Happy Halloween 2010!

If you know us, you know that the Silvestros LOVE Halloween. The season kicked off last week when Addie and I made Pumpkin Pie Playdoh. It smells SO good.


Addie decided a few months back that she wanted to be Curious George. Even if she wanted to be George just for that one day, she didn't realize that the balls had started rolling in her mommy and daddy's head to come up with a good family ensemble costume to accompany George. Last week she decided to be a cheerlearer. Sorry, chica, the decision was done, no more mind-changing like last year.

So we hit the thrift store, Target, the fabric store, and Michaels craft store to pull it all together. Here Addie and Steve are "cooking up" some of Steve's costume.


Addie all dressed up as Curious George for the Halloween parade at school on Thursday. Note, the mask was no longer part of her costume after this picture.


Trying to get a group of 10 two-to-three-year-olds together for one picture is the true definition of chaos.

At least we got a cute picture in!

Grandpa Gabi came for a visit over Halloween weekend! I honestly don't think anyone in the world but Addie could have convinced him to wear a blue wig, a scarf, and a bracelet. No, he did not wear this trick-or-treating :)


Cole having a giggle with Gabi

Cheese!

Gaga, Dan, and Gabi came over Halloween morning to sample some of Steve's famous pancakes and to help carve Jack o' Lanterns


Dan kept Cole safe from the little knives and pumpkin seeds

Check out our cool o'lanterns!
The fam left and we all napped. Then we headed out while it was still light out to put spiderwebs all over our bushes.


While we were webbing up our house, we bundled Cole up in this adorable pumpkin outfit.

A natural little model


We had mummified sausages and goblin fingers for dinner.


Addie and I working on a special treat...

..."Ghost" bananas for dessert

Oh you want to see the rest of our costumes? Okay :) Last night we went to our friend Kate's Halloween party and debuted the ensemble....

From left to right: Starring Cole as a Chiquita Banana (you know, cuz Monkeys eat bananas...), Steve as The Man in the Yellow Hat (Curious George's lovable, but somewhat irresponsible owner), Monica as an "Animal Control" representative, and...of course, Ms. Adeline Eve as the cheeky monkey, Curious George.


And then we had a photo shoot at home tonight before trick-or-treating

George eyeing the delicious little banana

George and his friend, the Man with the Yellow Hat

George, about to be captured by animal control

Animal control doesn't want to take George away from his friend, Animal control just wants to give the Man the "Idiot's Guide to Responsible Pet Ownership." Man with the Yellow Hat, please stop randomly disappearing so your monkey can make trouble and then showing up at the last minute AFTER George has already redeemed himself

One last family shot (thank you, self-timer! Addie took the above shot--not bad, eh?) before heading out.


We all headed out to the neighborhood for Addie's first real trick-or-treating experience! Cole and I only stayed for the first handful of houses. Then our little banana started smelling questionable, so home we went to change a diaper and hand candy out to the other kiddos in the neighborhood.


Addie had a BLAST and couldn't wait to get into her loot.


I'm happy to report that even after 4 pieces of candy before bed, she fell fast asleep, PHEW!

We kept telling Cole that he isn't old enough to eat candy yet, but that didn't stop him from trying. Over and over and OVER again. Caught in the act :)

So all in all, Halloween 2010 was a blast. This day kicks off the holiday season, so it sounds like we're in for a couple months of fun, food, and family! Bring it on!

7 months And T-minus 3 weeks till 3

Wait, who's 7 months already?

That's right...Cole is! Can you believe it? (please pretend I didn't just publish his 6 month update less than a week ago...thanks).


He has had some rough times lately pushing out 1 tooth and another is on the way. OUCH. The other night he went down around 7:30 pm as usual, but woke up at 10pm crying. We spent a good 2 hours doing everything we could think of to try and get him to sleep and finally at midnight I gave up and brought him down to tire him out for an hour. Yes, this is him happy as a clam in the middle of the night. Kid's going to be a partier.


Cole has been a sitting champ since before 5 months, but we always had to put him in that position. Until one morning we come in to find him already sitting.


Yes, we have lowered the crib mattress already--don't want him learning to pull up and over!


This kid is all over the place--he can make it across the room and you're not even sure how it happened--sometimes he scoots on his butt, and other times he just keeps pivoting all the way around on his stomach. He's not "officially" crawling but it's pretty imminent--he gets up on all 4's all the time and I think I saw a coordinated hand-knee movement today, but I'm not quite sure.


He's an eating machine these days. He was fussing through meals of purees so we gave him some "finger foods" of well-cooked apples and carrots, and the boy shoveled it in his mouth by himself like a pro. Here he is trying to eat this giganto squash that I got at a farmer's market. He preferred it in a much softer state.



He also likes baby mumum crackers...of course. His sister was obsessed with them at his age. The stuffed animal in his hand is his lovey "Chewy" (same type of stuffed toy as Addie's lovey Hiccup. We named him Chewy because he chews on it...and because Steve is a Star Wars dork ;). We have a spare (because you should always have a spare lovey!) and Addie calls him "Extra Chewy" which makes us laugh.



Cole LOVES water. Seriously, it's like he's been in the dessert every time he gets a hold of his sippy cup. And if you get a glass of water for yourself, he laughs in delightful anticipation the whole time you're pouring it and then cries if you don't share.

Lots of love in the house :)






And Ms. Adeline will be 3 in a few short weeks!

She is hilarious and has a wonderful imagination. Here she is "mowing" the lawn with her tricycle--she was at it diligently for a good 10 minutes.


She has a handful of imaginary friends named Wap, LehLeh (said with your tongue out slightly), YehYeh (said with the corners of your mouth pulled down slightly), Goldilocks, and Eggy (the newest member of the group). Her friends follow us everywhere (they are often in the car behind us while driving somewhere). Today we got in the car and immediately said "I'm hungry" so I pulled out a bag of the scrambled eggs she refused to eat at breakfast (yeah, I know, I'm mean) and she politely said "no thank you." When I said "I thought you said you were hungry" she responded with "No, I said LEH LEH was hungry, mommy." My mistake.

School has gotten a lot better--drop offs are still rough, but she does good during the day. She also loves playing school at home. There are papers with markings ALL OVER the house.


And she still loves LOVES ballet class. I'm not one to brag (who am I kidding? This whole blog is bragging about my kids) but the other day the teacher said "Class, watch how Addie does it" when doing a particular jump.


She has her own unique sense of style--adding "flair" to her outfits all the time :)

True to her age, Addie can be pretty grumpy still, especially after waking up (she's going to be the type that needs coffee before morning coherency), but overall she's in a much better place than she was during her terrible twos (which started quite early) and the few months after Cole was born that she was completely out of sorts. Steve has been teaching her to meditate and she's doing awesome at taking deep breaths to calm herself down from the waves of emotions that can take over this little cavegirl ;)

But most of all, she's still a lovely, cuddly, snugglebug. She loves to give kisses, make jokes, laugh, dance, sing, and read with her daddy.



A few recent favorite lines:

"Mommy, will you do me a favorite?"

"Well, I'm almost a grown-up acuz I have hair on my legs"

During bath one night, Addie and I were playing Cinderella and Fairy Godmother. I broke character to attend to a fussy Cole and Addie says "Fairy Godmother, I didn't know you had a baby"

Addie was cleaning up and Steve thanked her and she responded with "My pleasure"

No, my lovely, it is ours---all ours :)

Cole is 6 Months....wait....almost 7

Poor second child....Cole is almost 7 months old and I'm just posting his 6 month update now...whoops! (Please conveniently forget that I used to make elaborately edited video montages of Addie at this age...thank you)

He was a whopping 19 lbs at his 6 month appointment! Biiiiig boy.
He's still just a happy happy happy kiddo!

Cole is pretty independent. You give him something he's interested in and even if you want to engage him, he's quite focused on his toy or task. You know, like helping fold laundry.

He loves playing with Addie. Heck, he loves ANYTHING to do with Addie. He wants to be with her, look at her, and do whatever she's doing. She laughs and he laughs along.

Actually, if ANYone laughs, he laughs. He always wants to be in on the joke :)

He's also a bit of a clown. His recent thing is to scrunch up his nose and sniff realllly hard. We laugh because it's silly and cute and he loves making US laugh, so he does it a lot. Snnnniiiiffffff.

We're teaching him games like "high-five" and he totally gets it! We say "high five!" and he laughs (of course) then touches our outstretched hand. Here's "How big is Coley?"

SOOOO Big.


Speaking of big, he's now rocking the shopping cart!

No, he's not SO old that he's a cigarette-smoking morose teenager, but doesn't this shot make it seem that way? That's a green pepper he's smoking, by the way. Nicotine free thankyouverymuch ;)


in conclusion....6 month (er...almost 7 month) old Cole is a delight.

The irony? I wrote this post last week and forgot to send it and he already IS 7 months as of yesterday, but of course....I don't have the 7 month update ready...enjoy for now!