Musical Arts Schoolhouse Fall Festival

It was what you would imagine at a Musical Arts School, costumes that were created by the students, a parade to showcase them, and a musical dance number to "Time Warp" (Let's do the Time Warp.....Yeeeeeeahhhhh!)

Ava was so proud and did a fantastic job marching around and "flying" as her class was filled with SUPER HEROES! (you'll see her hand up in the air).

We are loving her school and her teachers.











And just because he was such a trooper this chilly morn and just about THE. CUTEST. THING. EVER!

Griffin's First Rice Cereal

And it was very uneventful. He is about 5.5 months now, so I thought we could at least try to start getting the solids thing down. And Ava was just so excited to try it and help out. Well, he was just not interested at all. My only experience with rice cereal was with Ava, and all solids, okay ANYTHING that was put in her mouth (be it vaccines, medicine, etc) was lunged for and gulped down.

But not my Griffers. He was just not feeling it. We also tried formula last week as a trial run for when mommy goes to NYC in a few weeks and he wasn't having that either. Uh oh!

We'll try again soon.

Dancing with Prince Charming

Ava LOVES to pretend that daddy is her "prince charming" -- be still my heart, be still.

The other day she got dressed up and insisted that prince charming dress up for a dance at the royal ball. So daddy, being the amazing daddy that he is, found a suit he wore in a wedding a few years back and put it on. FAN-CEE!

I love these pictures and know that Ava will cherish them forever.

Colorful Rice

I've seen colored rice on lots of blogs, but never knew it was that easy to do. All we did was put rice in a ziploc baggy, added the food coloring, pumped a few squirts of hand sanitizer in there (we were out of alcohol) and let it set over night. The next day, we had three beautiful colors that Aves chose, pink, green and yellow.

Thanks to our guinea pig friends who tried this activity already, we decided to do it OUTside for easier cleanup. Ava dug and searched and dug and searched. It was everywhere and it was just fine.

Four Month Sibling Comparison

3 Month Sibling Comparison

Some BIG Updates on Griffin

Griffin's first tooth broke through on Sunday October 17. It's his bottom left tooth and it just pokes out a teeny tiny bit. I had been checking because, as you can see, he has been a drooly-bear. He has handled teething really well. He is SUCH a pleasant baby. Not too fussy, although he does fuss, it's just not often or for very long. He just hangs out and goes with the flow.

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Are you ready to hear this one?

Griffin slept through the night last night! He went to bed around 8:00 and didn't wake, not even a paci wake, until 5:30 and even then he just took the paci and went back down until about 6:30 am. Woo hoo! I would like to report that I feel refreshed, but in anticipation of him waking, I was awake every few hours. Oh man!

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Ava had Griffin cracking up today in the car, or as she put it, "Mom, he sure is laughing up a storm!"

You were giggling so hard at me yesterday when I told you how sissy takes things from us and said, "Sissy, no swiping!" You thought that was hilarious.

We adore you, Griffin!

Miss Fashionista!

I've been taking pictures of Ava some mornings to document what she picks out for herself to wear. She definitely has an interest in clothes, hence at least 3 outfit changes a day and usually comes up with a decent combination.

Most importantly, can you tell how proud she is of her wardrobe selections?

Wordless Wednesday: Watching Football with Daddy

Pumpkin Muffins

Now that fall is officially here, I got the itch to make a-pumpkin-something. We decided to make pumpkin muffins with a little bit of grated carrot thrown in there (that she couldn't keep her hands off of when making, hehe, I knew it!).

Ava has always loved to cook, but this is the first time that she was a BIG help and made her own batch, poured the batter into her own muffin tin and of course, had to add sprinkles on top!

I can see why little activities like these are gratifying for kids because she was just so proud of herself.

They turned out delish!

Happy 5 Months, My Griffers

Stats:
Wait for it.....

A whopping.....

17 lbs. 5 oz.!!!

He is so big and long and chubby and snuggly and lovey. Oh! I just eat him up!

Vax to Date:
DTaP (1)
Prevnar (1)

Eating:

He really isn't a HUGE eater, which is strange since he is so big. I nurse him every 3-4 hours. However, he is still waking 1-2 times at night to eat and it's turning into a bad habit.

Sleeping:

Still not sleeping through the night. He goes to bed around 8:00ish and wakes again around 12:30ish and again early morning, like 6:00ish. We are working on getting him to give up that middle of the night feeding.

We had to do a little Cry it Out when putting him to bed. It has been pretty successful, as now he doesn't fuss but a little when it's night night time. It was getting to the point where as soon as we turned out the lights, he would start fussing in our arms and that let us know that he knew what was going on and perhaps a bit of manipulation was occurring. What? NOT my baby boy!

Naps are pretty consistent, though not ideal. He goes down around 9:00 am and sleeps about 45 minutes, wakes bright and happy though. He goes back down around 12:00 and sleeps another 45 minutes. And his 3rd nap is around 2:30 and he usually sleeps 2-3 hours.

Clothing and Diapers:
Poopy diapers are down to every 2-3 days. Still a size 3 dipe. Clothing size, mostly 6-12 months.

Tidbits:
He has gotten over hating the carseat. He is a trooper now.

Griffin loves, LOVes, LOVES his big sissy. She is so cute and gets right up in his face and baby talks to him and he just adores it. I love watching their sibling dynamic.

He is rolling both directions and already starting to experiment with pulling his legs and knees up under himself. I can't leave him for a minute without him being at least 3 feet away the next minute.

He is babbling up a storm and Ava was excited to run and report to me, he is making the "mmmmm" sound, she swore he said "mama", lol. He also makes the "bbbbbbbb" sound and "ggggggg" sound, along with the "aaaaaah" and "uuuuuuuh" sound.

He likes it when I pretend I'm going to drop him and say "Whoa", he just giggles and giggles. He also likes daddy blowing zerberts on his cheeks and tummy.

The "AVA" Pumpkin

We were outside hanging out and "stickering" our pumpkins. I went over to check the mail and came back to Ava spelling her name on her pumpkin. Now I know it's not a hard name to spell and she's known how to spell it verbally for a long time, but it's the first time she has picked out the letters to spell it. She just has not been interested in learning her letters, whatsoever. She'll tell me, "I don't want to do this right now" if I start talking about letters.

So this was an exciting discovery for us both! She was very proud.

She asked me how to spell "Mommy" for the other one and we worked together to get "MOM".

Wordless Wednesday: Happy Belated Oklahoma Victory!

Neighborhood Fall Festival

An untimely event, as it took place during our biggest game of the year, OU vs. UT, but Ava and I went anyway. We had a great time finding a pumpkin in the patch, decorating it, Ava got her face painted as a "rainbow princess", we rode a horse-drawn hayride around the neighborhood, talked amongst neighbors, and of course got to see the one and only "Tinkerbell".

She picked a great pumpkin and loved every minute of it!

Beautiful days, park days

More Artwork

"Tater Tots"


"Ant"