Three for Halloween

We had a beautiful day here on friday and the girls had a great time being out in their costumes, especially for trick or treating.
Our little bunny Alex was happy to hop along:



Elmo Dani was la-la-la-laughing all the way to each door:



And Benny the dog was taking a catnap for much of the fun:



As we've done every year, we went trick or treating with Clay and Owen in their 'hood (where they actually have houses with KIDS instead of RETIREES!). It was a blast (into outer space!)

Even more progress

One day after pulling to his knees, Ben decided to keep movin' on and is now pulling to his feet! Our pediatrician saw him today for his 6 month check up and said he's progressing faster than any 6 month old she's seen in her 13 years of work. I can't decide if I'm tickled or sad to see my little guy growing up so fast. He's also keeping up with his sisters in other ways - he got his first ear infection last week. :( Hopefully we'll get to stay away from the Ear Nose and Throat Doc with him, but if he gets tubes like his sisters, I won't be surprised.



The girls are speeding ahead in their development as well. Dani has been drawing amazing shapes and filling up pages, coming back to a single drawing throughout the day. Our walls are getting full of both girls' beautiful art!



Alex enjoys drawing too, usually making large sweeping movements with many different colors, but she also loves pretend play and finds incredibly creative ways to use her toys. Here she is "making muffins".



Tomorrow should be a fun day of trick-or-treating and a parade with their school friends. I'll post pics of our bunny, Elmo, and doggie ASAP!

Keeping up with the Wei girls

Ben is determined to be a toddler. He pulled himself to his knees today for the first time and was looking into the big bin of balls when I found him. He's exactly 6 months and 1 week old. STOP GROWING SO FAST little man!!! I need my baby to be a baby for at least a few more months!!! Halloween and fall leaf pics coming soon.

Sit ups

Today was the first time since August I actually recorded one of Ben's milestones in my journal... He sat up from a crawl! That's right, not only did he sit himself up, but he's crawling. I've been meaning to post about that but it's been crazy around here since the last week of September when I fled the house for a weekend in San Diego - the first time I've left Ben for more than a few hours. I figured he would learn to crawl while I was gone, just to spite me, but he waited until a few days later and is now doing a very strong army crawl style forward movement. His favorite "toys" to dart towards are electrical cords and the tubes on my breast pump! After that very fun trip with the ole' Wash U illustrator crew (thanks for 2 FUN days, guys!!! And Congrats Chris! It was a GREAT wedding. Everyone should have a photo booth at their reception!) I hosted a twins club board meeting at my house, spent a week with Chrissa working on the book (it's OUT! We'll see if our chosen Rep bites on the project), organized a table at local baby expo all weekend, started having back spasms (I should be doing sit ups now too... Oh, physical therapy, why are you so hard to fit into my day...) and am now finishing 3 Halloween costumes. After tomorrow's spooky party, I'll try to post a few pics of everyone and a very cute video of the girls on their teeter totter. :)

Here's Ben, at 6 months old.






And here's our second annual trip to the pumpkin patch

Benjamin v2.0

Ben's added a lot to his resume the last few weeks. He's not only a cute baby who laughs but can now roll over, eat cereal, and - as of TODAY! - can rotate 180 degrees on his belly. Here's the proof that:
Ben eats:

Ben rolls:

Ben scoots:

A Dentist Needed for Wild Things...

Today Ben turns 4 months old and Jack took some adorable photos of him. But I also just had to share a quick post with today's "Kids say the darnedest things" moment (we have one almost every day but I don't always get around to recording them!). While Jack read tonight's bedtime stories, he learned that, according to the girls, Maurice Sendak's 'wild things' go around "Smashing their terrible teeth" before rolling their terrible eyes and showing their terrible claws! Ha!

A Fairly Good Time

We went to the Indiana State Fair this weekend. It was my first state fair as well as the girls' and Ben's, and we all had a great initiation into the world of show animals and 4-H fun! (and funnel cakes. Mmmmmm... funnel cakes) The pony rides were an especially big hit for the girls, especially Alex who is apparently more of an animal lover than we realized. With each animal we saw, she didn't want to let go of her new pig, horse, calf, or sheep friends. And neither girl had a potty accident the whole time we were out. They're potty pros now!

I can't wait to go back next year and have more new experiences and see how Benny likes the Fair!
Here are photos.  

Alex and her new friend, the dairy barn calf. 

Dani took awhile to warm up to petting the animals but also eventually loved the calf. 

Dani rides Hank. 

Alex and Bandit and Ama.

Tractor Time!

Dani's not sure she likes the Carousel. 

Alex enjoyed her ride.

Dancing with the stars

We've gone to a couple kid concerts this summer with Ama and the girls especially enjoyed when Stacia Demos sang Twinkle Twinkle. Alex does a great "grand finale" to her singing...

One Year? He's A Quarter of the Wei, I mean Way

Last week, Ben turned 3 months old and boy is he cute. He's added a lot to his "resume" - laughing, grasping fabric with his hands, bringing his hands together over his chest, and occasionally batting at toys hanging above him. Daddy is the best at making him laugh, but I tried on his 3 month birthday and recorded it for all you loved ones out there who want to do some virtual cheek pinching. And they ARE pinchable - he's weighing in at 16 pounds these days - double his birth weight in only 3 months (that's about twice as fast as most kids do it. With my genes flowing through his veins, this may be the only thing he ever does fast...)

Here's Ben's first movie on this blog! (I had this all ready to upload that day and it turned out the video was too big. Hooray for iMovie and compression abilities...)
;)

2 2 2

A week from today, I won't have 2 2-year-olds and one 2-month-old anymore... Ben will be 3 months old! So here are a few shots of Ben at 2 months.

Hey, who's there?


Look, these things can come together!


Hanging around with Mom (one of his fav spots)



One week away from 3 months!

Everybody Poops!

Dani's doin' her doody duty...


It's amazing what potty training can do to you... I spend HOURS every day keeping the girls company in the bathroom, waiting for them to pick out the perfect jelly bean or M&M and stickers after they go pee, and cleaning potty chairs for the next day. But when it all starts to work and you see how proud they are of themselves, it's totally WORTH IT! And this week has been a great week for them, culminating in a big (ahem) accomplishment - Alex pooped in the potty for the first time!!!! And Dani did too for the first time in months! And I was SO HAPPY. I think we've turned a corner. I give some of the credit to the new potties I brought home today - baby Bjorn brand "little potties" (or Squatty Potties as I'm calling them). They are simple, small, and force kids to sit in a way that's conducive to doin' their thang. I highly recommend them. Plus there's just one piece to keep clean, which should cut at least 15 minutes of sanitation out of my day!

Here are the proud poopers. When I snapped this pic, Alex (on the right) was saying, "Like a statue" since her doodie was standing up tall. ;)

He Sleeps!

Ben has successfully slept for 5 hours straight tonight! So I got 3.5 hours of sleep... ALL IN A ROW! That hasn't happened in almost 3 months, and man did it feel good. Hopefully I won't have to post again like I did with the girls , announcing, sadly, that he's not sleeping well again. But this 5 hour thing has happened 3 times now so maybe it's a trend, even though it hasn't happened three days in a row... oh well, we'll see. I'm just psyched to feel so rested! And I still get to go back to bed for MORE shuteye. Woohoo!

Ben smiles!

Grandma has been spending a few weeks here with us, off and on, and she was here when I captured Ben's first smile on film! He loves doing pat-a-cake and having his face tickled. He's also able to put his fist in his mouth - this was accidentally omitted from his resume ;)

Dani and Alex Wuv Each Other

I'm not sure if it's because I have less time to play with them, of if it's just their age, but the girls are playing TOGETHER all day, every day now. I've caught so many adorable shots of them TOGETHER. I love being TOGETHER with my crew!

Ben's Resume

A few weeks ago, a friend who's a photographer came down and took pics of all the kids (thanks Jill! It was sooooo fun!)and we have some proofs I can share. Aunt Jean took beautiful ones of Ben too, when he was just one week old, and I'll share those soon when I have prints to scan. Having a professional portrait got me thinking professionally, so I'm writing up Ben's resume of skills as well, in case you want to hire him to be YOUR baby (Don't even think about it; he's all MINE!).

Benjamin Mason Wei

Objective: To be adorable and learn to be a big boy

Education: April 17, 2008 - present: Big Sister University - continuously auditing all classes

Professional Experience and Acheivements:
- Has grown over 6 pounds in 2 months, since weighing 8 pounds at birth.
- Extremely proficient "singer"
- Cooing, smiling, and following moving objects with eyes
- Improved head control and turning head from side to side as desired
- Kicks toys set near feet (soccer career?)
- Skilled in building long term relationships with family and friends

Recent Photos for Publicity purposes

Snug as a bug on a rug

Thanks to everyone for kind words and open ears after Plato's passing. I still feel like I'm missing something when I get everyone into the car or go upstairs at the end of the day, but I've been doing pretty well most days.

Things have been quite fun around here, now that the weather is warming up! I've taken so many pics and videos the last few days, but until I get time to download them, here are a few of the 3 kids having some floor time. The girls continue to be sweet to their brother in general, but we're going through some terrible twos and/or sibling rivalry issues that make Mommy a little frazzled at times... Dani especially is using tantrums to get a bit more of my attention, and Alex has been whiney and clingy if I'm not able to give her enough one-on-one. It doesn't help that Ben can be pretty fussy, therefore stealing a lot of my focus. I hope to get him on a schedule over the next few weeks so I can make sure the girls have my attention when they need it.

Here are the "wei three". Dani is on the left. Ben is in the middle. hee hee ;) He's getting so big! His 4 week weigh in was 12 pounds 11 ounces - he was 8 lbs at birth!

In Memory of Plato

We lost a member of our family today. He's had a rough time the last few years between moving to Tucson, moving to Indy, the additions in our family, and his own health problems, but I know how much we love him and hope that he felt loved through it all. I miss him already.

3 weeks with 3 kids

Today Ben is three weeks old! He's a very good baby and his sisters, as we expected, have been great big sisters, always patting him, wanting to help Mommy, and talking about "my buddy Benny." He's generally easy to care for - good eater, not fussy, etc. But we could both use a bit more sleep. Jack is on duty with the girls at night and they haven't been sleeping without waking at least once each since Ben came home. And I'm on baby duty, which may be a bit more predictable than girl duty - he wakes every 2 - 3 hours to eat, and then (unlike his sisters at this point in their lives) he goes right back to sleep (usually). So he has his days and nights figured out pretty well. However, during all his awake time, he wants to be held. So, today was a HUGE breakthrough when he finally took to being in the sling and actually SLEPT in it - twice! I did puzzles with the girls after dinner while he sling slept. Hooray for 2 free hands!

I've been convinced that he looks like Dani at this age, so here's a photo of the 3 of them. See what you think.