Fall update

Way behind here, so here are some quotes I've been writing down in no special order:

Arthur was riding on my back, piggy back style.
Me:  Are you my little monkey?
Arthur:  No.  I turtle.
I guess he took his Halloween costume seriously.

Eleanor has been into jokes lately and was making up all kinds of stuff at dinner the other night.  None of them were particularly funny, but then she accidentally made up a real pun:
Eleanor:  Why did the orange go to the hospital?
Hunter:  I don't know, why?
Eleanor:  Because he wasn't peeling well.

I was cooking dinner in the kitchen and it was one of those nights where I just wanted to do the job by myself.
Arthur:  Help you, Mama?
Me:  No Arthur, I'm sorry, but I don't need your help right now.  You can go play.
Arthur walked to the edge of the kitchen, started sobbing, and said, "Luuuuuv you, Mama!  [SOB]  Want to HELP you!"
Needless to say, the sweet boy got lots of hugs and I found a random "job" for him to do.  He is the best helper ever - when I bring in groceries he insists on carrying stuff in and I have to keep leaving individual items out in the trunk for him to carry since he can't handle most of the bags.  I hope he still loves to help this much when he's 15!

And pictures!  These are at a petting farm near us.

"Mama, take a picture of me!"

Hayride - they were having more fun than it appears here!

Not sure why they have a fire truck there, but it was Arthur's favorite part!

And these are from Eleanor's class field trip to a local farmer's market

Arthur got in on the action too!

Pictures and more pictures

Today is Arthur's 2nd birthday and I feel like I need to do a big birthday post for him, but first of all I am waaaay behind on this blog.  So I'm just going to try to catch up on the last few months and I'll do a birthday post sometime in the near future.

Eleanor's first day of ballet class!

Arthur had surgery on his neck.  Here he is the next morning - it didn't stop him from building towers!

I found this fun (and easy!) idea on Pinterest.  Just put a little bit of dish detergent in a pan with warm water and let the kids play.  The idea is to let them blow bubbles through a straw, but Arthur kept trying to drink it so I blew bubbles for him every once in a while and gave him other stuff to play with.  They loved it and played with this for a loooong time.

 Eleanor LOVES to dress up these days.

One morning Arthur went and got a napkin, climbed into his seat, and put it on his lap.  I guess he was ready for breakfast!

Nothing special going on here, but this is how I think of my baby boy.  He is growing up too fast!  And for some reason he really loves that random orange string.  (actually a piece of felt)

Admiring the fish...check out how he's standing up on his toes.

Miss red fairy

Eleanor brought this picture home from school one day.  I love how we all have blue eyes except for Hunter, and she gave the baby blue eyes too.

"Fix me some breakfast, Mom!"

The boy loves his legos.  I love watching him clear a space for himself on the table and then climb up.

Wearing her shoes inside Mama's shoes

This cracked me up.  I thought she had been asleep for 30 minutes when she wandered into our room and said that she was being a pirate that night.  Crazy kid!

This is how Eleanor came downstairs after her quiet time the other day!

At lunch yesterday I got sad thinking about how it was Arthur's last day as a 1-year-old and how my babies are growing up so fast.  I took lots of pictures of their sweet faces.  

Living it up on his last night as a 1-year-old!

Kid-isms

Gone are the days of my "Eleanor-isms" posts - there are two talkers in this house now!  I feel bad because I haven't really kept track of funny things that Eleanor has said lately because she says so much every day.  Anyway, here are a few things I actually remembered to write down.

Eleanor:  I am a very fast runner!  I am faster than a roadrunner!  Or an ostrich!

Arthur at dinner the other night:  (pointing out the window)  Green tree, Mama
Me:  Yes Arthur, that's a green tree.
Hunter:  I wish there were blue trees.
Arthur:  YESSS, Dada!  Pink trees too?

Arthur counting to 10 while playing hide and seek:
Two, fwee, four, fwive, seex, sweven, eight, nine, twin, evan, fohteen, fohteen, fohteen, fohteen, fohteen...

Me:  Arthur, what kind of birthday cake do you want?  A train cake?  A turtle cake?  (We had already established that he wanted  a big cake, not cupcakes.)
Arthur: (making a circle motion) Circle cake
Me:  Yes, it can be in the shape of a circle.  But what do you want on top?  Trains?
Arthur:  No.  (makes circle motion)  Circle cake!
Hunter:  You will have a circle cake.  But do you want anything on top of it?  Maybe turtles?  Or fish?
Arthur:  No!  Circle cake!  (thinks a little)  Candles.  Two candles.
Me:  Okay, you can have a plain circle cake with candles.  What color cake do you want?  A blue cake?  A green cake?
Arthur:  CIRCLE cake!!
(a few minutes later...)
Arthur:  Yellow circle cake?

A yellow circle cake it is!  This was last night at dinner, and this morning when he woke up he said, "Hap bee dee to Arfur.  Two.  Circle cake.  Yellow circle cake!"  Can you tell what was on his mind?  :)

Big News!

Our family is growing!  I am almost 10 weeks along and due March 26, and we had the first ultrasound today.  We had not told the kids about the baby yet, but they got to come along and it was really fun to see Eleanor's reaction.  She was definitely excited and she kept calling it "the cute little grape baby".  "Mama, look at that cute little grape baby!  It is soooooo cute!"  The baby moved a little bit while we were watching and she kept asking me if that hurt me.  Of course, I can't even feel it at this point!

Eleanor really really wants this baby to be a girl.  If it is, she thinks we should name it Elly or Ella...because that wouldn't be confusing with Eleanor as a sister!  Hah!  And if it's a boy, she thinks we should name him Poopasaurus "because babies poop a lot."  She cracks me up.  My favorite part is that she kept asking me throughout the day if I love the baby.  Sweet, sweet girl.

Arthur's reaction was, of course, a bit more subdued since he is pretty oblivious to the whole thing.  When we asked him if he thought the baby would be a baby boy or a baby girl, he said, "Baby tortoise?"  (In his defense, we did actually see 6 baby tortoises this morning that had just hatched.  It was so amazing!)

Just a word about the picture...  I have to admit that I didn't come up with the idea myself, but I found it on Pinterest.  I saw a lot of ideas that have kids holding/wearing something with a 1, a 2, and then a 3 on the mom's belly, but of course Eleanor was not my first so I didn't want to go that route.  Getting this picture was not easy because Arthur kept holding his sign to face the sky, but they really did such a great job.  Of course, candy may or may not have been offered as a bribe...  ;)

Catching up

Summertime fun at the fountains

(Arthur was not a fan)

Birthday girl!  4 years old!

Her only birthday request: red fairy wings

We went to a sea turtle release at the Barrier Island Center in Melbourne Beach, and Eleanor got to help paint a new mural

Buela came to visit!

Hunter made Arthur his own chair to match his sister's.  I love that he can now get in his chair by himself instead of begging me to lift him into the high chair while I am trying to prepare food.

He was SO happy to sit in his chair the first time!

First day of VPK!

(Pre-K, K4, whatever you want to call it)

Arthur LOVES to water the plants.  He was trying to figure out how to squirt water into the watering can.

Way too many shots of this, but how cute is he?!