Bloomsbury Farms

We went out to Bloomsbury Farms in October during the Hawkeyes bye week. Isabella had a great time jumping on the Jumping Pillow, riding in the barrels, seeing animals, and lots of other stuff. Bella also really liked this big slide they have, she liked it so much that she ran right back up and cut in front of the entire line and went down again. I wish I could say she only cut in front of one or two people, but it was a lot longer line than that. We do have pictures of Evie to prove that she was there as well. We have a picture below of her next to the measuring stick and also of her sleeping next to Tyson. My favorite pictures of the day though were Bella on the jumping pillow. You also have to check out one of my favorite videos of all time at the end of the post where Bella looks like she gets shot out of a cannon. I recommend watching it in slow motion so you can see how the expression on her face changes as well as the imminent doom.




Bella's impersonation of David Lee Roth.

















Bella doing her Wrestling moves on Aiden















Evie and Tyson taking a snooze

Banwarth Halloween Party

Since my parents were in town Robin and I were able to go to the annual Banwarth Halloween Party. Abe and Brandee always do an unbelievable job with the party, they decorate the entire house and always have awesome food. We also got to meet up with friends that we don't see very often. My parents brought us the gorilla costume and this blonde wig. We were able to put together some nice last minute costumes, although I would say that mine was most disturbing.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We posted a video of Isabella reading 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'.

Halloween

On Halloween morning we decided to put the girls in blond wigs. It did take some convincing to get Bella to keep it on and take some pictures, in fact I believe she was bribed with the promise of candy. Evie looks like a doll, we had just put some Aquaphor on her face so it glistens in all of the pictures.We went out trick or treating around our cul-de-sac and Evelyn kept up the tradition of wearing the Tiger costume. The tiger costume is almost 40 years old and Evelyn is the 5th person to wear it and thus far is the youngest as well at 6 months. Bella was a bumblebee and enjoyed being outside, but did not seem to care that much about the trick or treating, but she certainly got her share of candy. Grandpa dressed up in the Gorilla costume and although Bella saw him to get into the costume she was quite hesitant in sitting next to him. You can see in the picture that she would not sit right next to him, but at the end of the photoshoot we asked her to give grandpa a kiss and she did.

Tiger Costume lives on and on Part Deux

Robin originally did a post regarding the tiger costume 2 years ago when Bella continued the tradition of the costume hence the reason this post is entitled part deux. The costume is almost 40 years old and was originally worn by my brother John. It was then worn by me 5 years later and then my sister Jillian wore it 8 years after that. It had been at my parents house unused for 24 years until Bella wore it in 2008. Evie was able to keep the tradition alive of wearing the Tiger costume despite being the youngest to ever don the suit at a mere 6 months. Below is a picture of everyone wearing the costume.

John 1971

Jeff 1976

Jillian 1984

Isabella 2008

Evelyn 2010

Halloween at daycare

I apologize for the late post about Halloween, we are very far behind on the blog and will try to catch up over the next few weeks. I was able to do trick or treating with Evie and Bella at daycare as we went around the businesses in the area. Bella dressed up as a bumble bee and Evie was, well we are still not quite sure what she was. I think she was a horse, while others debated that she was anything from a cow to a horse to a giraffe. I have added a couple of pictures so you can draw your own conclusion. Anyway we did trick or treating for nearly an hour and I thought my arms were going to fall off from carrying Evie the whole time. Evie ended up falling asleep at the end of trick or treating and got to take a nap in her costume.

6 Month Checkup for Evelyn

Evelyn had her 6 month check up a couple of weeks ago (it was closer to 7 months for her, but oh well). We got to talk to the doctor about a lot of our concerns. Evelyn’s sleep habits were not good and she’s not really rolling over. The doctor told us not to be too concerned about the rolling over as long as she’s kind of pulling herself up on her stomach (which she is) and she’s also sitting up really well. As for the sleep stuff, I thought for sure I’d be told not to keep feeding her in the middle of the night, but the doctor said it was okay. She thought it would be wiser to work on a better bedtime routine (putting her down to sleep when she was drowsy rather than asleep) before being concerned about her getting up in the middle of the night to eat. So, a few nights later we started doing that and it has worked wonders. She is getting a lot more sleep at night now. (and us too, yippee! – although we are still completely sleep deprived). We finished off the appointment with lots of shots.

We started her eating some baby food and she is starting to gobble it right up. We’ve tried green beans, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, peaches, pears, bananas. She seems to like the fruit more than the veggies. We also have tried a couple of meat ones which she gagged on and I don’t blame her because I practically gag when I open the jar. Looking forward to giving her finger foods (she’s always trying to pull food off our plates and tried to get some of Isabella’s fruit snacks) but she needs to be crawling before we can do that and she seems quite a ways off from crawling. (does not like the tummy time!)

Here are her 6 month stats

Height: 28 inches (95th percentile)

Weight: 16.5 lbs (45th percentile)

Head: 17 inches (95th percentile)