Halloween, the missing kitten, and Georgia the peanut

Here are Nate and Georgia as Captain Hook and Tinkerbell!

They looked very sweet and both liked their costumes. Nate got so many compliments on his great costume! My mom got him the Disney Store version of Captain Hook, and it is amazing. Georgia, on the other hand, got a $20 Tink costume, and you could tell the difference. :) Next to Nate, it was a pitiful costume, but she looked really adorable in it.

They had several chances to wear their costumes and trick or treat. A couple weeks ago we went to the Halloween Party at the Louisville zoo with our Bible Study group. Both of the kids fell asleep on the way there and Nate especially was in a pretty sour mood until he got some candy!

 Jack Sparrow said, "Hello, Captain!"

Then last Friday we went to an organization called Dreams with Wings' annual Pumpkin Stroll. There were thousands of jack o lanterns lining the sidewalks and all over the lawn on the Bellarmine University campus. When we first got there, before it even really got started, Nate fell flat on his face! It didn't look too bad that night, but by the next day it looked like this:

He got over it soon enough though. We were pretty special, because we were "with the band"! Our babysitter Alisa and her family and some friends have a band called Mike Bush and the All Stars, and they play at events like this. They were awesome! They played for like 3 hours, and my kids danced pretty much the whole time. (That's Alisa dressed as grapes. She didn't realize until earlier that day that she would basically be a walking latex hazard for Nate! Ha! So after she put on her costume, he wasn't allowed anywhere near her. :) Great costume though.)

Nate got to play the drums during the show! Except the drummer gave him the drum sticks that were like rubber, and they were quiet? I don't know how to explain them because I have no knowledge of drum sticks, but anyway, you couldn't really hear Nate. I saw his little lip starting to stick out, so I went over and helped him, but after awhile, he looked like he was going to wail. So I ushered him out and sat down with him. (This was about the time Georgia fell asleep in my arms.) Later that night, I asked him if playing the drums was his favorite part, and he said, "No! Nobody could hear me!" :)

The next day, we went to an SBAK playgroup and carved pumpkins. Here's Georgia staring down Andrew for his brownie.

Okay, so Andrew has a big brother (no SB) whose name is Nathaniel (sometimes called Nate) and he is also 4, and he also loves Thomas the train. He and my Nate hit it off immediately. They went upstairs to play trains for awhile (Nate wore last year's Thomas costume that day), then we went outside to carve pumpkins. Nate saw that Nathaniel had a piece of candy, and he said, "Oh, I can't have that piece of candy." Nathaniel said, "No, I already put it in my mouth, but let's go inside and get you a piece, dude!" He was so funny!

One time Nate and Nathaniel were walking by, I heard Nathaniel say, "Okay, Nate, the first thing I'm going to teach you is how to climb a tree." Ha! Nathaniel started shimmying up this tree like a monkey, and Nate just stood there with his lollipop and said, "That tree is too tall for me. I can't climb it." So I showed him a tree right next to that one that had a lower branch and told him I'd help him climb it. He looked at his lollipop and said, "But I can't climb trees with candy." You are climbing this tree, mister! So I heaved him up in this tree, with Nate complaining the whole time (notice the yellow dum dum in his right hand), but he stopped whining long enough to say cheese for a picture.

After I got him down, Nathaniel started talking about the next thing he was going to teach Nate, and Nate said, "I think we should go in the house and get more candy."

After our playdate, the kids and I went to Aunt Mindy's house to spend the night! We haven't been there since last Halloween! It was trick or treat night there, and at first Nate had a hard time understanding why we were giving all of Mindy's candy to other people, he soon caught on and had a BLAST giving out candy himself. He stood on the sidewalk and called out to trick or treaters, "Anybody want some candy?! We got candy here!" Like a little salesman! It was hilarious. Georgia was also excited and just walked up and down the sidewalk over and over.

The next day, we came home, I took a nap! and then it was time for trick or treating in our neighborhood! Check out Maggie and the neighbor's big dog, both dressed as bumblebees. :) I bought Maggie that costume when we first got her (when she was our "only child") and she's worn it every year since.

Oh, the kids had such a great time. It was a race for candy! We went up and down our street, stopping at every house that had candy. Georgia insisted on going up every driveway, whether they had candy or not, and she got very mad if she didn't get something at the door.

When we came back home, Georgia rifled through our candy bowl. Turns out she just wanted to hold the candy--she thought it was just noisy little toys. Until I gave her a lick of my sucker, and then she was hooked. :)

Well, we had a great Halloween, but there was a little bit of a damper on it because we're missing one of our kittens. :( Last Thursday around noon, Blake let the kittens out on the back deck to play, as he always does when the kids are eating lunch so they don't bug them. Well, Allee Galloo came back, but Kooka did not. :( We haven't seen her since. I put fliers up around the neighborhood and one on our porch, so lots of people saw it while trick or treating and told us they would keep an eye out for her. I actually got three phone calls, but they turned out to be different gray kittens. We miss you, Kooka!

Her sister Allee was pretty distraught for a few days, but she's adjusting now. She has really taken up with the kids lately. She LOVES sleeping in Nate's bed, and he didn't like it for a couple of nights, but now he wants her in there. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and yells, "KITTY!!!!!" That's fun. Georgia follows her around meowing. She's really good with them and lets them pet/manhandle her.

So Georgia had her 15 month check up this week. This child still weighs just 21 pounds, 4 ounces! She could still fit in her baby carrier! Nate weighed this much at 6 months! :) She's in the 25th percentile for weight (for those that don't know, that means 75 percent of babies her age weigh more than her). She's 30 inches tall (45th%). She's just a little thing. But this girl eats like a horse. I'm not kidding, I have no idea where she puts it all. She eats nonstop all day long, and when she does eat meals, it's a lot of food! She's also sleeping very well these days. I'm a little ashamed to admit that we still use a swaddling blanket with her! We wrap it around her arms when we put her down, just to help her feel snug but also because she won't tolerate an actual blanket on her. One day Blake said he was watching her on the video monitor after he put her down for a nap, and she wrestled her arms out of the swaddle blanket, stood up and threw out all of her stuffed animals and the blanket, and laid down on her belly and went to sleep.

As of last week, she is now officially weaned from nursing. It was very gradual and pretty much on her terms, and I have to say I am really proud of myself for nursing for 14 months! When Nate wasn't able to nurse, I didn't know if I was capable of it, but this was a great experience with Georgia. I've noticed she still needs that direct contact with me, but now it's in the form of snuggling! Which is awesome, because she's never been a snuggler. She wakes up around 6:30 am and wants to come to bed with me. She'll snuggle in the crook of my arm for 5 minutes. Then she'll get up and sit with her knees on the bed and throw herself over my belly and lay like that for a couple minutes. The she climbs on top of me and lays belly to belly on me with her head on my chest. It's very sweet, and I enjoy it (unless I haven't had much sleep!).

Well, that's a long update, and we have a very big day planned for tomorrow. Nate has been asking to go to the train museum since ... well, since the last time we were there on Labor Day. So tomorrow he and Blake are going, while Georgia and I meet our girlfriends for a little shopping trip at Ikea! Have a great weekend!