On Sunday we went to Burke Lake Park with the Suddarth’s and the East’s to ride the Ghost Train… spooky! Because the weather was so yucky on Saturday, the line was over 90 minutes long, but it was well worth the wait. The train’s path was decked out with Halloween paraphernalia, and there were amateur (I stress that word) actors at stations all along the tracks posing as characters with some pretty elaborate props, including Bob the Builder, Scooby Doo, The Little Mermaid, various other fairytale characters, and lots of Halloween characters. At one point the train stopped and the kids got to “trick or treat” the people dressed as pumpkins. The kids all had a blast, and we loved it too! While we waited in line we were serenaded by a band of dancing penguins, and when we eventually got to the train, there was a “psych-up guy” who ran up and down getting the kids excited. It was definitely worth the $4 ticket! Here are some highlights from the afternoon:

Portman and Roman, 5 minutes into our wait. Thanks, Bern, for the choo-choo hat!

Annie and Roman definitely want her to share, and she definitely doesn’t want to:

The whole gang – from the left, Jacob, Courtney, Jack, Ellie, Annie, Roman and Harper. Don’t they look thrilled? They had been waiting for over an hour:

Roman and Harper, and the two Cinderella’s. The girls were definitely having a diva moment, probably because there’s only one Prince Charming:

Harper and Jack found acorns… much more exciting than the creepy dancing penguins:

Courtney was done with her costume; Harper and Ellie waiting for the train:

Finally, our turn!

All smiles post-train ride. Next year we need to bring a picnic. What a gorgeous day!

Roman turned 15 months old this week, which means we should probably stop referring to him as a “baby!” This morning Harper and I took him in for his 15-month checkup and he once again is at the top of the growth chart. He is over 33 inches tall (93rd percentile), weighs 27 pounds 2 ounces (82nd percentile) and his head size is in the 85th percentile. Not only is he big for his age, but he is bigger than Harper was at her 2-year checkup, officially weighs more than she does now and has a bigger head than her!

He is right on track developmentally, despite not talking much, and the only thing we need to do is quit the bottle. We still give him a bottle at naptimes and bedtime, which isn’t a huge deal except that it’s bad for his teeth. I just put him down for a nap without one and he did fine, so I don’t think it will be a tough adjustment. At the end of the appointment both kids got their vaccinations (just flu for Harper), and Roman had three shots with NO tears! That’s better than I do!

Roman continues to be an absolute joy. He is such an easy and good-natured baby and very rarely gets upset about anything. When he does get upset, it’s usually because we give Harper something to eat and he wants some too! He eats a ridiculous amount – as much as I do at most meals and 2-3 times more than Harper does. He will eat pretty much anything, but most recently has been into pomegranate seeds and Thai food. He still takes two good naps a day and goes to sleep without putting up a fight. Normally he sleeps through the night, but this week has been waking up with sore teeth. I’ve learned that until they are over two, there’s always something that will bother them at night. The only real complaint we have about him is that he has started to be a pain in restaurants, and we love dining out! It looks like we’ll be doing more take-out for a while.

It has been really interesting for us to have a boy and a girl because they are SO different. Roman is super physical and loves to bang and hit things. He drives cars and trucks all over the furniture and the walls, and we never had to show him how to do it. He likes to throw things, and when he gets really excited about a book, he will start hitting it violently. He absolutely loves reading and is constantly brining us books and climbing into our laps for a story. He wants to do whatever his sister is doing, and follows her every move. Lately he has been getting really excited about Dora the Explorer, but I’m pretty sure it’s only because Harper is excited about it (much to my dismay).

The other big difference between the two of them is that Roman is very clingy to Portman and I. A lot of times he won’t even let his grandparents hold him, while Harper calls everyone “my new best friend.” When he’s at home with just us he is Mr. Independent and won’t let us do anything for him, but when we are visiting someone else we end up holding him a lot. Yesterday we went on a little walk around the neighborhood and Roman walked behind Harper the entire way! He stuck to the sidewalk and wouldn’t let me carry him at all. It was very cute.

Sometimes I still can’t believe we have an almost 3-year-old and an almost 18- month-old. Time has flown by with the two of them! I’ve learned so much by having two so close together, mostly that all of the “little things” are not a big deal. When Harper was a baby I got nervous about how she would react to each new milestone – taking the bottle away, crying it out, staying overnight with grandparents, sleeping in a different bed, etc., but when Roman was born there was no more time for worrying about every little thing. It turns out that kids adapt really quickly and there’s really not much to stress about. When they are teenagers I will have way more to worry about, so I plan to enjoy these easier years!

Last weekend we took a road trip down to North Carolina to visit Grandpa and Grammy on their farm. The G’rents had tons of activities planned for the weekend, so be warned, this is a long post!

Part One: Harper Makes a Halloween Cake
Grammy had a special cooking project for Harper: making a Halloween cake! Grammy apparently has a lot more patience in the kitchen than Mommy, because she let Harper literally do every single step by herself. Harper got to smear butter in the pan, shake flour over it, stir all the ingredients, pour the batter in the pan, ice the cake and decorate it by herself. She took her job very seriously and had so much fun doing it. She also made sure to sing her “mixing song” at the appropriate moments. We have no idea where she learned it, but we suspect that she made it up herself. It goes “Mixing up, ay-oh! ay-oh! Mixing up, ay-oh! ay-oh!” 

Part Two: Grandpa Takes Harper on a Gator Ride
While the cake was baking, Grandpa took Harper for a ride on the Gator (Roman was napping and missed the fun). Harper has been talking about the Gator (“dat green fing”) since our last trip to the farm, and was not about to miss a ride this time. Grandpa’s puppy, Sky, also likes to ride on the Gator, so the three of them took a tour of the farm:

Part Three: The NC State Fair
Portman’s real motivation for taking this trip was to visit the NC State Fair. I have been talking about how huge it is for years and he never believed me… until this weekend. After feasting on a disgusting amount of deep fried food, he declared that it was “the best day of his life.” Oh, and the kids had fun too! They got to see lots of cool animals, hold baby chicks, and Harper got to go on lots of fun rides. Roman passed out for over three hours at the fair and missed most of the rides and food. Shhh, don’t tell him.
Bacon and cheese hot dogs:

Grilled corn on the cob (we had to buy him two whole ears):
 
Holding the baby chicks:
 
Gross, gross, and more gross:

Harper rode a roller coaster all by herself!
 
Trying to win a goldfish:

Part Four: Grandpa and Harper Make a Scarecrow
While I drove into town to have breakfast with an old friend, Grandpa and Harper made a big scarecrow in the workshop. Daddy took a long video of the event, so we will post that as soon as we get a chance to edit it. Here’s a photo of the final product:

Part Five: Harper Makes “Music” in the Pond
Harper loves to take walks to the pond when we are at the farm, and this time she discovered that acorns and walnuts make really cool sounds when you toss them into the water. We spent lots of time collecting treasures and tossing them off the dock. Some of them can “swim” (walnuts), but some of them sink. It’s all very exciting!
After all of our fun, we were SO happy to come home on Monday. We had a great time, but it is a heck of a lot easier to be at home! We are starting to realize why large families don’t travel much. Roman is a terrible sleeper on the road, and was up for several hours both nights that we were gone (which is also why he napped through most of the weekend fun). We love being at home where we have everything we need, everyone is in their own bed, and it is entirely child-proofed!

Today at school Harper made a picture of her family. In the car on the way home we talked about it:

Me: “Harper, who is in our family?”
Harper: “Daddy and Woah-man and Mommy and Harper!”
Me: “That’s right! And are we going to have someone new in our family?”
Harper: “Yeah another kid and another kid and another kid.”
Me: “Right, we’re going to have a new baby. Where is the new baby?”
Harper: “It’s in my tummy.”
Me: “No, the baby is in Mommy’s tummy.”
Harper: “No it’s just in my tummy, and it’s growing and growing and it’s going to get bigger and we gonna get it at da hospital.”
Me: “That’s right! When the baby gets bigger we have to go to the hospital to get it.”
Harper: “Yeah the hospital at my house. It’s really hard to see the baby because of my tights.”
Me: “Because of your tights?”
Harper: “Yeah because my tights is hiding the baby on my legs.”
Me: “But isn’t the baby in your tummy?”
Harper: “My tights is hiding it and it is down down down and we have to go to the hospital to get it. But we can’t see it because it’s really hard.”

Clearly we have some confusion here! I think the last part is coming from me trying to explain that you can’t see the baby. Harper keeps pulling up my shirt trying to “find” the baby and has had no luck so far! We showed her a picture of the baby giving a “high five” and she thought that was pretty cool.

We are so excited to announce that we are expecting our THIRD baby! Both Portman and I have always wanted a big family, and we are well on our way. Baby Wills is due the third week in April, nestled right between Portman’s and my thirtieth birthdays. I don’t know what I’m more shocked about: that we’re going to be thirty, or that we’re going to be a family of five! The baby will be about 21 months younger than Roman.

So far it has been a typical pregnancy for me: I’m tired, hungry, and not showing at all. I kind of thought that by the third pregnancy I would at least show before the 16th week, but I guess my body doesn’t agree. I haven’t gained any weight yet, despite my valiant efforts to eat everything under the sun, but I’m sure that will start soon.

We are not sure if we will find out the gender. Both of us would love another boy, but for many reasons I am going to be shocked if it is not a girl. My pregnancy has been almost identical to my pregnancy with Harper, and I just have that feeling that there’s a little girl in there!

There really isn’t much planning to do this time around, since we already have all of the clothes and equipment we need. We will NOT be purchasing a triple stroller – I cannot fathom pushing one of those around. We had to buy a new infant car seat because the hand-me-down that we used with Roman expired (did you know that car seats can expire??). Other than that, the biggest question is where he or she is going to sleep! We are not planning to move before the baby is born, so our current plan is to empty out our walk-in closet and move in the extra crib. Roman bunked in our closet for several months, so we know it’s a viable option. Once the baby is sleeping through the night, we’ll consider moving him/her into one of the kids’ rooms… or maybe we will move by then.

Harper is old enough to sort-of understand what is going on. She keeps telling people “there’s a baby in mommy’s tummy, and there’s a baby in my tummy too!” We are looking forward to her reaction as my tummy gets bigger and she can see the baby kicking. Roman obviously has no idea what is going on.

I’m sure you’re all wondering if this is it for us. We both agree that three feels like a “good number” right now, but we are not ruling out any more kids down the line. I think we would both like to take a break for a few years, then consider 4 or 5. I will say that two is pretty easy, but with three we will be outnumbered, so we need to learn to cope with that first!

Yesterday Roman learned a new word, “duck,” bringing his vocabulary up to an impressive FIVE words: mama, dada, uh-oh, hot, and duck. He was so excited about “duck” that when we got in the bathtub, he picked up two rubber duckies, one dressed in a tuxedo and one dressed as a fireman, and yelled “duck!” for about 10 minutes straight. I was seriously impressed that he understood that the fireman and tuxedo ducks were the same thing as the photo of the duck in his book!

This morning we took a quick video of his chatter. Please ignore my horrible morning look… I had been awake for about 3 minutes!

It has been getting a lot colder here, so we have to get nice and cozy for our evening walks. We usually end up walking in the evenings – after dinner and bath – because the kids take a really long afternoon nap (sometimes until 5:00). Walking at night is really peaceful and a nice way to wind down before bedtime. Harper absolutely insists on pretending that she is asleep in the stroller. She does this throughout our walk:

We recently invested in a side-by-side double stroller for several reasons. One, we go for a lot of walks and I wanted something to keep in the house so that I don’t have to constantly drag the stroller out of the car. Two, Harper and Roman are both big enough now that they like to torture each other in the Phil and Ted. Whoever is in the back seat will kick the person in the front seat, and if Harper is in the back she likes to unsnap the front seat so that Roman abruptly falls backwards. It’s loads of fun! It’s still a great stroller for the mall and busy places (like DC), but the side-by-side definitely has its perks.

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year because kids LOVE pumpkins. I think it’s because they only see them once a year, but who knows. Harper and Roman absolutely love them, so we try to make the season as fun as possible. Last week I broke out the pumpkin leaf bags. Roman spent some quality time hitting them with sticks:

On Sunday we went to the Pumpkin Playground at Burke Nursery. Last year Roman wasn’t old enough to enjoy it, and Harper was terrified of the pony ride. This year was quite the opposite.

We’ve finally settled on Halloween costumes for this year. Harper will be going as Paddington Bear, and Roman will be going as Max from Where the Wild Things Are. Both characters are from our favorite books. Harper is really old enough to understand Halloween this year, and is so excited to go trick-or-treating with her friend Ellie. Roman will probably be asleep by the time we trick-or-treat, but at least we can dress him up for Halloween on the Lawn at UVA!

Last week we had a German exchange student, Clara, stay with us for a few days. Clara is staying in Charlottesville until after Thanksgiving, but had never been to DC, so we invited her to stay with us and spend a few days touring. Harper just got a new set of bunk beds, so Clara got to bunk (literally) with Harper. We were so glad to have her stay with us, and it gave us a great excuse to get into the city to see some things ourselves. Harper insisted on calling Clara “my new best friend!”

Ya Ya and Uncle Kevin joined us for the weekend, so on Saturday we all trekked into DC for the day. We managed to do several things that were new even to our family, including touring the Capital and dining at the Native American Museum. We also hit up the Botanical Gardens, and finished off the day with milkshakes from Good Stuff.

Portman and I just finished reading The Lost Symbol, so we were really excited to see the Capital. The kids were, for obvious reasons, not that into it, but they had decent attitudes about the boring tour! For those who have read the book, yes, George Washington is indeed depicted as a God:

After the Capital we had lunch at the Native American Museum. The line is long, but the food is good, and we were hungry! Roman spent about 20 minutes with his tongue in a container of ketchup:

After the museum we went to the Botanical Gardens. I’m not that into plants, but Ya Ya is. They have a children’s garden that was a lot of fun for Harper. So much fun, in fact, that she had to strip down and ended up wearing nothing home but Daddy’s shirt and her boots!

Roman slept through the gardens, but woke up in time for milkshakes (that’s my boy):