Thanksgiving Bowl-a-rama

We had been getting Luke excited about my family's Thanksgiving bowling tradition for weeks.  I can think of a dozen times where Luke woke up in the morning and asked "Are we going bowling today?  Is today Thanksgiving?"  Finally, the day came.  Luke couldn't wait to get into the bowling alley.  We were almost the only people in the place, and he was wide eyed by all the lanes and lights.  Unfortunately by the time we got the lane turned on, got the bumpers on, found him a light enough ball, and were settled in to bowl - he got a little overwhelmed and didn't want to have anything to do with the activity.  Oh well, Matt bribed him away from the arcade room long enough to throw one ball.  We had a great time, though.  It had been 4 years since we were able to go to my Mackus/Casper side Thanksgiving, too long, and my bowling game showed it:)

Aunt Susan put on a delicious and fun party, and we all stuffed ourselves appropriately.  

Claire needed those pesky tights off so she could crawl circles around the house the whole evening.  Watch where you step people, curious baby underfoot!

Austin and Eric are so grown up!  Both in college.

Nice birds!

Luke LOVES going to Aunt Susan's house.  Tons of fun toys in the basement to play with and people like Melissa and Bryson there who are content to play with him for indefinite amounts of time.

Out little turkey had a plate full of little pieces of turkey, sweet potatoes and veggies.  Yum!

Literally mid-bite she zonked out at the table.  She probably still had food unswallowed in her mouth.  One second she was busily jamming food in her mouth and the next second she was like this.  Tryptophan takeover!

She's walking!

Last week we announced her walking with the walker, but this week Claire actually took a couple steps on her own!  She reached this milestone just a few days shy of her 9 month birthday.  That is about a week earlier than when Luke started walking.  We're so proud of our mobile little lady.

The other big news this week is that Luke received his first "report card"and we had our first parent/teacher conference.

Here are a few snippets from his mid-year report:
"Luke comes to school with a big smile each day".
"He is a thinker and has a good vocabulary which he uses to ask many questions."
"He is very curious about the world around him and dives in fully to explore."
"Luke is great at contributing to discussions at circle time."
"He is a leader in our classroom."

The parent/teacher conference was great.  Matt and I really like his teachers, they seem to be so caring and professional.  They reiterated everything that was in his midyear report, and really had no concerns at all with his development.  Great to hear!

What else happened this week, hmmm.  Well,  Claire ran a fever for just short of 48 hours, which we were concerned about but it seemed to go away pretty quickly.  Luke has started to entertain Claire by saying "Bzzzzzzzz!!" like a bumblebee to her, usually shouting it out of nowhere.  She loves the attention from him and the sound he makes.  Luke has also just begun to get into his stuffed animals for the first time in his life.  He named his dog on his dog blanket "Triscuit" (the one that Katie & Joe gave him when he was born).  I think this name is so cute, and I love that he thought of it by himself.  We don't even have Triscuits in the house that much, I swear!  He also likes to play with "Loopy", the monkey that belongs to me, actually, and has been a part of our home since I got it while on a date with Matt to the zoo.  He set up Loopy and Triscuit on the chair so that they could hear the bedtime stories I was reading him and look at the pictures, too.  Both of these kids are so fun, I tell ya!

Here are a couple pictures from the week.

Birthday party for friend and now fellow 3 year old, Sarah Cohen.  It was at the Kohl Children's Museum, which was really fun for all the kids.  Look at this tiny party hat on Claire!

Cate, Helena and Claire Donovan were there, too

Claire is such a stinkers at mealtime now.  She likes to remove the top part of her tray, for one.  She also refuses to eat baby food, she only wants to feed herself with things she can shove into her mouth with her own chubby fingers.  So she's eating little tiny pieces of real food now, not pureed.  This feels like a big milestone too!  But since she's not really good at feeding herself yet it can be a long, painful and messy process to get a meal into her.  

We enjoyed a visit from my second cousins Judy & Jim..  They were so sweet to come all the way to our house from Waukesha, WI just to spend the afternoon with us.  They are such neat people, and we had a wonderful time visiting with them.

Hi!  I'm the fastest crawler in the West!

Walker Time

Claire was not content with her new super speedy crawling abilities, she had to go right to mastering the art of walking.  She is learning to walk the same way that her big brother did, with the walker.  Here is a little clip of her walker walking:)

Here are some other pics from the week.

I can't remember if I've reported that Claire is in a little phase here where she wakes up between 4-5am and then one of us ends up feeding her a bottle and then sleeping with her on the couch for another hour.  Then Luke wakes up and feels jealous of us snuggling with Claire so wants to get in on the action.  (One of the rare occasions that he wants to snuggle!)

Driving in my car, beep beep

I found an owl in the bath!

Pretty dress for Jackson's birthday party

We got to meet new Baby Benton at the party.  Just 3 months old.

Party was at the YMCA, so fun for all the kids.

Pizza and cupcakes and Lighting McQueen.  What's not to love for a gaggle of 3 year old boys?

Birthday boy

Spending quality time with Grandma Della

Do you have a question?

Making caramel apples

Dad and Matt teaching Luke how to play pool

Aunt Susan came over for dinner, too:)  It was such a cozy and fun Fall day.

Beautiful Fall dinner settings with a delicious feast!

My turn for early morning kiddie snuggles

Here is a little video of Claire and Spumoni.  He is sooo sweet with her.  You can see how gentle he is in this video where she takes the ball from him.

I'll close with a couple Luke quotables:
"But I don't have to go potty!  My penis doesn't have any pee in it!"
"I don't want to be an adult, I want to stay like this!"
"I need to get something with wheels." - this is what he says when he is going to say good night to the parent who isn't putting him to bed.  He vrooms a car/truck/train from his room to the family room to says good night.

Hayride

We had a great weekend enjoying the outdoors with the kiddos.  Luke had a blast playing in all the leaves. This past week Emil ended up spending a couple days in the hospital after his leg wound became infected, but he was out by the weekend.  We're glad to report that it is doing much better now.  Luke told us on the way to the hospital to visit him, "I'm going to ask the doctor if I can kiss Grandpa's boo-boo."  Awww.  The other big news this week is that we found a tick on baby Claire!  It was on her ear underneath the top fold on the inside, hiding.  We found it on Monday, and she must have gotten it the day before when we went hiking.  We got it off and it was a little irritated around the site, but then it went back to normal.  We identified it as a deer tick, though, so we are freaking out about the potential for Lyme's Disease.  The pediatrician said that disease transfer usually takes 72 hours (and hers was on only about 24 hours), and that unless there is a rash or she has a fever, we shouldn't have anything to worry about.  Hopefully that's the case!

Here are some pics from the week.

"Let me out!" or maybe she's saying "Let me in!"

Playdate on Saturday with neighbor Max and his parents Caroline and Steve

Holding my bottle like it ain't no thang

Hit the park on Saturday afternoon while on a bike ride around town.  

Playing in a leaf pile

Luke liked putting leaves on Claire's head

These don't taste that good

Here's a video of Luke jumping into the pike of leaves from a running start.

Her hair is getting so long.  Mealtime is getting messier and messier as she asserts her independence and wants to feed herself.

Matt rigged up this homemade hayride.  Luke LOOOOOOVED it.  

I couldn't tell if he liked the tractor hayride or the jumping in the leaves portion of the activity more.  

Matt pulling the stroller with Claire in it so all 4 of us could go on the hayride.

First year I had brussel sprouts in my garden.  So cool to see them growing on the stalk like this.  They were a little on the small side, but they tasted great!  Luke liked to pull them off the stem.

Visit to see D&E, since Donna was back from CO

Dumping a load of Lukers

We also pulled beets out of our garden.  Luke and I were the only two family members who ate the beets:)

Matt singing along to the music with a suuuper messy Claire bear enjoying the show

Sometimes after dinner it is just easier to strip her than clean her up

Yesterday Luke had his first eye doctor appointment.  He did great and he has perfect eyesight.

Yesterday (11/11) we also had our first snow of the season!  Glad we got all of our Fall family fun in before winter hit.