What a Blessing they are!!

Happy 7 Months Beautiful Girl!My 2 Sweet Blessings!

So tonight we will collect money for UNICEF and Malachi can use this little bag I whipped up (ha ha, it actually took a couple hours) to collect some candy.

An Idea for Halloween

I struggle with the idea of taking my 2 year old around the neighborhood to ask for candy that he otherwise would not be allowed to eat. Then having to fight the whining about why he can't eat all of it at once. I like the healthy treat ideas that Mama Manifesto suggests to give to trick-or-treaters but I found another idea that I think is fabulous.

In the book The Catholic Home, which my friend Jessica told me about, the author, Meredith Gould, suggests Trick or Treating for UNICEF. I went to their website today and printed up the canister wrapper. I am not sure how it will work. I may not be able to get around the candy thing completely but maybe this will give Malachi something better to focus on instead of the "gimme" attitude that pervades this holiday and our culture.

We've been busy

I haven't posted for over a week and figure I will write in order to fill people in on what has been going on at our place. We have been purging and organizing our garage. The main task at hand was to bring all of our, I mean Kurtis' :), books back indoors. For those that don't know, he has his own library.
I banished the bookshelves out to the garage before Malachi was born because we were drywalling and putting in flooring. I was happy they were out there, Kurtis was not but he lovingly let me have my way. All that changed this weekend and our walls are once again lined with books.
It is sweet honey to Kurtis' soul to have his books easily accessible however they are easily accessible to our darling-crawling-all-over-the-place daughter as well. We found out Ikea actually sells doors for our bookshelves that cover the bottom three shelves, now to figure out how we can get those cheap...Craigslist maybe.
THAT brings up a very irritating subject. For some reason I am not able to post on Craigslist. Can't get a response from them so I have no idea what's wrong. Don't know if we got blacklisted or flagged but if anyone out there can be of any help...with all this purging, we have a bunch to sell so it is driving me mad!!

Goat Hill Junction

Yesterday we visited Goat Hill Junction. Every third Saturday and Sunday of the month you can ride the miniature train for free. Kurtis and Malachi rode while Zoe and I sat it out since the sign said you can't hold kids on your lap, they have to be able to sit on their own. Technically, Zoe can sit on her own but it worked out fine for Papa and son to share the experience.

Already???

Zoe has already started pulling herself up on furniture. Yesterday she pulled herself up on the dishwasher. I took a couple photos for evidence but somehow I deleted them from our camera before I got them on the computer. :( I don't think I am quite ready for this stage. I will have to post some pictures the next time I can catch her in action. She was oh so proud of herself!

2 1/2

Malachi is a joy and a challenge :) these days. He amazes us each day with the new things he is learning. We love watching his personality develop and often crack up at the ideas he comes up with.

He enjoys playing with his cars, reading, going to the store, and loves chocolate milk! (well anything labeled as "dessert" really.) He can be a little introverted at times when around a lot of other kids, but has no problem asking adults questions when we are at stores. He is now very big into asking "Why?" which is a lot of fun! I tried to interact with him last night via the camera and this is what we got.

A New Kind of Crawl

The crawl of choice, the Army crawl - good for getting somewhere fast, especially when on the wood floor.


Slowly becoming the crawl of choice...

Yes, I am cracking up at that crazy left arm. Kurtis and I wonder if she is already working on that leftie swing for hitting the volleyball. ;)

Friday Favorite

We have been reading the book The Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis quite a bit lately. I love to read books that pertain to the season. This is a fun one with great rhyme. I read it today with my son and 3 other toddler friends and then we made a construction paper jack-o-lantern. We talked about the shapes as they glued the eyes, nose and mouth on to their orange pumpkin. The Granny in the story makes yummy pumpkin foods at the end of the story, Malachi and I want to try these pumpkin spice muffins...I wasn't about ready to try baking with 4 toddlers, though I considered it :).

What is your favorite book for the fall season?
Add it to the list for Friday Favorites at withpurpose

6 Months! How Time Flies!

Zoe had her 6 month appointment yesterday. She's growing up way too fast, so is Malachi for that matter. She is babbling and squealing all the time, sits on her own without toppling over, army crawls all over the house and can go from sitting to crawling and back to sitting. And apparently is off the charts in length, it is anyones guess whether she will be taller than her brother.

Rethinking Christmas Planning

Not too long ago I wrote this post about getting ready for Christmas. I am 15 days into it and have finally accepted the fact that 100 Days to Christmas is a little bit too organized for me. I love the idea, but have failed tremendously at doing each days 'assignment.' Lo and behold, I hav e found another blog that has a list to help with planning. Let's see if I can follow this one, at least a tad bit more than the first. I am hoping since it is broken up by weeks, I will find time to do it. I have enjoyed reading simplemom's great ideas to simplify, but admittedly I don't always take the time to implement. So let me give this a whirl.