Nighttime Party

When Hope first came home, we co-slept with her. We did that for about 4 weeks before we finally moved her to the pack 'n play. At first the pack 'n play was right next to our bed, but we have slowly moved it further and further away. Mike and I have a sitting room attached to our bedroom and that is where she sleeps now. At some point we will move her in with Mary Kate, but that is still a little while away.

Last night it took Hope almost 1 1/2 hours to fall asleep after we put her to bed. That is pretty unusual, but since she wasn't crying I didn't check on her. We could hear her jabbering happily through the baby monitor. She did eventually fall asleep. When Mike and I went up to bed and checked on her, this is what we found:



Her pack 'n play is near our bookshelves, but we thought we had her positioned so that she couldn't grab anything. We knew she could touch some things, but we didn't think she was at a good position to be able to actually grab anything.



Apparently we were wrong. She managed to get her hands on a folder full of information and she pulled the entire folder apart. Mike and I laughed so hard at the image of our daughter sleeping among all those papers. We cleaned out her pack 'n play and moved it a little further from the bookshelves to hopefully avoid having this happen again.

Lost Tooth and Pacifier

Yesterday was a big day for Micah. He finally lost his first tooth! He turned 7 in July and was very aware of the many children who were younger than him who had lost multiple teeth. He was anxious to join them. I sent him off to school yesterday with basically no loose teeth and he came home with one tooth gone and another one hanging on by a thread. Apparently he was goofing off on the morning bus and took a girl's mitten and put part of it in his mouth. She grabbed her mitten and yanked. Out came a tooth. It was BARELY loose... meaning, if you tried really hard, you could make it move a tiny bit. He said it hurt, but he didn't cry. He also said it bled, but he just swallowed his blood. Nice. Last night he put the tooth under his pillow and this morning he found $1 and The Tooth Book by Dr. Suess in it's place. My children don't believe in Santa, tooth fairies or Easter bunnies, so he knows it was just Mike and I. In fact, the first words out of his mouth this morning were, "Thanks for the money and the book." I was pleasantly surprised by his manners.


The past couple of days, Hope has been really fussy. I can't pinpoint anything that's causing it. My only thought is that she is probably dealing with feelings of insecurity caused by the adoption. She is wanting to be held all the time and she is being very sensitive. We have had periods like this before and they always pass. In the meantime, she discovered a pacifier that belongs to a babydoll. Apparently she knows just what to do with it because she has been doing a lot of this lately:


What a nut!! At least it's providing us with some moments of peace. :)

Halloween

We took the kids trick-or-treating tonight. We went to a local college that opens up their apartment buildings for kids to come through every year. I love this option for three reasons: 1. It's easier to stay warm 2. It's safer (no fear of kids getting hit by car) 3. It's quick!!! Trick-or-treating started at 6, we were home by 7:10 and all four kids were sleeping by 7:30. Beautiful!!! Sweet Hope was the highlight of my night. She was not timid AT ALL. She made herself known and pushed herself up to the candy bowl at each apartment door we came to. It was as if she had been trick-or-treating all her life. It was so cute!!!! Here are some pictures of my munchkins:

Group Shot


Batman (aka Micah)


Superman (aka Samuel)


Cinderella (aka Mary Kate)


Frog (aka Hope)

Pumpkin Carving

We spent the evening carving pumpkins. Daddy did all of the work, although Micah really wanted to be in on the action. He was allowed to help with clean up. :) We were hoping to watch our Charlie Brown Halloween DVD tonight, but we ran out of time. We will have to do that tomorrow night. Here are some pictures of our finished products:

Fall Fun

Here are a few pictures of the kids helping daddy rake the leaves. The pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes are from when we took them to Boo at the Zoo.

Apple Orchard

The day after our unfortunate Pumpkin Patch experience, we took the kids to an apple orchard to go apple picking. We had gone last year with one of Mike's brothers and had a wonderful time. It never crossed our minds that the peak harvest of apples might be over. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we were told that there was no more apple picking for the season, but they were allowing the public to go tomato picking. So that's what we did. Who doesn't love a good tomato in the fall?

Pumpkin Patch

A couple of weekends ago, Mike and I decided to take the kids to the pumpkin patch one Friday evening. It was about a 25 minute drive to get there. We arrived at 5:55pm only to notice that we didn't have any shoes for Hope and that the pumpkin patch closed at 6. What a disappointment. However, the owner was really kind and let us take a quick tractor ride out to the patch to pick our pumpkins. Afterwards, we were able to hang around the farm and enjoy the farm animals and play area, even though the farm was technically closed. So, it all worked out OK. Even Hope didn't mind being barefoot too much.