Pre-Halloween Trick-or-Treating

One of our local grocery stores was recently renovated, and they hosted a fun Halloween event along with Radio Disney. The girls decided to dress up as a tiger and a puppy.
There were lots of fun activities like...

trick-or-treating around the store
(in addition to candy, the girls got toothbrushes, apple slices and cheese sticks),

decorating mini pumpkins,

air-brushed tattoos,

(Isabella got a tiger tattoo)

(Sienna got a puppy tattoo)

and balloon animals.

Burble, one of the Danger Rangers, made an appearance.

Pat Patriot, the Patriots mascot, was there, too!

Elijah watched everything from his stroller.
(I picked up some beverages to enjoy later!)

It was a great event and everything was free including samples of hot dogs, chicken nuggets, cider, cookies, brownies and ice cream! Hopefully, they'll do this again next year!

Happy Halloween!

After all of the events leading up to the big day, it's finally Halloween!
The girls got to dress up for parties at school. Sienna was Ariel again and Isabella was Batman.
Elijah wore this cute bear costume during the day. (Thanks, Caron!)

Mike and Mark took the kids trick-or-treating again this year while Elijah and I stayed home to hand out candy. Since all of the kids were big enough to walk (or run) and they didn't need to bring the wagon, they made record timing and got to every house in the neighborhood in about a half an hour.
The howling wolf looked a little shriveled and sad by Halloween night. Mark thought that it was a camel!
Elijah checked out his prize-winning pumpkin!
Kate, another neighbor, joined the girls for trick-or-treating. Sienna went back to the tiger costume but Isabella stuck with Batman. It's a good thing that we have lots of dress-up clothes so the girls have options!

The Results are In!

Here are the results of the
2008 Petro Family Pumpkin Carving Contest:

Adult Category
First Place: Howling Wolf carved by Mike. (Bummer!)
He would like it to be known that he did not use a stencil. He did, however, print this picture off of the internet, and he referred to it when he drew it "free hand" on his pumpkin. Kids' Category
First Place: Spiky Hair. This is technically Elijah's pumpkin; although, Isabella wanted to design it. She drew this picture on a piece of paper, and then I copied it onto the pumpkin ("free hand"-like Mike!!) and I carved it.
We received a total of 126 votes for the adult pumpkins (and 124 for the kids'). As she does every year, my mother-in-law had everyone in her office vote for their favorites, so she and her co-workers submitted 67 votes. There were 46 votes on the poll and another 13 votes that I received via e-mail. Here are the final results:

Adult Category:
First Place (46) Howling Wolf carved by Mike
Second Place (29) Wicked Spider carved by Liz (with a stencil and proud of it!!)
Third Place (26) Sponge Bob Vampire carved by Travis in Seattle. Travis said that it took 2 hours to carve his pumpkin. He definitely wins for most detailed carving!
Fourth Place (14) Jack-o-lantern carved by my cousin, Megan, in San Diego (without a stencil or a picture and proud of it!)
Fifth Place (5) Witch and Moon carved by Annika in Seattle
Sixth Place (4) Boo and Ghosts carved by Tanya S. in Sharon, MA
Seventh Place (2) Funny Face carved by Jim S. in Sharon, MA (with a drill!!) Jim wins for most creative carving tool!!
*I received multiple comments that it was hard to see Tanya and Jim's designs since the pictures were taken during the day. They would have been more dramatic if they were taken in the dark. Keep that in mind for next year!!!

Kids' Category-a much closer race!
First Place (31) Spiky Hair designed by Isabella although it was Elijah's (8 months) pumpkin
Second Place (29) Jagged Teeth drawn by Isabella (age 5) and carved by Mike
Third Place (25) "Wolf" drawn by Sienna (age 3) on a piece of paper (after seeing Mike's howling wolf)-copied and carved by Liz
Fourth Place (24) Bat by Madison H. (age 5) in Seattle
Fifth Place (11) Two Teeth by Ben S. (age 2 1/2) in Sharon, MA
Sixth Place (4) Triangle Eyes by Maddie S. (age 4 1/2) in Sharon, MA

Thank you to everyone who submitted pictures of their carvings and to all of you who voted!!! It may look like it was rigged since our family took all of the top spots in both categories, but we truly didn't tell anyone who carved each pumpkin until now. We'd love to have even more entries next year, so start thinking about your designs now!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Pumpkin Carving Contest 2008

It's time for our annual pumpkin carving contest. This year our contest has gone coast-to-coast! We have some entries from Seattle (and possibly San Diego)! We've also added a children's category. There are six entries for each category. Please vote for one adult's entry and one child's entry. The winner will be announced on Halloween night. You may either click on your choice for each category on the poll to the right, or you may e-mail me your votes. Thanks for participating! ***We have a late addition. One more adult entry has been added! Unfortunately, I can't add the Jack-o-lantern to the poll because people have already voted. If you'd like to vote for the new entry, please e-mail me or leave a comment and I'll keep track of those votes.

Adult Entries

Howling Wolf

Witch and Moon

Boo and Ghosts

Wicked SpiderFunny Face

Sponge Bob Vampire

Jack-o-lantern

Kids' Entries

Bat

"Wolf"

Triangle EyesJagged TeethTwo Teeth

Spiky Hair

8 Months Old!

Elijah-
We can barely believe that you are already eight months old today! You are such a happy baby who smiles and laughs at everyone. You giggle at your own reflection and when you see a picture of yourself on the computer.
*You can roll from your belly to your back and from your back to your belly-especially when you're trying to reach for a toy. You can sit independently with minimal support.
*You love to grab everything in sight-especially hair, glasses and necklaces. Anything you get a hold of goes straight into your mouth. You have quite a grip, too!
*All four of your front teeth are coming in at the same time!
*You like to eat lots of different foods. You like all kinds of baby cereal along with all of the fruits and vegetables that we've tried so far. You just started eating the Gerber fruit puffs. You weren't too sure about those at first (you made some pretty funny faces), but you seem to like them now. You're working on eating one of those in this picture. (That's not a crazy fang on the top-it's the fruit puff. If you click on the picture, you can see one of the bottom teeth poking through).*You absolutely adore your sisters and you love it when they play with you. Both Sienna and Isabella play peek a boo from behind your high chair. You think that they are so silly when they jump, dance and make crazy noises for you.*Isabella still likes to hold you.
*You recognize all of our voices and you smile when you hear Dada come home from work when he calls out your name.
*You still snuggle into my shoulder when you are sleepy.
*You love to bounce whenever you get the chance. Your legs are always moving! I think we might be in for it once you're mobile. You have your dad's energy! You just tried a jumper for the first time today at playgroup and you got the hang of it right away.


*You are quite the "talker!" You make all sorts of babbling sounds, and you can be really loud! Sienna asked you to quiet down in the car the other day. I can't say that I blame you, though, since you have to compete with two talkative older sisters!

We are so blessed to have you as our little boy! We couldn't love you more!

Love,
Mama and Dada (and Isabella and Sienna)

Bouncing Baby Boy

About a week or two ago, we figured out that when we say, "Bounce, bounce, bounce," Elijah starts bouncing!!!! I love it when babies start to show that they understand what we're saying. It's amazing how much Elijah has changed over the past several months.

Logical Consequences

The girls just got a lesson in logical consequences. Last week we were all getting ready to head over to a family event at Isabella's school when we asked the girls to get their socks on. When I went over to help Sienna, this is what her socks looked like!!
I had accidentally left some kid scissors on the coffee table, and Sienna said that Isabella cut her socks. Isabella's defense was, "Sienna told me to!" Needless to say, this did not go over well!!!!! After Isabella trimmed her own hair a couple years ago, we talked about how she and Sienna are only allowed to use scissors on paper. We've been very clear about this, so I was surprised that Isabella would do something like this. We told her that it's no excuse that her three year old sister told her to do it when she knows that it's not allowed. (We also talked about how friends shouldn't talk her into doing something that she knows isn't right. She has to take responsibility for her own actions.) We wanted to think of a logical consequence to help this lesson sink in. We decided that the girls would buy Sienna some new socks with their own money. After school the girls got out their piggy banks and we went to Kohl's to buy Sienna some new socks. They could only buy boring white ones because we didn't want this to turn into a reward. That afternoon I made Sienna wear the cut socks because I thought they'd be uncomfortable. (She didn't really care). It was Mike's idea to send Isabella to school the next day with no socks. She wasn't too happy walking to the bus stop, but she clearly forgot about it by the time she got home at lunchtime. I asked her if she was uncomfortable without socks and she said that it was just hot. Even though they didn't mind buying the new socks with their own money, I don't think that anything like this will happen again anytime soon! What we got home from the store, I heard Sienna say to Isabella, "Bella, please don't cut my socks again."

Donuts with Dad/Muffins with Mom

After the drama of the "sock cutting incident", we headed over to Isabella's school for Donuts With Dad/Muffins With Mom-an event sponsored by the parent organization. We went in to share some breakfast treats with the other Kindergarten families before school started. Isabella and Mike snuck down to peek in Isabella's classroom since Mike hadn't seen it before. This is when it's especially nice that Mike works so close by so that he can come to events like these! I know that the girls (and he!) love it!

Go Pats!

We went to our first New England Patriots game, and it happened to be a Monday Night game against the Denver Broncos-Mike's favorite team! He's been known to root against the home team whenever he gets the chance, but this time he truly wanted the Broncos to win. I just learned that he started liking the Broncos when he was a little boy and his dad liked the Cleveland Browns (the Broncos' rival). Unfortunately for Mike, the Broncos played poorly and the Patriots won 41-7. We sat behind a guy who kept yelling, "Send them to the glue factory!" and "Wilburrrrr" in Mr. Ed's (the horse's) voice. It was funny at first, but it got old after the 52nd time!
We went to the game with our neighbors who got the tickets from work. We had great seats on the goal line 37 rows up.

Here come the Patriots!Touchdown!

We left before the third quarter ended because it was late, it was cold, and the Broncos hadn't scored at that point so we knew that the Patriots would win. Mike pouted a bit and blamed the Broncos' loss on the referees' unfair calls.

Impromptu Visit From Nana

I wish I could say that my mom came out for a visit just for fun, but I spoke too soon in my last post when I said that we didn't need to go back to Children's Hospital until December. Almost two weeks ago now, we noticed that Elijah started doing some weird jerking movements with his arms. We watched him for a day or two until we finally got in touch with the neurologist. Once I spoke with her, she suggested that we have him admitted to the hospital so they could do an EEG to see if he were having seizures or other abnormal brain activity. Since we weren't sure how long he'd be in the hospital, my mom offered to come help us with the girls. Because we took him in on a Saturday, we had to go through the ER and have him admitted to the Neurology floor. My mom was able to fly in by Sunday afternoon (which happened to be my dad's birthday-Sorry, Dad!). Elijah was hooked up to the EEG Sunday morning, and they monitored him for 24 hours. He was videotaped the entire time, and I pushed a button each time he had an "episode." He had numerous clusters of episodes while he was hooked up to the EEG, so I was confident that they captured the behaviors that we were noticing. Thankfully, no seizure activity or abnormal brain patterns showed up, so he was discharged on Monday with a diagnosis of "abnormal arm movements." Although we were glad it was nothing serious, it's still a bit disconcerting when a bunch of neurologists tell you they're not sure why he's having these episodes. I suppose it's unrealistic to think that Elijah won't have things like this after having a brain tumor and major surgery. Since he's been home, he's still doing these jerking movements, but they don't seem to happen quite as often. One of the nurses said that he could just grow out of this. We're hoping that's the case! Either way, he'll have his next MRI in December, so hopefully things will look even better then.

We ended up having a fun week with Nana since Elijah didn't spend much time in the hospital. She was able to see both girls head off to school, and she saw Isabella's gymnastics class and her soccer game. We went to a really fun Halloween party at a friend's house over the weekend, and a box of Halloween goodies arrived from my mother-in-law just in time!! Thanks, Grandma, for all of the cute Halloween outfits! I especially like Elijah's "I Love Mummy" shirt!!! Serious competitors getting ready to eat donuts on a stringThe girls didn't have school on Monday because of Columbus Day, so we took the commuter rail into Boston for lunch and to walk around the city since it was a beautiful day. The girls enjoyed watching the street performers and playing at a playground near the harbor. I kicked myself when I realized that I didn't bring my camera to document the kids' first real train ride!! Oh well...

Thanks again for coming, Mom! Once again, we're so thankful to have family members who can come and help us at the drop of a hat even though they live far away! We're also thankful for our friends who helped us out with the girls while Elijah was in the hospital. Margaret kept the girls busy for a few hours when Elijah was being admitted to the hospital, and our friends, Chris and Tom, had the girls over all Sunday afternoon until my mom arrived. Thank you so much!!!!