Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween to all our friends and family!!


Joe making Samuel's Sloth costume, the big guy from the Goonies that says "Baby Ruth."

I was Strawberry Shortcake. I don't like that most women's costumes are made to be sexy. I just wanted something fun and inexpensive.

Joseph and Samuel at our friend's Halloween festival for work. David did a great job and the kids really enjoyed themselves. Joseph in his policeman costume. He loved it and looked so handsome as a little officer.

Samuel as Sloth. We were disappointed that only 1 person guessed who he was. Most people thought he was Superman with suspenders and a pirate hat. Where were all the Goonies fans? Anyhow. Samuel figured out the whole candy bit of Halloween. He walks around asking for "nanny" and saying please so he can eat some.

We also went to a haunted house that Joe's CEO had at his home. It was really cool. Today we are having our family dinner for Joseph's birthday. Yay!! Joseph's meal choice: Spaghetti.

Joseph's birthday party

We thought we would have a house by now, so we needed a place for a birthday party for Joseph. We finally decided on Nickel City, an arcade game place. It was relatively inexpensive and the kids had a great time.

Joseph spinning the prize wheel. They let him do it the first time and he only got 100 tickets and the second time he only got 200 tickets. The guy said that he would let Joseph have 400. Joseph ended up with a cap gun and cuffs for his prizes from his ticket.

Joseph didn't want birthday cake for his party. He asked for homemade cinnamon rolls. So that is what we had. They were really good too.

Joseph with one of his birthday gifts. He loved the gifts that he recieved. He got some "How to train your dragon" toys, some tools, a puppy, and more rescue hero stuff. Joseph also had a lot of fun having his little friends come to a party.

Counting...

Samuel counts every once in awhile. If I say, one he says two. When I was making cinnamon rolls yesterday, he said "eight." He is picking up on more things everyday. He also says "bathroom" and "no (for snow)" and "wet" and "mess." This picture is of him playing with Joseph in the tub with bubbles. I needed to wash dishes and they both wanted to help because there were bubbles in the sink. This kept them occupied for an hour. They were thoroughly soaked and had a lot of fun.

Birthday boy!!

Our Joseph turned 5. How crazy is that!! He is getting so big and so independent. We had to postpone his party because he was sick on Monday with a fever. We stayed home, played with his toys, napped, and just hung out. He was ecstatic that he got mail from Grandma and Grandpa Rankin. He got a rescue heroes robot, which also thrilled him a lot. Grandma Nunez took him to see Toy Story 3. All in all, not a bad day for him, other than his party being rescheduled.

Oh, I guess he did get 5 shots and was sore from that, but other than that, not a bad day for him.

"are you" (sounds like "arroo")

Samuel says more everyday. Yesterday he said, "onion" and today he said "got you." He also started to say "are you" for where are you. He was walking around saying "are you...dada."

Baking

I have been trying to be better about baking things instead of buying them. I have made rolls a few times and also baked cookies the past few Mondays. The cookies have tasted good each time.


Here is the batch of rolls that Joseph helped me roll out tonight. It is Joe's mom's recipe. The first batch of rolls I made didn't rise well, but they tasted good. The second batch rose well but as Joseph put it, "These rolls taste yucks." Joe has been eating the dough which he says tastes better. In a couple of minutes, we should be able to taste the results.


I also made cinnamon rolls for the first time. They were surprisingly easy and tasted super yummy.

We just tasted our first roll. It tasted sooooo good. Yay!! Success(even if I learned that I hadn't rolled them as tight as I should have...better next time around).

Joseph

Joseph has been practicing writing his last name. He can now spell it without help. Here are a couple of pictures of his writing. Notice the illustrations on the letters. The "a" is an alien and the "r" is a policeman.

We have a friend whose name is Cecilia, but she goes by Celia (sounds kind of like seal-ee-a). Yesterday we were in the car going to help her and her husband with some plumbing issues they were having. Joseph was in his seat and then said the following:

Joseph: "I wonder why she chose Celia for a name. If you take off the "ah" it sounds like silly."

Can you tell we have been working on letter sounds. :)

Learning new things everyday

Joseph is in preschool again. This year we are teaching Spanish to the kids. On Tuesday we practiced the alphabet in Spanish. The teacher called each student up and would pronounce a vowel in Spanish and then have them point it out. Joseph got up there and without any help, he identified all of the vowels by their sounds. After class he told me that he "wasn't going to give up Spanish." Of course he still thinks that being brown means that people must speak Spanish. The other day he said that Samuel was getting more brown so he was probably going to speak Spanish.

On the subject of speaking, each day Samuel says new things. He says "owie", "apple", "cheese", "nana", "up", "bite", "rice", "wet", "juice", "no", "bath", "play", "moo", "bird" and much more. Still no complete sentences, but he is showing more interest in saying words. He often mimics what we say. He does let me know when he is hurting. He has a diaper rash and everytime he went poop today, he would sign hurt and then grab his diaper. Samuel didn't even argue too much when I went to change him.

Tonight we went to see Nitrocircus. I will post more on it later.

Etto

We go to the library often. Today we went for Mother Goose, a half hour with songs, a story from a book, and a puppet show. We park in the underground lot which echoes very well. Joseph loves to yell to hear himself. Samuel usually makes a noise but it is not typically loud enough to hear the echo. Today he said loudly, "etto." Immediately after hearing his "etto" he put his pointer finger to his mouth and started to say "shhhhh."

Trouble

Joseph has been testing the limits of what he can and can't get away with. I try to explain things to him prior to going some places, just to make sure he understands. For example, "we are going to Target and we can look at the toys, but that doesn't mean we are going to get one." I try to prep him so there aren't any tantrums. On Sunday he got into trouble a couple of different times because he had some meltdowns and started to yell at me. Joe talked to him and he ended up having to go to bed and it cost him games and toys for all of yesterday. He decided to sneak into his room and started to play with toys while I was making a phone call. I saw him and told him he needed to come out of the room and stop playing. He yelled at me again and earned himself a timeout. I sat him down and gave him a notebook so he could practice writing sorry. He wrote sorry one time and then the following conversation ensued:

Joseph: "Mommy, I wrote down no. How do you spell mommy?"
Mommy: "Why?"
Joseph: "Because I am going to write down "no mommy" on my paper."

Great...who knew an almost 5 year old could be so stubborn (I guess he gets it from both parents). I did have him write down "I am sorry mommy." He wrote it and then got bored.

Samuel is speaking more. Today he came to me and said, "nana (banana)." I asked him to say please and he did. He also said berry today. It was out of context because Joseph was saying "we are going to the liberry." I was trying to correct him and Samuel said, "berry." Joseph started to laugh. Samuel also loves to look for his "dada." This morning he stood outside the bathroom door as Joe was getting ready and kept saying "dada" and pointing with his sippy cup. In the past couple of weeks he has started to give kissies. He kisses us and his cars and sometimes walks around making kissing noises. I did have to stop him from only wanting to kiss me on the mouth. He loves to kiss daddy's nose. Samuel also loves to point to things and say, "dis (this)." He is a cute kid. Boy do I love my boys!!