Pumpkin Pics

My friend Michelle had the great idea to take our kids to Cosley for some cute Halloween/pumpkin pictures. The day that we went was beautiful and I had my nice camera, so bear with me on the million photos. 

Here are some cute ones of the three boys. If you're not one of my 3 avid readers, I'll remind you that Cam, Kellen and Miles were all born within 6 weeks of each other to guys who were best friends in high school and are therefore destined to a life of photo shoots like this one, whether they like each other or not.

We decided to let Brooke in on the action and she got so caught up with trying to get the boys to smile and look like the moms were that it took a few tries to get a good shot.

Yay for me actually getting in some pictures. Thanks, Kristina!

Some solo shots of the kids. Brooke found this hat in our coat closet and was really excited to wear it.

I was more worried about Miles facing me than I was about his eating the leaf. Oops?

Bears

 

A couple of weeks ago we went over to Scott and Kristina's house to watch the Bears game. Have I mentioned what a huge football fan I am? I was excited to eat chili and hang out with friends, though. Poor Brooke didn't have any Bears gear so she wanted to wear her White Sox "jersey" that was too small. What my kids really need is some St. Louis Cardinals gear. Now that's a team you can get behind...

Miles, Cam and Kellen had fun hanging out. Kellen is in yellow, Cam's in the Bears jersey and Miles is in the white shirt. He is SUCH a drooler that I've had to resort (on occasion) to his wearing a bib outside of meal times. I used to wonder how people could do that to their kids. Mystery solved.

Brooke is kind of fast and loose with these little guys. I didn't capture it, but she's given both Cam and Kellen their first kisses. It's pretty sweet to see how good she is with babies.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

 

Matt's dad turned 60 a couple of weeks ago. He, Matt and Mike took a golf trip to celebrate last weekend so all the girls got together to celebrate with a "girls only" dinner on his actual birthday.

Brooke "read" his cards to him, which was pretty entertaining.

She also had fun wearing Grammie Deb's apron. The picture of all the girls and Brian didn't turn out well on the blog, so you'll have to trust that Jane and I were there.

October is a big birthday month in the Alley family so we got together a couple of nights later to celebrate Matt, Jane, and Will's birthdays, too.  I think Brooke was making Jamie and Will pretend like she was putting them to sleep in this photo? Whatever the story was, she was really into it and (shock, shock) didn't want to stop to pose for a picture. Happy birthday, everyone!

Where Does the Time Go?

Um, goodbye, September? That month flew by. In addition to getting used to our new schedule, Matt had a few events that he was gone for (Hello, Ryder Cup) and we had an influx of (very welcome) guests.

This is post is really more for me to read in twenty years when I think, "What did we spend our days doing when the kids were little?" Our weekly schedule is actually pretty packed: preschool is Monday and Wednesday mornings, our church has a playgroup on Tuesday mornings (and if we miss that {because it's early, we're far away and Miles needs some semblance of a morning nap routine} we usually have another playdate), and I've been able to join a local BSF Bible study - thanks to Debbie for watching the kids at this time - on Thursday mornings. We're done with all of these things by about 11:30, then it's lunch time and nap time. After naps we almost always head out to the playground two doors down. I could not be happier with our neighborhood. It's funny, we moved into our house because of the actual house, but I'm more happy and impressed with our neighbors and all the kids who love on my kids.

In the last couple of days, Matt's been let down by both the White Sox and the U.S. Golf team, so he's clinging to the Bears right now.

 

 These days Brooke is on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. We had a 15-minute meltdown the other day after I told her take off her shoes. Now all of the sudden people are telling me that the threes are worse than the Terrible Toes. Great. She's still a blast 90% of the time.

Lately she's been carrying around her Princess phone "texting" people - usually about what they're eating for dinner. She had also taken to using the word, "Nah" when I'd ask her if she wanted something. I told her it sounded rude, so she should say, "It doesn't matter," instead. So the other day I asked her if she could please eat two more bites of her vegetables and she said, "It doesn't matter." I may need to give her a more universal statement to replace "Nah".

This morning Matt got her out of bed.
M: "What are you going to do today?"
B: "Go to Tah-suh-ye Too." (Cosley Zoo)
M: "You're going to Todley School???
They repeated this exchange a couple of times.
B: "I'll tell Mommy. She'll know."
So it turns out I'm still her primary interpreter. She's actually really good at thinking of explanations for what she's saying if we don't understand her.

Here they are this afternoon at the playground by our house. Happy October!

Da Bears

Matt and his friends have split Bears season tickets for the last couple of years and I was finally able to go last weekend. The weather was beautiful and the company was great, so I was a happy girl. Oh, and the Bears won.

Miles and Brooke were well taken care of while we were gone. I was most worried about Miles due to his unpredictable nap schedule, but I was wrong. We'll also call this The Day that We Learned Brooke is Not Ready to Give Up Her Nap. She's skipped it on occasion with me, but I think due to a combination of us not being around, her already being tired, and me attempting to send her to the party of a classmate without us, she had a major meltdown that Aunt Jamie bore the brunt of. Thanks, Jamie! You can't get too frustrated at a face like this, right?

Cosley

When my parents came in town last week, we headed over to Cosley Zoo to check out the animals and pumpkins, but we were too early for the pumpkins. We still had a good time, despite Brooke being grossly underdressed to the point that she asked, "Mommy, why didn't you bring my coat?"

This is the best photo I could get of her face. She either gives a painful looking grin or stomps around when I ask her to smile for a picture these days. I keep telling her she's going to regret it when it comes time for her wedding childhood-photo-montage, but she doesn't seem to care. Almost-three-year-olds can be so shortsighted.

We also went there with Kali and another friend from preschool today. The girls spent significantly more time playing with the pumpkins, hay, and sand box than they did looking at the animals. Which made it a little easier for us moms to talk, so we weren't complaining. We're heading back next week for some fun pumpkin/hay pictures, so stay tuned.

A Corner Turned

The weather's been really nice lately and we've been trying to suck every last minute out of playing outside that we can. I'm going to blame that on my lack of posting lately. We'll have plenty of time to sit inside in a month or so. A majority of this time that we've been spending outside has been at playgrounds. Historically, Brooke is pretty clingy and cautious at playgrounds. As in, "Can I go down the slide on your lap?" and "Mommy, help me!" every. two. minutes.

But the last couple of playgrounds we went to, she was quite independent and even brave. It's so great to see her becoming more independent. Of course now I'm a little sad that she doesn't need me as much. From what I'm learning, this seems to be a common theme in parenthood.

Here are shots of her and Mati going down a pretty steep slide last weekend. We had a great visit with the Westras. Unfortunately these are the only photos I have to show for it. Blogging fail.