Halloween 2005

Roman's new buddy, Matthew Jennsch, from soccer and his mom, Kary, met us at our house for trick-or-treating this year. The kids had a blast and boy did they rack in some loot this year!

Bethany 2 year Stats

Bethany had her well-baby checkup today. She is 25 lbs (25% - woohoo! First time above the 15% since birth!) and 33 1/2 inches long (50%). She is "perfect" to quote the doctor! She found Bethany to be very well spoken for her age and advanced in nearly all areas. Of course we've always known this! She even commented on how well she can hold a tune as she broke out into her rendition of "Old MacFarmer" in the middle of the checkup. We discussed the hair pulling and she does not feel it is a problem, just a stage, but we will continue to keep close watch over her. She has been eating us out of house and home, so I suspect we're in for, yet another growth spurt this coming month. She has already maxed the 18 and 24 month pants in length and is wearing 2T's now with a few 3T's even. Her foot size is up to a 7 1/2, but quickly approaching 8's. Boy, is she taking after her brother with those feet! Roman also has shot up drastically on us and is maxing length in the size 6's we just bought him at the beginning of the school year - 2 months ago - and will be needing all new clothes again before winter even arrives!

Bethany's Birthday Party

Bethany's party was Saturday and we had a blast! It was so much fun! We went to the pumpkin patch at Chesterfield Berry Farm. Jon, Alicia, Steven and Garrett; Kari, Kermit, Abigail, and Megan; and Barbara all met us there. Hadn't been there in 2 years and boy has it grown! We started off with a barrel tractor pull ride that the kids just loved. Then to the bounce house. It was so cute watching her in the bounce house with all her friends and family. Her chicken legs kept sliding down and she'd just fall over and lay there being bounced around. Such a little goof! Then it was onto the haywagon ride out to the fields to pick out our pumpkins. We got some good pictures in the pumpkin patch. Finally a stop in the corn pit - literally a pit filled with feed corn nearly knee deep on me. The kids LOVED this. And ended with a quick run through "Pirates Cove" a cheesy kid-friendly haunted house. Then it was back to our house for some yummy chili and grub - I made an entire, large crock pot full of chili and I barely had enough left to cover 2 chili dogs, so someone must of have liked it! LOL Jon and Alicia couldn't make it back to the house for dinner as they already had plans, but Mike, Adrienned and Joshua were able to make it over for dinner, so that was fun. A round of pin the tail on the donkey then cake/ice cream and presents. It was a wonderful time! Bethany looked adorable in her chicken costume! Check out all the pics:

Bethany's Birthday Cake

Bethany's Birthday Cake

I saw this cake (okay, similar) on the Wilton website and just loved it. Of course they had icing animals and a silo and everything, I simplified it, but still, the results came out great! My first attempt at cake decorated started with Bethany's 1st birthday last year. Let's just say I've come a long way in the last 12 months!

(in case you can't tell, her party theme for this year was Fisher Price Little People Farm.)

More party details to come....

Roman's 1st Real Play Date

Roman had his first play-date today with Matthew Jennsch. Matthew is a little boy from his Fall soccer team. James and I like his mother, Kary, a lot and felt comfortable enough for Roman to go over to their house for an afternoon of fun. He ended up staying for dinner and I think would have spent the night if we'd let him. Baby steps... mommy's still catching up with this letting go stuff!

Balding B Update 2 - We Chopped it Off!

Bethany's hair is GONE! We took her tonight to chop it off. They actually left more than I had expected, but the hairstylist was one of their best and said it should start filling in fine from there as long as she stays off it. I've busted her twice trying to pull on it since then and it's only been 3 hours! ARGH!!! Hopefully she will not find enough left to really bother and will soon give up. That's the plan at least. Actually it looks so much cuter than I ever imagined!

Balding B Update

Bethany continues to lose hair by the fistful. We correct her when we catch her, but come on, she's a very active toddler, we can not possible keep our eyes glued on her hands 24x7! I also have been sticking a glove on her hand when I notice her getting sleepy-eyed. That seems to be when it's at it's worse. I just don't know what else to do! She sucks on 2 fingers on her left hand, so it's only her right hand causing problems... which makes it all the worse imo. She has always carried a Barbie or My Little Pony, or some other baby doll with realish hair texture and has pulled out several wads of hair there, but I don't mind that, she can have ruin all the toys in the world if she'd just leave her own hair alone! So frustrating!

Multi-Lingual Kids

Roman starts a multi-lingual after school class today. I completely forgot all about it, but fortunately James remembered so I called the school at lunch to confirm it starts today and told them to make sure Roman's teacher knows he's not catching the bus home since we didn't tell him about it - since I completely forgot we even signed him up for it. LOL It's supposed to be casual vocabulary in 4 different languages... Spanish, French, German, and Japanese. He can already count to at least 10 pretty fluently in Spanish and knows some of the numbers in all four and a variety of Spanish and German words and phrases already. I personally hated French, so other than counting have steered clear of that one at home. I don't remember too much Japanese, but after years of karate, just couldn't get the counting out of my head. LOL Hopey is speaking more and more Spanish everyday thanks to Dora and LeapFrog. Fortunately it's Latin-based and similar enough to French for me to keep up with her. I keep telling James we're going to have to find a Spanish class soon or we won't be able to communicate with her. LOL I'm not complaining, I think it's important for all the kids to comfortably speak at least one other language.

A Balding B

My little Bmonster not only sucks her fingers and bites her nails, but has recently tossed her matted hair Barbie's and My Little Ponies for hair twirling. Hair twirling in itself isn't bad, Roman does this too and has since he was a baby, but Bethany twirls her hair then yanks it out by the handful! I noticed Friday she seemed thin on one side and thought it was just a bad hair day. Then we dug 2 hairballs out of the child's mouth wrapped tightly around her fingers and I started paying closer attention. Sure enough she's literally pulling all her hair out! She looks like she has a one-sided mullet! It's really short, spikey and you can see the scalp on the side she's pulling on. She's beginning to look like a shaggy haired dog with mange. It's HORRIBLE!!!