in the house, or "Get off your sister right now young man" as Elias is wrestling Annie a little too hard. 

So the other night I was telling Elias to head upstairs for his bath, his response "Yes Old Lady". My initial reaction was to be upset, but then I realized, Elias was doing this as his sign of acknowledgement and obedience to my directions. So needless to say I have stopped using the term young man or young lady and I am still frequently getting a respectful "yes old lady" as a response to directions I give Elias......touche my son, touche

10 months

Mr. Benjamin is 10 months old today! He is busy as ever walking all over the house! He loves eating books and playing with his brother and sister. He absolutely adores anything soft and fuzzy and you can often find him face down in a blanket just giggling. He is incredibly happy and so are mom and dad  now that he consistently sleeps through the night! He continues to be the happiest baby and is always smiling, especially if there is a camera around. One dangerous obsession Benjamin has is with cords! If you leave him alone for a minuet you better believe he is bee lining it for the nearest outlet. He sure does keep us on our toes!

Look at all those teeth! Kid is so happy to have gotten a hold of the baby monitor cord.


Weight: I have no clue how much he weighs! With the amount he eats, probably 30 lbs. He is still comfortably in 12 month clothes so I am guessing not more than 21 lbs.

Hair color- Brown and let me tell you it is thick! He had a hair cut the beginning of last month and he needs one again! This guy is determined to rock the mullet, the back grows like crazy!

Eye Color- Mostly brown and he has a beautiful set of eyelashes to go with those big brown eyes.

Sleep-  he is taking 1-2 naps a day. He usually takes a long, 2 or so hour nap in the morning and a hour in the late afternoon or 1 monster nap over lunch, usually 3 hours. If he can handle it, I prefer that he takes just the one nap, that way I have that time to get house work, and cheerleading stuff done. Some days the poor kid is just too tired. You might remember I said I was going to try a sleep sack to see if he slept better.....He is consistently sleeping through the night! We had done some sleep training and it was working great but once in a while he would still wake up, I guess the poor guy was just a little cold . It is wonderful to have those 8 hours in a row. He does wake up at 6 or 6:30 but I will take it over the 3 night wakings.

Eating- HE LOVES TO EAT! Pure delight is the way to describe Benjamin while eating. It is hard to name his favorite foods as he seems to enjoy everything, even most of his veggies. He does however, HATE peas. I find it hard to believe that he hates them as that is the only veggie I would eat for awhile. Anyways, here is our eating schedule these days.

Wake- Breakfast, and boy does he love breakfast foods!
mid-morning bottle before nap
lunch after nap "real food"
bottle before afternoon nap
dinner
bottle before bed.

Daily routine-Wake up around 6 or 6:30 in a wonderful smily mood! Play downstairs along with mommy(or daddy) until Annie and Elias wake up. Breakfast followed by more play time, this time usually with big brother and sister. mid morning snack of crackers or puffs then a bottle and off to bed. Lunch after nap and, you guessed it, more play time. After Elias gets home from school it's time for my 2nd nap. After the cat nap, its usually dinner, play time, bath time and bed time!

Firsts:  STEPS! He took his first steps on October 18th and is no practically running! He has explored some new words this month like water, all done, bye bye, hi, monkey sounds, and of course the tried and true ba -ba. If I am being honest, the only one he knows, says on cue and understands is ba-ba, but he is experimenting with mimicking our sounds so that is fun. This month was also his first time at the pumpkin patch, trick-or-treating, riding a bike and taking off his diaper on his own, a very busy month :)

Benjamin's first bike ride

 Benjamin turtle on the run!

heheheheh I took off my diaper!

What we are looking forward to: Hearing his little voice as he learns all sorts of new words. 

Walking Baby Boy!

It is official! Benjamin is a walking boy! He started walking a couple weeks ago making him the ripe old age of 9months and 2 weeks for those first steps. It is pretty funny seeing him walking around, he looks way to little to be totting about, but he insists. Enjoy his journey to walking video!

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

Happy Halloween

Now that the kids are getting older, they are really getting into this Halloween thing. Annie and Elias were VERY excited to get all dressed up again and go trick-or-treating. We started off by heading to Grandma Mim's for some pictures and to meet up with Uncle Jordan and his girlfriend, Kristen. We decided to leave Benjamin with Grandma as it was a chilly North Dakota evening and he was a little sick. The big kids and adults headed to Grandma Judi's to pick up Gavin and meet up wit David, Jody and Isaiah. I am not a huge fan of this door to door bit, I prefer to be the one to stay back and hand out candy, so that is just what my mom and I did! 

All worked out as Annie grew instantly attached to Kristen and didn't let her out of her sight. The kids did wonderfully going from house to house and getting their candy. When they had made the rounds, they came back to my parents house to warm up. My mom had a charlie brown movie on and Annie climbed right in her lap and snuggled under a blanket. Elias chilled out on the table, watching and sneaking mounds of candy. We picked up Benjamin and headed home. Once home, we dumped the candy out and let them bask in the glory of it all. We let them each have a few pieces as it is a right of passage( says PaPa) .As suspected the kids were not in the mood for bed! We stayed up, let them burn energy with a good old fashion dance party then finally called it a night. Enjoy some pictures from a successful Eberhardt Halloween

 No one really knew what they were, but they are the main characters from Hungar games. Their costumes were just too cool for the general population to understand. 

 Annie, Gavin, Elias and Isaiah getting ready to head out

 Annie and her new BFF

 "Baby Isaiah" (who isn't a baby anymore) was Link from Zelda. So. cute!

 Annie's wig kept falling off with all of her running, so she wore Elias' hat and became a dragon princess.

 Snuggling to get warm

 SO MUCH CANDY

Benjamin was delighted at all the crunchy things to play with. 

Pumpkin Carving

As Halloween drew near, we decided that it was time to pick up some pumpkins and start carving away! We did this Annie's first two years of life but not since then, its messy and a lot of time that we just don't have. That being said, sometimes you have to step outside of the comfort zone, get messy and let the kids have fun.
Elias went to the pumpkin patch with his preschool class and picked out a pumpkin to carve. We decided on a whim to pack the older kids(and uncle Jordan  up and head to the patch of pumpkins outside a local business to pick up the other ones. Brandon saw the following sing regarding pumpkin prices:
" Any child who is 7 or under can have a pumpkin for $1, as long as they can safely carry the pumpkin to the register"
He picked out 2 very large pumpkins( for a whopping $3 a piece  as well as 2 rather large "small" pumpkins for the kids. As they walked in Brandon gave the pumpkins to the kids. Annie struggled and waddled all the way to the register but her pumpkin made it to the counter. Elias almost dropped his screaming that it was too heavy but he made it far enough to count for the $1 price. Now my question is, why the heck didn't you just pay the $2 difference and save your kids' backs? I guess its the thrill of the challenge. Anyways, after a quick dinner it was onto carving.

The kids were very interested in watching,but not helping, with the scooping of the seeds. We did finally convince Annie to stick her hand in a pumpkin! She was very proud of herself, but had zero desire to do it again. Annie lost interest after awhile, as did Benjamin. The two of them played beautifully together out in the living room while  the men and mom tediously carved away.

 This year I bought an electric carver. It was only $6 and it made carving wayyyyy easier for me! Elias was so eager to help out but we didn't feel comfortable with him hold it alone or with him helping with the manual carving tools, so I used a trick I learned from his preschool teachers. Elias put his hand on the carver and I put mine over his, His other hand he had to set on the table and I put my hand on top of his, this way I had control over the carver, and there was no possibility for him reaching up and grabbing it with his free hand.( His class bakes alot so they use the hand mixer...not pumpkin carvers:)). Elias was THRILLED to be helping and was so concentrated on the design. He was very proud once we were finished and punched out those Mickey ears.. It was a fun night with the fam and will be added to our fall traditions for next year!