Trick or Treat!

Andrew was thrilled to go trick or treating, of course.

He collected an impressive amount of candy.  I fear we'll be eating it through December.

Earlier in the week he helped carve two jack-o'-lanterns.  Here he is inspecting one gutted pumpkin with his flashlight to get every last seed.

Andrew was in charge of designing Graham's mini jack-o'-lantern.  Here is his concept:

And below is the finished product.  I think I executed it faithfully.

4 weeks old!

Can't believe Graham is already 4 weeks old!  Grammy figured Graham should have his own stuffed animal for size comparison, so here is our transition shot from the Highlan' Coo over to 'Chompers' (as Andrew has christened him) the Alligator.

For comparison purposes, here is the shot of Graham at 1 week, and Andrew at 4 weeks.

At four weeks Graham is looking more like a baby and less like a puffy, red newborn.  He is increasingly alert for longer stretches of time, sometimes staying awake between morning meals.  He isn't terribly fussy or hard to please and is happy to nap for a lot of the day, especially if someone is holding him.  We still have to wake him up during the day to be sure he eats enough.

Andrew remains a cheerful and proud big brother, though eager for Graham to grow up and become more interesting.  We spend about 10 minutes each day discussing how old Graham will be when Andrew is a given age (and vice versa).  Therefore, I am constantly adding or subtracting 3.5 from various numbers, which is about all the mental exertion my sleep deprived brain can handle.

Boo at the Zoo

Andrew did some trick or treating at the Zoo yesterday, while Graham once again took a nap, oblivious to the fact that we were assaulting his dignity with a pumpkin hat.

Andrew declared in August that he wanted to be a frog for Halloween and never wavered.  I have no clue why he picked it, but he looks cute.

The frog visiting his captive comrades.  But don't be fooled, Andrew was entirely uninterested in the animals during this trip to the zoo, focusing instead on where the next treat was to be found.
 

 The frog with a momentarily fussy pumpkin.

Content pumpkin

I want to swing MY way

Just like his big brother, Graham seems to appreciate swinging front to back more than side to side.  After crying his head off in side to side mode I rotate him 90 degrees and now he's much happier.

Back to Linvilla

It's the time of year where we head back to Linvilla (to be fair, this happens many times a year--this time I'm referring to pre-Halloween to pick out our pumpkins for Jack-o'-lantern carving).  Andrew had a lovely time picking out all the pumpkins for each family member (Daddy had to drag 45 lb of pumpkins across the very large parking lot...in the rain), riding on the hay ride to visit the witches house ('they're not real witches, right!?' 'That's right Andrew, they're nice witches that give out treats' 'Ok good.'), and toasting marshmallows at the end of the hay ride.  And of course getting a half dozen apple cider donuts for breakfast the following morning.  Our little pumpkin-hatted Graham slept peacefully for most of the outing, so I guess he likes Linvilla as much as the rest of the family.

Andrew doing his best to imitate his little brother wearing the pumpkin hat

Strange, these pumpkins don't really look much like Andrew

Hayride fun

The requisite hay throwing.  To be fair, the other 20 kids on the hay ride were throwing a lot more hay than Andrew did.

Marshmallow toasting at the end!

Perfectly toasted marshmallows!  Not flaming charred husks, which is apparently what most people like to eat.

One Week Old

In an effort not to stiff the second child, we're going to try to keep up the tradition of regularly measuring Graham against the Highlan' Coo.  Actually, he is already suffering from second child syndrome in this regard, because I fully intended to buy him his own measuring stick stuffed animal while we were on vacation this summer and I totally forgot.  We bought the Highlan' Coo (highland cow) in Scotland when I was pregnant with Andrew.

Anyway, the photo below is of Graham at one week.  He is actually two weeks old today -- it's his due date!  He is still a very sleepy baby.  We wake him up to eat and he mostly naps between feedings, though he has 2-3 brief alert periods each day.  Andrew is doing well and is proudly helping out a lot and likes to hold his brother, but otherwise he is just going about his usual routine.  Andrew is still working on how to pronounce "Graham."  Despite being able to say "graham cracker" and "Grammy" with no problem, his little brother is called "Gran" or "Baby Gran" more often than not.

Just for kicks, here is a link to Andrew's one week old photo.

A Few Pictures

 Smiling

 Tummy time

The three boys

Recovering from first bath

A rare photo of Graham awake

Brothers