Meet the Muir Family: October 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween - beware..... scary!

Some spooky things happen in our household around Halloween. Thanks to Halloween this year Mikey has learned a new word that he is using in his vocabulary ALL THE TIME now. "Scary!!!"

Daddy let him watch Ghostbusters with him and now all he talks about are "Seeing ghosts in the walls and how he has to shoot them with his water gun!" Thanks hunny!

For a few days after Halloween he'd come into our bed or stand in our door way saying he was scared over and over again until he'd finally settle down holding his flashlight while he dozed off. Poor kid.

We read lots of books to get into the Halloween spirit, "Five little pumpkins," "the little old lady who was not afraid of anything," "The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat" and we played with the Zombie photobooth app. The loved looking at themselves as zombies and they actually moved when you touch the screen and blink. Freaked me out a little but whatever catches their attention. They were more fascinated than afraid.

I am ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Our sweet little boy. Look out below!

Sweet Katie even turned into a zombie below.

Treat or Treat

Tonight was scheduled Trick or Treating in our building. You start by writing your apt number and time on the Trick or Treat List a few days before and when you're ready to go you just grab the paper from the door man and off you go!

In past years Mikey was "Tigger" and "Elmo" and this year he decided to be....a "Fireman." No shock there. He refused to wear his jacket. Katie last year was a "Teddy Bear" (3 months old) and this year she was "Ariel the Ballerina" (that's what the tag said).

Anyway, we started at 5 and rather than follow my suggestion which was to start at the top and take the stairs down (easier), we started on our floor and took the stairs up. More difficult but I guess it worked off of some of the candy we later gorged ourselves with. Ugh.

There weren't as many apts. handing out candy as I would have thought in a building our size however it was just the perfect number of apartments for my kids ages. We hit most of those handing out candy but not all.

Mikey was adorable and knocked very gently on the doors and immediately shouted "Trick or Treat" before they had a chance to open their doors. Once they handed out the candy Mikey quickly reached in to grab a piece and then kept talking to them while his sidekick Katie went in for the kill grabbing piece after piece after piece of candy. She acted like she didn't hear me say "only 1 piece" for the 100th time. They didn't mind as they thought she was sooo cute, so she made out with more candy than Mikey.

Katie when asked to say "Trick or Treat" said "Treat". She's no dummy!

We walked around the building gathering candy for a little over an hour and then headed back to our apt. to hand out candy for another hour. Mikey and Katie loved racing to the door when there was a knock or the door bell was rung. Mikey excitedly opened the door and said "Trick or Treat" and gave the kids candy. He really got the hang of it! Now whenever we have a delivery or the phone rings he says "Trick or Treat!"

It was a successful first Halloween in the city for us! I really liked that we didn't have to bundle up the kids so you couldn't see their costumes in cold weather.

We got this list. It was 2 pages long.

She did not want to hold her pumpkin.

Our door.

Their ghost footprints.

Happy Halloween.

Katie started at our door while Scott and Mikey got the list.

Tootsie Roll. Success!

There is the fireman!

Trying to stop Katie from getting another piece.

Now he's really mad that she got a lollipop.

This is pretty much how the night went. Mikey got his 1 piece and was excited to go to the next door while Katie kept happily picking candy out of the bowls.

I know its fuzzy, but again, Mikey one piece and Katie digging right on it.

Yay for no jackets!

Lots of decorated doors.

At home digging into their stash.

Received not only candy but a book and stuffed ghosts as well.

Monday, October 29, 2012

1,2,3

In honor of celebrating Mikey's 3rd birthday, we are busting out some pictuers of his first and second birthday. (One of our favorite things to do after the kids go to bed is look at old pictures we've taken over the years. It brings back such good memories.) Hope you enjoy looking at how he's grown.

10/29/09

10/29/10 - 1 year old.

We actually had two birthday parties for Mikey's 2nd birthday since my folks were in town earlier in the month. Lucky boy!

10/29/11

10/29/11 - 2 years old.

10/29/11- 2 years old.

10/29/11 - 2 years old.

10/29/12 - 3 years old.

Reminiscing about Mikey's Birthday.

I had to dig into my archives to find his journal entry of his birthday.

Here it is below:

October 29th- Michael William Muir is finally here! He was very punctual in his arrival. His expected due date was October 30th and on October 29th at 10:58 pm he was born!

All day on Thursday, October 29th I was feeling very cramp like symptoms and around 7 pm those cramps turned into contractions. By 8:30 pm the contractions were starting to hurt so Scott called the doctor. The doctor told us we could come in or stay home since it sounded like I was still in the early stages of labor and that labors of first time mothers usually last around 12 hours. By 9:00pm we were packed and got in the car to go to the hospital as the contractions were getting more intense.

Once we were at the hospital they of course took their sweet old time checking me in and lost our pre-registration paperwork that we sent in months before-hand so while we were waiting for the doctor to arrive we had to fill out the paperwork again.

About 20 mins. after arriving at the hospital I felt like I needed to push and so they rushed to get the doctor who checked me and determined I was 9 centimeters. Needless to say, after that they started rushing around a bit more. They rushed me into a room and after 20-25 mins of pushing out he came. I asked for something to take the edge off of the pain since having an epidural was out of the question but it was to late and they didn't want me to give birth to a sleepy baby. Start to finish the entire labor and delivery was 4 hours! Phew- are we glad that's over with. Everything happened so quickly that it's hard to remember details.

He was born 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 19.5 inches long and he is beautiful! He has a full head of long, black hair. They did all the standard tests while at the hospital and he has a perfect bill of health. His jaundice score was 2.8 while the average is between 6 and 8! The Apgar scores that he had received during the first and second minute of life was a 9 and 10. Our little rock star!

We spent the next two days at the hospital getting to know our little guy and arrived home around 5 pm on Halloween! So far, we know that he loves to sleep and have his fingers free to suck on and have close by to his face just in case he needs them.

Grandma just got into town and she will be helping out the next 2 weeks. More to come soon.

10/29/09

Surviving Sandy

We celebrated Mikey's birthday the same day Hurrican Sandy came to town. We did okay during the day but around 7pm we noticed some of our windows in our heavily windowed living room were starting to bow inward. We immediately called our buildings maintenance team and they came to our apt. within 1 minute. The guys said that part of our windows frame was missing and that it was very dangerous.

Knowing that the strongest winds were yet to come they quickly reinforced the window and we were okay after that. There were a few times where the wind was so strong that I was sure our windows were going to blow in and so I grabbed Mikey and ran into the bedroom.

We had extremely strong winds from about 8pm to 1am. Scott had no trouble falling asleep since he took a dose of Nyquil to help with his cold. Katie was okay sleeping until 11pm then woke up and I was up with her until 1am. Mikey said he was scared so he slept in our bed during the night. The wind was so loud I wasn't able to go to bed. 1am was when the winds really died down to practically nothing and that was about the end of the major winds.

Our friends that live on the top floor were evacuated from their floor and told to hang out in the party and playrooms on the 3rd floor. Overall our building faired pretty well. We had 1 window in the lobby blown inward and our same apartment on the 38th floor had a window that blew in. We never lost power! They guys said our building had wind gusts of up to 160mph Monday night, but I'm not sure how they could know that for sure.

Reinforcing the window.

Mikey loved all the power tools they brought up and loved their flashlights and walkie-talkies.

Mikey Turns 3!

Today is Mikey's birthday! He is 3 years old and we can hardly believe it! What happened to the time

From the day he was born, I also became a Mommy. We had smiles some days and screams on others. Lots of hugs and kisses and tantrums too! He is the sweetest little boy and we wouldn't have it any other way.

At 3 Mikey:

Loves any and all things trucks, vehicles, tractors, ambulances, police cars, tractor trailers, etc.
He loves watching toy story, curious george, handy manny, and nemo.
He is talking in full and complete sentences.
He has become a very picky eater. I have to get creative to make sure he eats enough fruits and veggies during the day.
He is very sweet most of the time with Katie and has increasingly been tattling on her whenever she does something I've told her not to do.
He is potty trained and most nights he wakes up with a clean night time pull up.
He loves to rough house and his favorite is wrestling with Scott. His favorite game is "Get Mike!"
He says his prayers and says "Amen" really loud.
At night time he always requests "Twinkle Star" and "The I love you Song"
He also requests back, hand, arm and leg massages nightly.

For his birthday he awoke with balloons scattered all over his bedroom. We also decorated the dining room with "Caution/Danger" tape all over and hung up a Happy Birthday Sign.

For his cake we had purchased a Blackout Cake from Two Little Red Hens (I wasn't sure if we would have power for me to bake him a cake) and I put it in a pan with crushed up Oreo Cookies and threw in some of his construction vehicles. He did not eat a bite of his cake but loved eating the "dirt!"