Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween weekend here at the Eby house. Friday the boys both got to dress up for Halloween. Brenden's class dressed up and went trick-or-treating in Dexter and then had a party at school. Jake had a Halloween party for his Friday play group and then got to dress up at school for a Halloween parade and party.

On Saturday, Chris took the boys to Jenny's Market in Dexter while I took a nap with Rylan. At Jenny's they got to play in the haystacks and the boys picked out pumpkins. On the way home they also stopped for cider and doughnuts at the Dexter Cider Mill.

And finally for today, Halloween. The boys and Rylan spent the day with Chris while I slept in and then went to go coach. They watched movies and carved pumpkins, well Chris carved the pumpkins. The boys both wanted to carve the pumpkins themselves, but since we didn't have a kids carving knife we settled on having them draw how they wanted the pumpkins carved and Chris did the carving. They decided on Alien Vampire Family :-)

After we finished the pumpkins it was time to get dressed for Trick-or-Treating. Jake decided to be a ninja, Brenden was Optimus Prime, and I don't dress up infants so Rylan just wore halloween pajamas. You'll notice in the pictures below that Brenden has his Optimus Prime suit on, but no mask. He was very insistent that he did not want to wear the mask today, we came to find out later that it was bothering a bump/cut he got on his forehead earlier in the day. Papa (my dad) came over while the boys were getting ready and we also Skyped Mana (my mom). Once we got lots of pictures taken - the boys were actually very cooperative so I took advantage - Chris and the boys set out in our neighborhood for trick-or-treating while Rylan and I stayed home to hand out candy.








Rylan and I had a lot of fun handing out candy. I would say we got around 50 kids total. We saw lots of different costumes and kids from age one to high school. We also had lots of kids that I know from AACC stop by which is always fun. While we were home, Rylan and I had some good talking time and and I managed to get some of it on film:

We also took some good pictures with smiles on Rylan's face

When Chris and the boys returned they went through all of their candy and got to pick one piece to eat - they chose skittles. Even though it was time to get ready for bed Chris and the boys decided to go to the neighbors to burn off some of that sugar before bed. Our neighbors had a bonfire going in their front yard and all the kids were running and playing around. And I'm guessing they did plenty to burn off their sugar high because they are both sleeping quietly now. Another successful Halloween for the Eby family!

The Booty Butt Dance...and other happenings over the past few weeks

So the boys like to do a little dance...The Booty Butt Dance. It is never the same twice and it is sometimes accompanied with a song. The dance is sometimes done naked, yes naked :-) No matter what the boys decide to do for it, it always turns out funny and last week I was able to finally capture one version on film:

Life has been quite busy over the past month which is why it has taken me so long to post. Chris and Brenden ran the Big House Big Heart race with my brother and Dad. It was Chris' Birthday on October 6th. We had Chris's mom come stay with us while Chris traveled on business. My mom came for a short visit. Jake had his first official school picture day for kindergarten. Rylan had her two month check up and shots. I have gone back to coaching at Legacy on Sundays. We have gone to the Dexter Cider Mill for doughnuts and cider. Chris and Brenden went to a U of M football game. Jake, Rylan, and me went to a clown diving show at EMU. And, of course, there has been lots of football to watch on TV. A very busy month as you can see.

Besides all that has been going on, we have also had to deal with quite a few sleepless nights. I'm proud to say that Rylan has not been the cause and not so proud to say that most nights it has been Brenden, my 3 year old, waking me up. Rylan for the past 2 weeks now has been going to bed around 7:30pm and sleeping until 4am and on more than one occasion until 5 or 6 am. And not only is she sleeping that long, when she does wake up she eats and goes back to bed until 8am. Oh how I love my sweet, sleeping girl! Now Brenden on the other hand has been giving me some grief. Some nights its not his fault, he has HORRIBLE growing pains and we have to get him up out of bed to walk around a bit, eat some food, and have some tylenol/motrin before he's able to go back to bed. However, on other occasions he wakes up for whatever reason and decides he needs to get in bed with me, not cool. He is a total bed hog and always insists on at least staying for "a couple of minutes". He has been getting better at letting me take him back to bed almost immediately, but because he's coming in around 2am and I usually don't get to bed until close to midnight and have to get up around 4 am to feed Rylan, these 2 hour increments of sleep are starting to get to me! He hasn't come in for a few nights now, I'm hoping he's growing out of it, but I guess only time will tell.

We're all looking forward to Halloween, well at least all of the boys are. Halloween is just not that big a deal to me. I enjoy the candy of course, but could do without the costumes. I'll be sure to take some pictures of this year's festivities as the boys get to celebrate at school on Friday and then get to go out for the real thing on Sunday. Hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday!!

Smiles!

So this is the look that we've been getting from Rylan since she started opening her eyes. It is a very serious look, and it even looks like she's judging us at times. She just sits there and stares at you, as if to say I've had enough of your shenanigans, what in the world is going on here, or what did I get myself into! We've been wondering if we might have a serious one to add to our bunch of crazies.

Well today that changed. After seeing a hint or two of some smiles for the past week or so I finally got a bunch of big smiles today! I got home from practice early today so the boys were still at school. I decided to sit with Rylan on her play mat to have some quality face time and that's when she did it. It was a huge grin and it even looked like she was trying to laugh. She looked like she was so proud of herself, especially when I smiled back at her. We sat there smiling for a few minutes and then we moved to the sofa so Chris could see some too!

Later on when the boys were home I was able to get some more smiles. She still is looking at the boys like they're crazy, but that's probably because they are, but she is also giving them some smiles to let them know how silly they are too :-) Needless to say, they were very happy to make her smile!

Here's a couple of pictures, they aren't of the big, huge smiles, but you can definitely see a happier face!