Saturday, October 31, 2009

Monsters, Babies & Time Outs

Monsters:
In my humble opinion, one of the best part about Halloween is pictures of little kids dressed up. I love to see the creativity... or lack thereof in my case... of the kids or their parents. I look forward to browsing blogs for costume pics. So not to disappoint others like myself here was our Halloween.

Olivia, Noah and Luke visiting Great Grandma Benson for the Halloween Party. Luke's mask is on backwards. Honestly, I am surprised he kept it on that way. What kid size 2T is going to keep a mask on that has mesh over the eye holes? Anyhow traditionally Ryan and I are kind of party poopers when it comes to halloween. No decorating or throwing parties, etc. Don't get me wrong we do love to handout candy to all the little munchkins,but things change when you have kids to share it with, at least it has for me. It becomes more fun and worth the effort. So for the first time in a long time I set out to carve a pumpkin with Luke.

It was actually quite fun. He didn't really get the point of it all but was pleased with the results.


Babies:
Last weekend we went to Utah to bless Noah with his cousin Little Josh. These two were born the same day and so we thought it would be fun to bless them together. Josh and Roxanne put together a little program to invite the spirit and teach us about families. (We did it on Saturday so there wasn't sacrament meeting to do that.) They did a great job. Baby blessings will always be a tender, very sacred thing for me partly because that is the one life experience that we had with our quadruplets and partly because I believe the veil becomes thin and you can feel each child's different spirit. This was especially neat for us because Little Josh was born with Down Syndrome and so to get a glimpse of his true spirit and potential was wonderful.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of them in their blessing outfits. They both needed to eat right after the blessing. Noah had the biggest blow out he has ever had while I was feeding him. Yep, all over that little white outfit and all over me! I had to run home and borrow my sisters shirt, which Noah promptly spit up all over, and then rush back to the church to glean what I could from the left over lunch we served. Lucky for us Grandma Rasmussen bought the boys matching outfits for their blessing. So the next day we lined them up for the photo shoot.

Well, lined them up as much as you can line up 2 2 month-old babies. Trust me, they looked adorable.

Noah was a little suspicious of this kid his size dressed like him!

Time Outs:
The time has come for Ryan and I to put together a discipline plan for Luke. This includes the ever-so-popular Time Out. I decided that I had to get it together and start teaching Luke what was appropriate behavior and what is not. So I was using time outs quite frequently during the day. Our time outs are not long but frequent. Anyhow I was feeding the baby and Luke decided to do something naughty, since I couldn't physically put him in his time out I just threated, "Luke, do you need to go to time out?" I guess he decided that he did because he walked over the mantle (our time out spot) and sat down and looked at me with a serious face.

It was so hard not to laugh. Somehow I got out the "No hitting your brother" before I turned away laughing. Ever since he is really good about putting himself in a time out. We just threaten and he goes to the nearest fireplace and sits himself down. Sometimes he will even start shaking his head and saying "No, No". I am not sure if this is a good thing. I think he might like it? I don't know. Maybe he likes the "Say your sorry and then give Mom a hug" at the end of the time out. Sometimes he will hit something and then walk himself there without me saying a word. So do I make Time Out something less pleasant than sitting on the fireplace or just count myself lucky?

7 comments:

lramey said...

what cute boys you have!!! I love the halloween pictures!!! And how fun that you and Josh have babies born on the same day!!! His little Josh is thee sweetest little boy ever!!!!! I think you should tell him I'll babysit whenever!!!!

don't you love when kids put themselves on time out??? Sawyer does that often,"I'm mad, I go time out".

courtney said...

love it all - the halloween costumes (i'll have to post some on my blog for your viewing pleasure), the pumpkin carving, the baby blessings, luke putting himself in timeout...love it. and count yourself lucky. one day, he'll figure out that he doesn't like time out. so enjoy yourself! we must be doing a lot of time out at our house too because i caught sam using his trucks to "hit" each other, then one would make a crying sound and he would put the other one in time out. nice.

Lisa said...

It is so hard to disapline kids at that age. They are just so cute!

Danielle said...

i can't believe how grown up luke looks in this picture. I guess that happens when they get a sibling.

nutrigina said...

i love the pix! what awesome little guys you have! i cant wait for our boys to play together, too. thanks for the updates...even though i know how hard it is to get stuff posted. you're the cutest mom perhaps of all times, annalyn. then again, we all knew that would be the case... will you be in utah for thanksgiving?? we will be...love you miss you! g

liz said...

I say count yourself lucky. My kids would NEVER put themselves in a timeout, so threatening doesn't do much. I always had to physically put them there... Anna does put her stuffed animals in timeout though, and that is funny to see.

Athelia said...

HA! I love the timeout story! :) And I love Courtney's comment about her boy using trucks to hit each other and then the following time out. The brainwashing/ teaching is working! :) Love it. You are all great parents and you are blessed with a great kid it sounds like.