Happy Halloween!

We had a lot of fun with the rest of our Halloween activities. Here are some pictures to highlight our fun:

Evening with Charlie the Pirate (and his Mommy and Daddy too)!





Dinner and Trick-or-Treating with the Kochs!




Besides all the Halloween fun, Callie and I went to church this morning and she did SO great during the service! We sat up front and she was looking around, bouncing to the music (which was especially fun since MorMor and Bops were playing), giving her scrunchy-face-2-toothed smile to everyone who looked at her, and was just all around adorable. As usual. :)

The Return of the Mad Bee...

...with the added bonus of her little sister Bee!

For the 3rd year in a row, Kona decided to go as the Mad Bee for Halloween. A really Mad Bee. I don't think the fact that her sister going as Happy Bee made her any less mad.




We dressed up the girls today because I ran the Monster Dash 5K with my friend Libby. I survived despite it being only the 3rd time I have run since the beginning of August. I decided to go as a flower, to compliment my two little bees.


I'm not sure I look like a flower so much as a green and pink turkey. Oh well!

Our Halloween festivities continue this evening with a party over at our friends Andy, Jenna and Baby Charlie's house. Tomorrow we'll be making the rounds with our two little bees and then trick-or-treating with the Koch family!

Video

Here is a 2 minute video of Callie in which:

*I wish I knew what is going through her head.
*I inadvertently treat her like a dog to get her to come.
*She babbles to herself and is all around adorable.
*She isn't fast, but she gets to where she wants to go.
*You can see why she has a 98%-ile head.

Enjoy!

Little Creeper from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

Hard Work and Mommy's Girl

Being a baby is hard work! Or at least it looks like hard work...even when it is play time. Callie had a good play session tonight in our basement. She was all over the place playing with her toys and being all around adorable. She so stinkin' smart, too. I tried to block her from going in between our couch and big chair by putting a pillow in the middle of the furniture. She inch-wormed her way over to it and simply pushed the pillow to the side to get through. My brain is so used to fooling Kona with the pillow-type method that I forget maybe a 10-month-old baby is smarter than than a 4-year-old Boxer. :) Here are a few candids from her playtime:






Often, when people see Callie, they say how much she looks like both me and Chris. I definitely see Chris in her, but I hadn't really been able to see myself in her yet (except sometimes when I look at her and it feels like I'm looking at my own baby picture, which is a little creepy!).

Anyway, I was playing around with the camera and Callie tonight and snapped this shot of the two of us, where I can finally see what people are talking about.

I took a bunch of shots like this to see what other faces I'd get from her. After each shot I'd turn the camera around to show her the picture, and she'd point to me EVERY time. I'm her Mommy and she's my girl!

It's Raining Boys...

...or so it has seemed! Seriously, of our close friends or family, we know 1 girl to be born the past year (our high school friend Brent and his wife had baby Kaylee). The rest have been boys: Calvin, Wes, George (Chris' parents' neighbor baby), Charlie, Liam, Everett, Wakelyn, and Teddy. Of the three future babies that we know of, 2 are for sure boys (Baby Johnson-Knapp and Baby Herring) and one is TBD (Baby Wicks). Therefore, I'm predicting Baby Wicks is going to be a girl. I mean, seriously, the odds have GOT to be in my favor, right?

We had a party for Baby Wicks (aka Tubby) last night. It was fun to be with a lot of our old college group and other friends we hadn't seen for awhile.





On to Callie news:
-She is still snotty...her nose I mean. But thankfully, even though it has been a week, she hasn't had any trouble sleeping.

-She has decided that it is way more fun to be on her tummy at all times (e.g. during diaper changing time) so it has taken both me AND Chris to change the past few diapers. She's a strong and fast little bugger! (It is possible that she doesn't like being on her back because this past week we often put her on her back to squeeze out boogies and she HATES it.) She has also learned to arch her back when being put in her car seat. Hopefully these two new things will just be a VERY brief phase.

-She's still inch-worming around and getting into things she shouldn't...now it really is time to baby-proof. And the last bits of peace Kona got before Callie was totally mobile are gone.

-She was kind of close to crawling up stairs last night. Uh oh!

-She's so smart that she wants to order from menus at restaurants.

-She finds herself pretty funny.

Cracking herself up from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

After a great long weekend, it is back to work tomorrow. The fall is F-L-Y-I-N-G by. I feel like I'm going to blink and it is going to be December and Callie is going to be 1...!?!?!?!?

10 Months Old!

Our little Punkin Head is 10 months old today! She is still battling a runny nose, but is doing great otherwise. This morning we went on a nice fall walk with Kylie and Calvin.



And here are a couple of her being adorable as usual:




Last night Chris got her to stand on her own for a few seconds at a time. Of course, she wouldn't do it when I got my camera out. But I caught her being goofy.

Standing...? from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

Old Cold and New Tricks

Thankfully Callie's cold is working its way out of her system. For most of Sunday, Monday and today she had a super stuffed up yet runny nose. The Boogie Wipes and booger sucker worked okay but she HATED them. I'm talking screaming and flailing arms in order to block us from getting at her nose. So we started twisting up kleenex to just stuff up her nose and try to soak up all the snot. That seemed to be the best course of action, and she didn't seem to mind it as much. It just looked funny. :) Hopefully she'll be back to normal tomorrow! In the mean time I've been fighting it with all I've got- lots of Emergen-C packets and hand washing. So far so good, though I know I won't be able to fend it off for ever. But I stocked up on nasal spray since I'm not pregnant nor breastfeeding and can go back to my usual cold remedy routine...fun times for everyone...

Tonight we were over at Grandma and Grandpa's house and saw Chris' Aunt Terese, cousin Hannah and Hannah's daughter (another one of Callie's 2nd cousins) Ayla. Ayla loved talking and singing to Callie, and Callie loved watching Ayla.



She is seriously on the move now...like the cutest and hardest working inchworm you've ever seen.

On the Move! from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

She also can do "Big Girl Up" like nobody's business!

Big Girl Up from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

It is a short week this week which is awesome. It also means that I am not wanting to go to bed when I should. I'm listening to the GLEE soundtrack and all I want to do is sing and dance around. But in order to be somewhat functional and productive tomorrow I need to go to sleep soon and hope to fall asleep as easily as my little one does...even when she is sick.

Weekend Wrap-Up

We had another busy weekend so we're staying put today. CJ (as my sisters call her) has developed a lovely stuffy/runny/congested nose. So we are armed with Boogey Wipes (for real- they are sold at Target!) and a booger sucker. Hopefully it will work its way out of her system soon...though I feel it starting to attack my system as well. Could be an interesting week at the Gosselin house.

Anyway, on to the weekend. We met our triplet cousins on Saturday! Simone, Tyler, and their boys came to town so that the MN relatives and friends could see Everett, Liam and Wakelyn (and older brother Seamus, too!). Here we are with the 2nd generation of Gosselin cousins (I believe they are 2nd cousins...?).


Last night we ended up having Callie stay at my parents' house. Chris and I went to a movie and then met friends out at a bar for some interesting people watching and loud polka music! It was fun to have a night out...we stayed up til midnight! Pretty sure that by the time I fell asleep last night, I had been asleep for 2 hours already on Friday night. :)

We met my parents for brunch this morning and my mom took my new favorite family photo.


After brunch Callie was (supposed to be) super tired so we put her down for a nap. But after about 20 minutes of this:

Nap Time Noises from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

I went upstairs and saw this:


Thankfully she finally fell asleep about 15 minutes later.

Silly baby!

Kona and Callie

I know I talk about the relationship between the two "girls" a lot, but seriously, they are adorable. We have so much fun watching the baby/doggy sibling relationship, that I can only imagine what it will be like adding another human baby to the equation someday! (Not any time soon! haha) :)

I had the day off today since my mom is still in Colorado. It was wonderful to have an extra day with my baby, but we are excited for MorMor to come home! Anyway...this afternoon Callie came pretty darn close to crawling However, it was Kona that was the only motivation Callie had to move around. I tried other toys, books, myself...but the only time she managed to sort of crawl was to go for Kona.

Uh oh! from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

And later, when she was getting pretty crabby, Kona was the only thing that made her not have a sourpuss face.




And if she can't see the actual Kona, then seeing pictures of a bunch of doggies that look like Kona can also calm her down.



For real, she loves looking at our Boxer Magazine. So silly!

The relationship is still very much one-sided, but hopefully Kona will come around and realize, in maybe like 5 years, that it is alright to have a little person bug you non stop and not leave you alone.



Maybe.

Pumpkins and Piano Playing

Since MorMor is in Colorado and Chris is in Duluth, Callie and I went downtown tonight and hung out with Bops. I couldn't resist the photo-op with the pumpkins.





Then Bops and Callie played the piano!

Tinkling the Ivories from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Well, we watched the Twins implode yesterday in NY, so no more blogging about them.

The rest of the weekend was great! On Friday night 2 of my girlfriends from high school, Libby and Casey, came over. Casey brought her 2-year-old Ciri and she and Callie had fun playing.




On Saturday Callie, MorMor, Bops and I drove down to Decorah to visit Mari. Callie was QUITE impressed with her first visit to Luther. Perhaps she'll be joining Reese, Rylan and now little Teddy and soon-to-be Babies Wicks and Herring there in about 18 years??? Let's hope her big head = big brain = huge scholarship! :)





Today was another sewing day, so we went over to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Cathleen was on baby duty while Mary and I got busy sewing. We made another sleep sack for little Miss Callie Joy! A purple one this time!




Because it was so warm again today, I pulled out the Kona, Hawaii t-shirt onesie my parents got for her. It was hard to get a good picture of her and Kona in her Kona shirt...so here's the best I could do:



And tonight while we were at the Gosselins, a certain baby turned into an inchworm:

Inchworm from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

I've been blissfully putting off baby proofing, but it looks like we can't do that for much longer!

C'MON TWINS!

So clearly my blog post yesterday did nothing to keep the Twins in the lead and they lost. They are currently behind in their game tonight and I'm actually watching it. Let's hope they can pull something off!

On a happier note, Daddy's home! He was on a 2-day golf trip so we've been flying solo the past couple nights. Now he's home and we're very glad!




Callie's wearing her I Love Daddy jammies for the occasion.

Go Twins!

The Minnesota Twins are currently up 3-0 and will hopefully continue to kick some Yankee butt. Here's a picture from the last Twins game we went to to show some MN pride.



I have to be honest...I'm not actually WATCHING the game. Though I have been checking startribune.com periodically to get the score. Am I a bad fan? Yep. But at least I'm blogging about it.

Anyway, here is my new favorite picture. Mary took it of Callie today...and I think it is just adorable.

Weekend Wrap-Up

My Dad is a TECHNOLOGY GENIUS and was able to recover our pictures!!!! Whew! Lesson learned: BACK-UP BACK-UP BACK-UP.

As I mentioned before, we had a WONDERFUL weekend with family. We went to the Renaissance Festival, ate a lot, hung out at the condo downtown, and at the Gosselins.

And a big PROPS to my sister Laura for passing the Bar Exam! She took it in July and just found out on Friday that she passed. Woohoo!!!

Ren Fest:

Elizabethan Singers from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

Condo:

Playing with Toys from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

Kona has met her match!

Scaredy Kona from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

Walker from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

Gosselins:


We love family time!

Finally, I'd like to give a shout out to my dear friend and college roomate (and loyal blog follower!)Melissa. She gave birth to a little baby boy, Theodore (Teddy) Robert, early this morning. So exciting!!!! She lives out in NY, so we won't be able to see him any time soon, but can't wait to see pictures. Congrats Melissa and Bobby!