It's a Peep-filled Halloween!

It was a week full of Halloween adventures and parties for our little Peep!

Love those cheeks! Very marshmellowy!

J with her good friend the Bee, Avery at the Creative Play Halloween Party

Some of J's fellow revelers... the Bee, the Ladybug, a Lion & Dino




Our Fidi Baby-Mama birth-o-ween Party (all the kids are born within 6-7 weeks of each other)

On Halloween, we headed down to the South Street Seaport Parade. Here, we met at Fishbridge park to gather all the kids.

Getting ready to head out to the streets!

Some of our 100 or so fellow trick-or-treaters! It was so awesome to see how many kids there are down in the Seaport area and how community oriented the neighborhood is! There were people standing in front of all the apartments and restaurants, all decked out, handing out candy to the kids.

Heading back home... J was beat!

Thank goodness for Family

Chris and I had a true moment of panic as we both rose to J's cries on Friday morning and realized we were still sick. As we shoulder checked each other to get into the bathroom, J's cries continued and we realized that there was no way we were going to make it through the day without help.

Either a virus or food poisoning had hit us both hard and was taking no prisoners.
Thankfully we caught my mom right before she left for work on Friday morning, and asked her to come in and watch J while we dealt with the monster with-in. We quickly realized that our apt. was way to small for that, and decided we'd take our chances with driving J out to her so we could have both the couch and bed to sleep on (the last thing you want while sick, is someone also sick laying right next to you!).

We are VERY thankful that they kept her for the full weekend, giving us enough time to beat the monster out of us, as well as to feel fully re-charged. It was a very good reminder about the importance of always keep family close, they are the ones who are always there for you when you really need them.

Spooktakular Bronx Zoo!

It was a spoooooky day at the Bronx Zoo this past weekend! Along with Mysh, Billy & Logan, we headed to the Zoo on Sunday for another amazing day. The weather was gorgeous (about 65 degrees) and all the animals were out and playing. Logan could really enjoy herself and was very excited about the butterfly house as well as the Monkeys. We got to see a Gorilla up close and personal when he came crashing into the window we were standing at and put his hands and feet on the glass. The kids faces were priceless (of course we didn't have the camera out for that).

We ended our day with dinner on Arthur Avenue at Dominick's for some delicious Italian food (we stuffed our kids silly with Meatballs!)

Logan dressed up as Princess!

The butterfly house was definitely a hit with Logan!

Jocelyn on her first Merry-go-round- The Bug Carousel! (Logan chose hers for her.. it was an ear wig!)

Klein family photo!

Ahhhh... just the way we like them. This is the sign that we can now find our coffee or tea and a bench to sit on b/c it's our relaxation time!

Visiting D & Craig

We headed up to Suffern Friday night to visit with the Maslowsky clan and had a really great time. It's hard to believe that Karter is already 2 and Nola is almost 5 months! I've been friends with Danielle for the last 13 years (yup, do the math.. it's scary!) so it's just so much fun to see our kids getting older together. The boys took care of the kids Friday night and D and I went out for some dinner and well needed catching up. It's amazing how quickly you can settle into a meal when you don't have to chop everything into tiny pieces, make sure they don't choke... are they getting bored... should you take your food to go?.....

Ahhh... it was nice!

J finds older kids so entertaining too. We know this b/c every time we go to a house with older kids, we hear from the parents "Jocelyn is so quite! You are so lucky!" Yup, so I guess what we need to do is rent us some of these older kids b/c she certainly isn't that quiet at home! She found much amusement in watching Karter run around and play, as well as the dogs.

This is what the Lionel did to Burton for 50% of the time.. not sure what lesson's we were teaching J, but I'm sure some therapy will be involved (esp. after Lionel pee'd on Burton's back!)

J and Nola in the ball pit

We headed over to Bear Mtn. on Saturday for their Oktoberfest. It was another gorgeous day, and we enjoyed ourselves outside by the lake eating good sausages and having some German brews

D and Nola

The boys were so sweet to Jocelyn. They kept offering her bread to throw at the Geese and making sure she was OK (that's Karter standing to our right)

11 months

Interactions: J loves to be around people and find watching other kids very amusing! She doesn't like young kids she doesn't know to get very close to her (we say she has an 8inch circle around her, and if you cross it.... you know!) but after a bit she warms up to them and allows them into her circle!

A new thing for J is she's started to give hugs. If you're on the floor with her, and she's standing, she'll sort of just fall into your body for a snuggle. She rubs her face into your chest and puts her arms around you. It's really sweet.

Moving: J has gone straight to trying to walk, and skipped the crawling all together. She has begun to shimmy along the furniture to get from place to place, and loves practicing her walking. J walks well while holding your fingers and is very proud of herself as she marches across the floor. One of her favorite things to do is to hold herself up in the crib and either walk herself around, or bounce up and down. She will "try out' standing on her own for a few seconds.

Eating: She is eating 3 bottles a day, and 3 meals of whatever it is we've been eating that week. Some of her favorite foods are pasta, meatballs, peas, string beans, eggs, hummus, pancakes (we made silver dollar sized ones for her and froze a bunch) and anything with flavor and taste! No bland food for this gal! She will also very willingly try anything that you're eating. If it comes from your fork, she'll like it.

Sleeping: We are at 2 naps a day, about 2.5 hours after she wakes in the morning, and 3-4 hours after she wakes from her nap. At night she does at least 12 hours (sometimes it's 13!) from 7am-7pm. Excellent sleeper! She uses the ribbon on her pacifier as her "lovey" and as soon as it goes onto her shirt, she starts to rub and and her eyes begin to close. Her sleep sack is getting a bit small, but I think we're just going to get a larger one. I like how I don't have to worry about using a blanket, and it keeps things easier.

Talking: J is quite the communicator. She loves to talk, and if she's awake, she's making some type of noise! Whether it's the high shrill yell (oh, we love that one!) to chatting it up with her stuffed animals (we really do love that one!) J loves to talk. Her first real words were at about 10months, and were Burt, Mama and Dada. Just recently, we have really begun to see that she understands what she is saying as she yells 'MAMAMAMAMA' and cranes her neck around the corner to look for me. It's pretty cute.

NYC Botanical Gardens

J and I are very fortunate to have such a great network of friends around us here in the city, that when a beautiful day is sprung upon us, we can really take advantage of it. The beautiful fall weather enticed us to head over to the NYC Botanical Gardens with our friends Nicole and Avery. These two girls spend a lot of time together, so it's almost like they are sisters. It's been adorable to see them both changing and also how comfortable they are with each other. J still doesn't let strange children come near her (or any kids that she thinks might hurt her... she's a smart one!) but Avery has a full permit to crawl all over her!

Avery is fully walking, but J is still content to walk holding onto fingers only. The problem is, Mommy's back is def. beginning to feel it!

The Gardens had a whole Halloween Festival, with pumpkins, sculptures and the usual beauty!

(J is leaning up against the hay, but it does look good!)

Avery and Jocelyn having a chat

Going forward

J figured out how to move forward in her walker today. We've had her in the walker for about a little over a month now, and she concurred going backwards right away, but just couldn't' seem to figure out the forward movement. We put her in it this morning, and bamm.... off she went! It's crazy b/c she went from being extremely frustrated in the walker, to turning corners, backing up, 3-point turns and charging like a bull while in it!
Our toes (and Burton's!) will never be safe again!

The video is of her 3rd time walking forward. Notice the huge grin!

Doggie Day in Central Park

All dogs have their day, and Saturday was Burton's. Central Park had it's yearly celebration of all things doggie and we were there ready to accept all free dog biscuits and Frisbee's.

It was a beautiful fall day, and we had a really good time with the Lofrese clan (including their pooches, Lola and award winning Clayton).

Lola (Santa's Little Helper), Clayton (the Bee) and Burton (just a stunning specimen) at the doggie costume contest





Hmmm... who might that Judge be in the pink jacket... she wouldn't happen to know any of the contestants and throw the contest would she (Go Kathy!)

Family photo!





J taking a stroll

Clayton accepting his award for 3rd place in the Costume contest!

We start them early

J has received her first chore of the house... vacuuming. We figured it's never to early to start them off. She seems to be having some issues with the back and forth motion of the vacuum, but

we figured she'll catch on soon enough.

Walking Wings

We have movement! As quickly as we called Jocelyn a paperweight, she has decided that moving her legs is OK. Utilizing either our fingers (much to our lower backs delight) or the "walking wings", she is now, Frankenstein like, walking across the floor. Her knees aren't quite bending yet, but the legs are going.

Jocelyn in all her Irish glory
Using those walking wings with Mima
Uh-oh... I left J just for moment on the bathroom floor.. and things got way to quite quickly. This is what I found when returning

Up-to some sort of trouble...!

First Word

J said her first word today, "Burt". Our little black bandit should be proud. I'm sure her first full sentence will be "Burton, No."