Happy Halloween!

Happy trick-or-treating from our three little pumpkins! Costume pictures coming soon......

*Scroll down for another new post. Yep, twice in one day! For some reason, even though I published it today, the date stamp says yesterday since that's when I started it. Anyway, enjoy!

Da Boys

Hard to believe, Maguire and Alex are 9 months old already! They had their 9 month well-baby checkup last week, and both boys are healthy and exactly where they should be, developmentally. We are experiencing the joy (no sarcasm, of course) of babyproofing for two babies. Not so much different from one baby, you think? Well, what one baby gets into, the other observes and improves upon. Or uses his brother as a step stool to reach higher. You get the idea. Here are a few snapshots of the boys over the last few weeks.

First time in restaurant high chairs. I am sure the wait staff cursed us as we left the place -- I remember how much I hated cleaning up tables of patrons with small children in my pre-kid waitress days!

Maguire, all decked out in his new sweats (thanks, Bouche family!) and tennies.

Alex, the future cheer team captain (nice cheerleader sit!)


Aye, aye, captain!

"Small hole in outlet...irresistibly drawn to it....must stick my finger into it......"

Maguire is the master of squeezing into the small spaces lately. Under the entertainment center shelving (note the duct-taped shut pop-out doors -- again, we're nothing if not classy!)...

The bottom shelves of coffee and end tables.....

He even sleeps goofy! Okay, it was only once that we caught him like this, but too cute not to capture.

And never fear, before I get razzed for having no Ellie pictures, here's photographic proof that the girl is alive and well, with a big post coming soon about her MN birthday party. And yes, she does wear the tiara out of the house on a regular (almost daily) basis.

Check out the difference in how the boys' hats fit. Same exact hat, but while Alex's could probably be pulled down past his nose, Maguire's barely covers his ears! That's what we get for having one child with a head in the 25th percentile, and one who's head is off the charts!

Doesn't seem possible that our little babies are 3/4 of a year old already! We leave you with a rare moment of peace and quiet.

One Last Hurrah?

We spent what may have been the last nice day of fall* yesterday at a local park. I slaved all morning to prepare our organic, well-balanced, and oh-so-nutritious lunch (see McDonald's bags on picnic table) and we were off to play as soon as Chris got home from work.

We spent a lot of time on the swings, although we are not sure how much longer the boys will fit in the same swing. Soon we will be running back and forth between three swings, alternating pushes.

Ellie experienced her first underdog from Daddy yesterday. Okay, maybe it was a little bit more like a side-dog, if you want to get technical.

Check out these chompers!

Here's a little video of our swinging fun. Beware, this video is not for those who easily become motion-sick! :)

Of course, our trip to the park is never complete without a game of Pooh Sticks. For those of you not familiar with Winnie the Pooh, it's basically throw-your-stick-in-the-river-and-see-whose-goes-under-the-bridge-fastest. Always a good time. Then it was home for naps and we must have played hard, because Ellie actually took one!

*Yep, I am pretty sure that it was the last nice day. Today is cold (42 degrees!), cloudy, and rainy -- so are the next several days in the forecast. Sigh. At least it's not snowing yet.

Get Your Motor Runnin'

Christmas of 2006, Grandma and Grandpa Studer got Ellie a little princess bike. At that time, she could reach the pedals, but didn't really get the concept of pedaling just yet. Her helmet was a couple sizes too big as well. And over the past two years she's had a funny relationship with that bike. For a week she'll love to get on it, then she won't want to ride for two months. But last week we were going for a walk to the Lewis Drug store near our house when I asked her if she'd like to ride her bike. She said, "Sure Daddy, I'll ride my bike."

So we headed off. What's normally about a 5 minute walk to the store turned into about a 30 minute walk to the store. But it was worth it. Almost a year ago now, she started to get the pedaling thing down. But our street isn't level, we're on a bit of a hill, so she's either going downhill too fast, or uphill and she can't pedal hard enough. That means we haven't had a whole lot of good practice. But this day would be different.

She really got the pedaling thing down, and even knows how to stop! She can press back on the pedal and, "I stopped Daddy, I can stop!" Steering though, that needs some work.

So enjoy the video of her pedaling herself. It's a momentous occasion in a dad's life when their child learns to ride a bike. Hopefully someday we'll even take the training wheels off. That'll take a little more practice though I suppose...and probably some elbow and knee pads to go along with the helmet.

Ode To The Orchard

So it's Chris on the mic once again. Sorry it's been so long since I've written, but I figure my wife does a pretty bang-up job of keeping you all informed of our family adventures. But I thought I'd log a little time on the keys. This latest adventure, if you haven't figured it out yet, was at the apple orchard-slash-pumpkin patch. This picture in front of the apple tree has a bit of a back story, and I'll explain coming up, so stay tuned.

Here's one of Ellie's favorite parts of the apple orchard: the face painting. The picture above is her waiting patiently for her turn. She's got a little bit of a sly look as she watches the girl ahead of her get her face painted.
And finally it was her turn. She chose a star. But not just any boring yellow star, oh no. It had to be a pink star, with sparkles. I guess this picture was taken before there were sparkles on it. But believe me, by the looks of her clothes, her pillow case, and her car seat, there were lots and lots of sparkles.
What would the apple orchard/pumpkin patch be without a canned photo-op featuring hay and pumpkins in the background? Ellie smiled nice and pretty, so we thought we'd try our luck at getting all three kids to sit nice and smile...
Yeah...that really worked out well...
But we did eat some hay, which is something new. What true South Dakotan hasn't eaten a little hay in their day right?

Ellie tried to keep Alex close...But there was a lot of crawling away, and more hay eating to be done. At least we tried I guess...
So Ellie got to go on a little "train" ride. Basically just a lawnmower pulling kids in little metal buckets, but it was a good time. But right smack in the middle of the ride came a little cloud burst. It rained pretty hard too...
Alex was fortunate enough to be in the backseat of the double-wide stroller. So he didn't get very wet. But you can see how Maguire's seat ended up...
So he came and hid in my coat...and got a pretty sweet hair-do out of the deal.

There were some pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. But they cost way more than pumpkins should cost, so Ellie just got to hold one. I thought they'd give us an invoice just for touching one, as much as everything else around there cost us. But this touch was apparently free, or no one saw us...
Ellie has a book about a scarecrow we've been reading lately, so we made a pit stop to take a quick pic with this one. She was a big fan of this one too, because it was a girl scarecrow: purple hat, pink lips, and braids.This was my favorite part of the trip. Not just because we were on our way home to take a nap, but because I was filling my face with Kettle Korn. It pretty much rocked. Notice my eyes are closed while I'm enjoying it, and oh yeah, I'm driving.
And this is one of Ellie's favorite parts of the trip. The free apple on the way home. Why is it free you ask? On our way into the apple orchard, there were random people picking apples from the trees. "Is that ok to do?" Carrie asked. "I'm not sure," I replied. And we left it at that. But as we were leaving Ellie says in a whiny tone, "I didn't get any apples, ooohhh..." So Carrie says, "Should we just go grab one?" I said, "Probably not..." But went on to say, "Maybe you go over there and take a picture by the apple trees, and an apple just happens to fall off the tree into your hand..." So that's where the picture of Ellie in front of the apple tree comes from. It was a delicious apple too. And I guess you could say it wasn't free. I think the $25 we dropped on pop, pork sandwiches, face painting, ridiculously awesome kettle korn, and that dinky train ride more than paid for one little apple...

Playing Catch-Up

"Pink eye? Ewww!"

Yes, the Studer house has been infected, but somehow the only ones who actually ended up with pink eye were Chris and I. Nice. Here are some highlights and random shots to catch you up on our house this week.

Ellie's favorite version of peek-a-boo. This is always good for a laugh from the babies, too.

The state of our family room minutes after the kids get up for the day. Notice the super high-tech baby gate between the couches -- yep, it's a card table. We're totally high-class around here, people.

Ellie, deciding last night to hobble around the house being an "old lady."

Alex has now mastered the tiptoe tabletop reach, which calls for another new level of babyproofing.

"And how exactly did you think you were going to pay for that?"

One of the babies' favorite but off-limits toys is Miss Ellie's cash register (another rummage sale find by Grandma!). Since there's real money in the drawer, it's tucked back behind a big basket of toys and a coffee table. But Mr. Maguire has figured out the route under and around the table and basket, and can be found playing cashier many times a day.

Ellie in her bride get-up. Can you guess what she wants to be for Halloween?

And now for more random shots and some videos:

This first video is for Grammie. We know how she loves to do this to make the boys chatter.





Video #2 is Maguire making his favorite new face and noise. When he gets excited, he crinkles up his nose and heavy breathes/snorts. You can also catch a view of his two chompers on the bottom if you look closely.