Saturday was the day we carved our pumpkin. After dinner, I covered the dining table with junk mail flyers, as we do not subscribe to a newspaper. This being Halloween and all, I shall embellish this story appropriately. Please read with the voice of either Vincent Price or Alfred Hitchcock I drew out a bunch of shapes on a piece of paper, and asked Julie and Isabelle which shapes to use as eyes, nose, and mouth. Brought out the Sharpie, and made a stencil of the face we have created, then sunk the 6 inch paring knife into the soon to be forehead of the pumpkin. I encircled the pumpkin skull until the knife met the point of insertion. With the mouths of the girls open, I lifted the freed cap, revealing the tendrils inside. A brief tug created a few quiet, low pops from within the globe, and the cap was free. The knife quickly cleaned the top from any hangers on, and I set it aside.

I then grabbed a large but rather dull spoon, and went at clearing all the internals of our friend on the table, now named jack. The echo of the blunt instrument raking across the cavity wall was not a sound sweet Isabelle had heard before, and she took a step back. She knew to give me room to complete this evisceration. She then bean to chant in her own little way, "Eewe, eewe, eewe..."

The ceremony was well under way now. I turned to the face. Where to start? The eyes, of course. Again, the half foot of steel in my hand plunged into the face. These angles required a bit more finesse and skill, but presented no great challenge as I have done this before. A piece of the removed flesh fell to the kitchen floor, but even the cats left this alone. They knew this was no mere dinner scrap. Soon, I had two empty eyes looking up at me, and the nose began to take shape. The mouth, without a tongue, could say no words, but without any breath, the lack of a tongue was inconsequential. All that remained was a small notch in the skull, to allow for ventilation.

Like any proper ceremony, this one needed fire. A purple candle was placed in the head and brought Jack to life. On an opposite wall, the lighted figure of a face became visible, and we knew we had completed the creation our Jack O'Lantern.

Happy Halloween everyone!

I have a few moments, so I'll tell you about David's two month check-up on Thursday. Yeah, two months already! He's doing very well. David continues to grow, up to 22 inches ( 55.88cm) and 9 lbs 11 ounces ( 4395 grams). He's only in the 10-15 percentile at this time, as he's compared to other 3 week olds. Which, of course, he should be. By 6 months, he should be all caught up and growing as other 6 month olds. He can sleep with the best of them though.

This was also his first series of shots. Ouch! Yeah, he got 4 sticks in the thighs. DTaP, Hep B, Polio, and Prevnar. He was a trooper though. Didn't really complain more then a few minutes. And since we a coming into flu season, Isabelle got a unexpected shot too. And she really did great. She didn't like being held still, but after the shot, she didn't really care. She had things to investigate and point out to us.

Both Julie and I will get flu shots soon as well.

Isabelle was so happy yesterday, 'cause she got to hold onto David. He really wasn't in pain or suffering in any way. He just happened to be moving around, and the camera caught a funny pose.

Isabelle watches a little TV every now and then. Pretty much every morning, truth be told, for a couple of hours. And one of her favorite shows, is bear in the big blue house. This show happens to close every episode with a song called, "Goodbye Song" or something like that. I'm sure all you parents out there know what I'm talking about. Goodbye, goodbye, good friends goodbye.

She loves that song. In fact, that song isn't sung every morning any more, but we have a video tape, which is requested multiple times a day. We tend to play it once a day though, toward bedtime. But I digress. Isabelle not only loves the song, she is starting to sing it too us many times a day. Of course, she doesn't really enunciate very well yet ( she's only 21 months! ), so she mostly just yells, " BYE, BYE, TAY, TAY, BYE, BYE."

There are worse songs she could request, I suppose.

Here I was planning to post to the blog all week, and I'm just now getting to it. I guess I need to get up earlier or something. Well, here it goes.

Isabelle is really learning to care for David. Um, she knows how we care for him, and is imitating. She comes up to him when he is a blanket on the couch, or on the floor after we change him, and pats his belly very softly. She also caresses his head and kisses him on the top of his head too.

She still has a few moments in which she doesn't want to share things with him though. I think I've mentioned this before, but we have a little rocking chair for babies, which Isabelle doesn't care about, until we want to put David into it. And sometimes when Julie picks up David, Isabelle suddenly needs to be picked up too. But overall, she's very cute with him.

Let's see if this one works today. OK it does, let me explain the duplicate posts about David. I wrote on, got a failure message, so I wrote another, and got another failure message. So I haven't posted for a couple of days. Today I checked ( commercial between 12th and 13th innings) and Ta-Da. So now I'll have another post or to tomorrow.

Well, it has been a week since we all went to the pumpkin patch. And although we've been busy, it all has been mostly routine stuff.

David was having some bouts with congestion when we went to bed. OK, when HE went to bed, with us. We changed the sheets, washed 'em with an organic detergent, and dried without any fabric things. We did the same with his clothes. Same problem. I wondered if he just got congested when he was laying down, and he really did need to be carried all the timed! Julie had a thought, and stopped putting one of her moisturizers. Low-and-behold, he was clear. So it looks like he has an allergy to Isopropyl Palmitate or Methylparaben. Or sunflower oil. Who knows?

Isabelle and Julie made cupcakes today, which Isabelle enjoyed very much, making and eating! Naturally, she made a wonderful mess. David slept through the whole event.

We have found an allergy that David has, and now we can sleep a little better. Here's the story so far. Whenever David went to bed, he would get congested. So we changed the sheets and pillow cases. No help. We then washed everything, sheets, cases, pee-pad, and clothes in a organic detergent, and we used no fabric softener things during the drying. No help. Was he allergic to laying down? Did he just need to be held all the time? Fortunately, no. One of Julie's night time routines was to put on a moisturiser. So she decided to skip it and see how David did. He was clear! So it looks like he is allergic to either sunflower oil, or Isopropyl Palmitate or methylparaben. But at least he is sleeping better now.

This Saturday we all loaded up the car and went out to the pumpkin patch. Isabelle was a little nervous at first, and she was shy when the nice pumpkin patch assistant offered her a spider ring, but she had fun once we got into the patch and started going for wagon rides and picking out pumpkins. She even wore the spider ring later. But that's when the pumpkin patch ghost showed up. We didn't even see it, or know it was there, until I uploaded the photo to the computer. Spooky, huh?

We had so much fun, it was hard for Isabelle to give up the wagon at the end of the day. They also had a corn maze, but we'll have to wait for next year to let Isabelle tackle that. But I certainly can see her running wildly around the course, giggling all the way, as we chase her telling her it's time to go.

I have added new pictures to the dotphoto library of both Isabelle and David. No pumpkin patch ones yet though.

This last Sunday, we had a visit from Grandma Jeanne, Aunt(s) Susie and Joani, and Uncle Greg. Isabelle woke up a little too soon from her nap, and needed to continue sleeping on Mom's shoulder for a few minutes. Cute picture though. We had a good visit, and a belated birthday party for Joani. Isabelle was very excited about opening the presents with Joani, and after each gift was unveiled, she bellowed, "Oh, Wow!"

This was really the first chance that everyone had a chance to hold David, as the last time they were up, he was still in the NICU. As always, Isabelle was very happy to play with everyone. Especially playing the alphabet/horsey ride on Grandma's lap. And she really likes carrot cake!

Some of you already know this, but for those that don't, when you click on a picture, you can view the full size picture alone, then you can go back to this page to read more, or click another.

Tomorrow is our three year anniversary. We don't have any big plans, just a quiet night with the kids. C'est la vie.

David's little GI tract is still learning how to digest all those different little flavors and things in milk. As such, he occasionally has a few bouts of gas. I'm not talking about farting, which he does do, but the bubbles of gas as they move through his gut, stretching the intestine out. Sometmes he gets a saddest face on, obvioulsy hurting, as his face contorts to help force the gas onward. He occasionally has to get his little feet pumping too. This has led me to say, "He has a double pumper now." The double pumpers are the ones that hurt the most.

I know, that's not a very cute little story, but it's one of the things we are dealing with. It's hard to see him hurting, and we can't really do anything about it. He just has to get a good balance of gut flora developed.

Happy Due Date David!

How often does that get to be said? Sorry we haven't posted for a few days, just trying to get into the swing of things. Yes, today is the day he was expected to arrive. Of course, we are happy to have had him as long as we have. It's a strange feeling, in that we wish we did not have him so early, with all the problems, but at the same time, we wouldn't want to give any of that time back, and have any less time with little David.

And, not only that, imagine how big he would be now, and image Julie having to birth him. Ouch! Isabelle was two weeks early, and she weighed 8 lbs. (3630 grams)!

Now that Julie's mom has left, we are adjusting to keeping both little ones happy. It was easy when Judy would run Isabelle to the park, and we, I mean, Julie would care for David. I have been off at work. And Isabelle is not jealous at all, but she sometimes has a hard time waiting for mom to finish, or she wonders why mom isn't spending all her time with Isabelle.

All in all though, we are a pretty happy, and lucky, family.