Halloween 2011

Wow, can I say how glad I am for Halloween to be over?? Man, it was seriously fun but A LOT of work. Definitely worth all the work, but very overwhelming at times. Lillie and Henry had a play group party on Friday morning, a base party that night, then I threw a dental resident party on Saturday night, and Monday night was trick or treating on the base.
The playgroup party was laid back and fun for the kids, where they decorated sugar cookies, played together and ate too much candy. Lillie went as Rapunzel and Henry was Spiderman. I took a large costume that would probably fit a 10 year old and sized it down to fit my 1 year old. It worked surprisingly well, although it took up a whole morning and stressed me out.
I spent pretty much the whole month of October in preparation for the party that I threw, but it was a total success. I hadn't laughed that hard in months! We ate lots of yummy food, played minute to win it games, backwards charades, and even squeezed in some oink piggy oink. Because I was the host, I did not get any pictures, so I'm waiting to get some from my awesome friend, who did take lots of pics. I'm so glad that we are here with such great people. I cannot say that enough.
Halloween night was especially fun because of how much Lillie loved trick or treating. She was an adorable Tooth Fairy and was in love with all the different costumes that the kids had on and how each house was decorated. We walked around to quite a few houses and she still wanted more, so I sent Eric out to take her around to the Colonels' houses. Because she did so much trick or treating, she had SO MUCH candy. Ugh. So now I have to tell her no 20 times a day, so that she can stick to eating one piece a day... if she eats her meals. I know we're going to throw away 2/3rds of it.

Playgroup Picture

Decorating Halloween cookies

Eric and Lillie's Pumpkin



This is a recycled set of costumes from two years ago. Except we added a tooth fairy and made Henry the tooth.

Lillie and her best bud, Jack

Family Pic on the Hay Ride

Another recycled costume because I didn't want her getting her tooth fairy get up dirty before Halloween. She loves dressing up as Jessie, I love how she insisted on adding the mustache.

Lillie really wanted to show my mom our Halloween decorations.

I'm thankful for...

These two kids! I cannot tell you how irresistably adorable they are, especially right before church when they're all spiffed up.

Pumpkin Patch

This year we took the kids to a local pumpkin patch a couple weeks before Halloween. They were in heaven! Henry had to be pried off the big tractor, he loved being up there. Lillie loved the hay ride and horsey swing. It was a small farm, but had everything we could possibly want to do. Eric and I even managed to get lost in their corn maze before forging our own trail to get out of there. Oops. We had a blast and the weather was perfect, couldn't have asked for a better outing.

First Primary Program

Lillie had her first primary program this last Sunday. We had been practicing her part all week and she knew it well, but I was still interested in how it would go. She went and sat up with her class in the front row and spent most of the time chatting it up with her friends, waving out to the audience and turning around to see what was going on behind her. She and her pal Jack were the stars of their own show up there. Ha! So when it was time for her class to go up there and say their part in unison, Lillie said loudly, "the scriptures are the word of God," before the rest of her class had gathered, so she was able to say her part twice. :) Eric and I were cracking up the whole time, it was proof that she really does run the show around here. I love how bold and sassy she is. Love it!

FL trip

Being in the military, Eric gets some awesome extra days off, like Columbus Day! On a whim, my friend Laura and I, planned a little weekend getaway for our families to Panama City. We stayed in a four bedroom house on the local air force base during the night and spent our days on the beach! We had an absolute blast, their son, Jack is close in age to Lillie and they get along so well. We also squeezed in an evening of bowling and another at this neat playground. The parents played lots of games after the kids went to bed too. It was a blast. I wish we could do that every weekend. The beaches there have sugar white sand and clear, turquoise water. So beautiful. I'm so glad we did it, I was proud of my spontaneity, ok, Laura's spontaneity. On Monday, we stopped in Pensacola on the way home to check out the National Naval Museum. It was full of awesome planes. Henry's favorite word to say is airplane, so he was in heaven. And I'm happy to check off another state that I've visited.

My Disney Princess

A week ago Lillie and I went to the local showing of Disney Live! It was a reinactment of the stories of Snow White, Cinderella, and Beauty and the Beast. I surprised Lillie that evening with the news of going to see princesses and she was so excited. Lillie loved it, she was so shocked every time a new princess would come onto the stage. She'd gasp and cover her mouth, it was really cute. And Lillie was kind of a celebrity herself, everyone loved her costume, kids and adults, I had a couple people come ask me how I made it. There were a lot of little girls in princess costume, but I only saw one other Rapunzel. Lillie loved her costume so much that she wanted to go down and dance during intermission, I was surprised at her boldness. It was a fun Mother Daughter night!

Henry the talker

He has learned about 10 or so words now....here he is showing off a few.

15 month stats

Henry finally got back to the doctor after a 6 month hiatus. We were in ID when he turned a year old and so we didn't have a pediatrician or even insurance to be able to take him to the doctor. We had to wait for our insurance to go into effect here and then I was able to go in. He was such a good boy during the checkup. He was totally amused by what the doctor was doing to him. So, besides getting 5 shots, we were able to get his stats:

Height: just short of 33 inches, 91st percentile
Weight: 23 lbs, 35th percentile
Head Circumference: 65th percentile

Henry also had a rash on his torso, which the doctor called pityriasis rosea. Which was probably caused from a viral infection. It's harmless and should resolve in 6 weeks. Hopefully that's true.

More from the Island

We took an hour long ferry ride out to the island, seeing so many dolphins along the way. Really cool! Then we relaxed on the beach, I read a little while the kids played in the water and in the sand. The water there was a little different than on the coast. It was a little cooler, which was enjoyable, because then it was actually refreshing, more like being in a pool than being in a bath. It also had waves, which was nice to listen to. Lillie and I went to go search for sea shells at one point during, and I was out in the sun more than I had anticipated, because we kept finding more interesting shells the farther away we went, and I got a little sunburned. I let her keep her three favorite and left the rest for someone else to find. We had a blast and would go often if it wasn't quite so pricey. Oh well, I think we'll have to go again at least once.

Henry said Boat for the first time on this trip and Bye Bye too. He's been talking so much lately!

Ship Island

VIDEO0020 a video by ericwin99 on Flickr.

We enjoyed a nice saturday excursion to a little island off the gulf coast. Warm clear water, dolphins, crabs and great weather make for a fun weekend.

Our Playground

Henry likes to find treasures on the beach, like shells, sticks, rocks, charred wood, etc. And then he has to show every single thing to me.

Lillie likes to build sand castles, but this sand is so fine, it's finer than sugar, that it's kinda difficult to get out of the bucket. I need to work on my castle making method.

A little bocce ball on the beach.

Henry goes crazy chasing the birds around on the beach. These birds are the sea gulls of the south, I'm assuming. It's funny to listen to him shrieking, trying to sound like the birds.

It is SO NICE living literally a couple minutes from the beach. We have been spending quite a bit of time there because we can just stop for an hour or two without much planning and often without our swimsuits. The kids love to play with the sand, chase birds and actually get into the water. The water is seriously bath water. Kinda creepy warm. Definitely not refreshing when it's 90 degrees outside, but in the evening when it's cooled down a bit, it's perfect. And the kids LOVE it. The beach isn't super busy we can just kind of let them do their thing. We go there more often than going to the park because then we don't have to worry about Henry climbing the play equipment, crazy boy.

It's hard to believe that it is even salt water because there aren't big waves, it's really warm, really shallow, like knee deep for 200 yards, and doesn't smell like seaweed and fish. We kinda love it.

My Mini-Triathlon

Last Saturday, the 10th, I competed in a mini-triathlon here on base. We trained for about a week and a half, but it was actually pretty fun. I even kind of miss getting up at 5:15 to go bike. There were a few extra obstacles in this race for me, I woke up that morning with hives all over my torso, so I competed while drugged up on Benadryl, my front tire popped minutes before the race began, fortunately there was a spare, and during the run, my hair band broke, so I ran with my hair down which was hot. The bottom picture is of me with three of the four other girls from my ward who competed. I did pretty well, I think my official time was 1:03, which was also my number, so it was meant to be. I am just glad that I completed it, I was really worried about popping another tire. So happy that didn't happen. I know I look like death, so please no judging. :)

Oh yeah, it was a 200m swim, 9.2 mile bike and 2 mile run.

Hank at 15 Months

Henry turned 15 mos on the 4th. He loves:

-to follow his sister around and wants whatever she's playing with.

-Thomas the train! He's got a train book, pajamas, a ride on train and a small green toy train, whose name is actually Henry. We've started to record Chuggington to watch in the morning, because Thomas shows are painfully awful and this is at least tolerable.

-to play with cars, airplanes, and balls too. The kid can throw way better than his sister. :)

-to talk. Most of it is his made-up words, but he has recently added a few new words. He can now also say Jesus, yeehaw, choo choo, and a few more words. He calls sippy cups, bottles and his pacifiers all Baba, which gets a little confusing at times.

-to torture me with his sleeping habits. Some days he's up at or before 6, and he takes two naps, and sometimes he sleeps in past 7 and then only requires one nap. But I really cannot plan anything in advance, because I'm not sure if it'll be a one or two nap day.

-his dad just as much as me, which is seriously so great, I cannot even say. LOVE THIS.

We just love this little guy. He's started to show off with his dancing skills and other tricks which is just hilarious. I need to get videos of it all.

First Day of Preschool!

Lillie started preschool yesterday! We're doing a co-op preschool with a couple of Lillie's friends, Jack and Katy. She's loved it and I knew she would. Lillie has talked about going to school since she first learned to talk. It's three times a week for two hours and our week is the week after next. I need to start preparing!

Our Pal, Lee

Well, we are in the middle of our first tropical storm. It's rained A LOT. And has ruined our plans of spending the Labor Day weekend at the beach... I was really looking forward to that. Instead we have been having a fun time hanging out inside, watching movies and playing, so it really hasn't been too bad so far. Our county has been under a tornado watch for the past 24 hours and I'm really hoping that it doesn't happen. Like REALLY hoping.

The storm has also ruined my plans for training extra hard this weekend for the mini triathlon I have coming up next weekend. I could really use the extra practice swimming or biking or running. I mean, it was nice to sleep in past 5:45, but I think I would have rather been out training. I don't want to crash and/or drown on the day of the race.

But Lee is not all bad, I have been forgetting to water my lawn since we're only supposed to do it in the morning or evening, and I don't remember until it's too late. So some areas are looking a little (okay, ALOT) parched. Anyway, my lawn is loving that is raining and so I guess I'm glad someone's happy about it.