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!

Weekend in Cleveland

Friday afternoon we made our first trip to Cleveland as a family of five. Unfortunately we had to do it in two trips, Rylan and me in my car and Chris and the boys in his car, because Chris had to stay until Monday evening and Jake and Brenden had to be back for school and I needed to back to coach on Monday.

The weekend overall was very low key, just a lot of relaxing and spending time with Chris' family. We got visits from Jim, Aunt Susie, (Aunt) Meredith, (Uncle) Todd, and Dylan. We arrived Friday evening and the kids and I left on Sunday night at bedtime. The kids got to go on an adventure Saturday morning to Chagrin falls with Grandma and Grandman. Chris got to spend some time with Jim and see lots of people at the Browns game on Sunday. And I spent most of my time laying around with Rylan, which was very nice. All in all, a very good weekend.

We had a very nice time with everyone, but I would have to say our visits with Meredith and Dylan were the highlight. Dylan was born last year in late October and I have been a very bad Aunt and just got to meet him for the first time on this trip. It was so nice to finally meet the little guy! The boys had met Dylan a couple of times on visits to Cleveland with Chris and were eager to see him again. On both Saturday and Sunday Jake was so eager for a visit from "Aunt Mer and Baby Dylan" that he kept asking me over and over when they were coming and what was taking so long, he's not very patient - probably gets it from me:-) Once they arrived it was a lot of fun to watch all of the boys play together. Jake and Brenden had a lot of fun crawling around on the floor with Dylan and Dylan had a lot of fun trying to get the boys. They were all very good to each other, I wish the boys were as nice to each other as they were with Dylan. I think the three of them will have lots of fun together as they get older. We also introduced Rylan to Dylan, but not too much playing since she's only a month and Dylan doesn't quite understand being gentle just yet. Overall, a very good time for all of us!

Here are some pictures of the boys playing and of Rylan at 1 month old:

Rylan in her Michigan gear getting ready for game time

Just for fun

I thought I'd put up pictures of each of the kids at about one month old:

Jake

Brenden

Rylan

Kindergarten

My little boy is all grown up! Ok, he's not all grown up, but he's getting big and last week he started kindergarten. There were no tears, from either of us, only excitement.

The week before his first day we went to his school to meet his teacher and find out more about what is going on with the bus. At the open house to meet his teacher, all the children sat down for a story about starting new things and how they can be scary. Of course Jake chimed right in to inform his teacher and everyone else that he was not afraid to start kindergarten - made Chris and I very proud. At the open house we were given a small list of items that Jake needed to bring in the first week. We promptly went back to school shopping the next day. We got everything we needed including a very nice Transformers backpack that Jake picked out and he could probably fit inside of :-)

The bus was scheduled to pick up Jake 11:27am and Jake was outside by 11am ready to go. My mom and Chris were able to be here as well to see him off on his first day. When the bus came a woman got off to explain to Jake where to wait for the bus and when he should get on. He listened very well and got on when she was done, he looked so tiny walking up the steps!

After school Jake takes the bus to his old preschool for after school care since I am still coaching when he gets done each day. I picked both him and Brenden up after coaching. Jake told me he had a good day and kindergarten was easier than he thought because, in his words, "we got to play the whole time". I came to find out later that they had had art class as well as play time and he even drew a picture of the whole family at the pool.

He's continuing to like school. He has had 2 homework assignments, gym class, a picnic for all the kindergarteners and their families, and much more. Hopefully this love of school will continue for at least a few more years!

FOOTBALL!

As most of you know Football season is here! And that makes the Eby family quite happy! Chris grew up in Cleveland and is a huge Browns fan and I of course grew up in Ann Arbor and am a huge Michigan fan. We are both very happy when fall rolls around and we're able to watch football all weekend long.

This year Chris was given tickets to the Browns/Lions preseason game from a customer. Since kids of all ages need a ticket to go to an NFL game none of the kids has been to a Browns game. Since Chris was given two tickets and it was a preseason game Chris decided to take Jake to his first Browns game. Of course Jake was very excited and Brenden was very disappointed. Brenden was assured though that he would get to go to a game when he as a little older. Jake and Chris had a good time at the game, but Jake was very displeased with the amount of noise. Apparently he yelled at everyone around him to be quiet, which seems odd to me since he's very loud most of the time :-) Here's a picture of Jake in his Browns jersey, he was ready to go by 10am and the game wasn't until 5pm!

So with the Michigan opener scheduled for September 4th and Rylan's due date September 5th we had been hoping that she would come early so that we could all as a family go to the Michigan opener which was also the Rededication of the Stadium with the construction complete. I was so happy that we were able to make it work and all go to the game. Somehow we all made it down to the stadium and we some how were able to get to our seats right as the game kicked off. The boys even got to see the jets fly over before the game started - very cool for them! Unfortunately I was unable to stay for the whole game, but I was able to get home in time to watch the entire second half. Jake also came home with me, he was very upset with all of the noise, he even started cheering for UConn because "their fans aren't loud". Brenden and Chris stayed through about 3/4 of the game and had a great time. I was unable to get a group just because Jake wouldn't cooperate, but my mom did get a few shots of Rylan in her Michigan gear and one of Brenden at the the game:

So that's been some of our excitement over the past month. I headed back to coaching about 2 weeks after Rylan was born and have had one meet. She's been doing great so far being at the pool everyday, she sleeps the whole time:-) The boys are busy with school. Chris has been busy working and keeping the boys out of my hair so I'm not too crazed all the time. He has also been able to have a break and he's playing Ultimate Frisbee a couple of nights a week since I haven't gone back to coaching at Legacy just yet. Overall we all seem to be adjusting well to being a family of five!