Halloween 2014

Paul, Kip, Jovie and I are all sick.  Cough, congestion, high fever, body aches, head aches, extreme fatigue and motrin/Tylenol gives no relief.  So Halloween day, while my birthday boy was at school on a field trip to a farm, we spent the day laying low.  Here is my sick, sleeping, sweetie who never naps, yet was fast asleep at 2pm today.  Fever got to her.  Poor gal.  Despite the sickness, we attempted to rally and give them an chance to do "just a few, little bit, of houses to trick n' treat at."

Trick or treating went down like this - First a forced photo shoot.  They were looking, well sick, cause they are (except Ryk, that or he just refuses to declare sickness yet).  The posing, terrible, but all 4 are in one single picture, and costumed which felt like a big victory given how puny everyone was feeling.  Noteworthy - Hartley (5 months old today) is in a giraffe costume that Kip (2 months old at the time) and Jovie (8 months old at the time) both wore on their first Halloween :).  Jovie, snagged up a hand-me-down dragon costume that Kip wore when he was 2 for tonight as her "ladybug girl" costume she picked out for this year was much too cold for the 45 degree weather and her 100 degree fever.


I snuck in a different facial expression by encouraging them to say "trick or treat."  It worked for 1/2 of them, I'll take it as a win.

and BatKip's face was too cute not to zoom in on, so here -

After the fantastic photo shoot we all ventured out.  It was short lived for BatKip, who is still under the weather.  He made it to three houses before he said "lets just go home and play with our black pot of candy."  So the tiny giraffe, BatKip and I went back home.

Sister wanted to just "trick n' treat a few houses."  She went out with Paul, and he carried her back inside less than 2 minutes after I got in with K and H - both Paul and Jovie were covered in her vomit.  A moment in parenting where I felt terrible.  Terrible I let her go out to those 5 houses while sick.  Poor gal just has so much yuck, that she gets to coughing so hard it makes her vomit.  She got a warm bath and snuggles the rest of the night.

And our birthday boy went out for over an hour venturing out the next great candy from each house in the neighborhood.  My husband he is a trooper and braved the cold/wind while febrile and sick.  Best dad ever.  Sonic the hedgehog sure loved using his quick speed to dash from house to house.  He came home red eyed and exhausted, but flashed his toothless smile for a solo, Sonic picture.  This birthday cutie :)

 

and the 2014 Loprinzi giraffe.  Click to see prior year Loprinzi giraffes

Happy Halloween 2014

Birthday-ing

Celebrating him, and 8 years of Ryker-ness.

Yellow cake, yellow frosting, 8 candles per his request.  I bough them all last moment because we've been the sick house.  Per my "buy cheap, send the rest to work on student loan debt" way, I chose the $.98 candles from the big blue store of which I am not of fan of but reluctantly go because we moved to no-where-ville and there is no Target here.  Anyway, these cheapo candles were trick ones. 

and it was a surprise to us all.  He'd blow em' out, they'd stay burning.  Paul thought Ryk just had weak lungs like his mama, but when Paul blew them out, and the caught fire again, we knew they were those sneaky candles.

A simple little celebration at home this year, because we are new to the area, and have been too busy/sick to get roots and have a big celebration.  But, my favorite firstborn said it was a super special day despite the simpleness of a birthday spent at home, with sick siblings.  That kids heart, he amazes me.

He was pretty excited about the Sklyanders trap team Wii U game he got.  Side note - I totally purchased the game set for x-box, because I am clueless when it comes to gaming systems.  Thankfully I realized it the night before his birthday when I was getting ready to wrap his gifts, so I stopped by the store and did a quick switch-a-roo to save the day.

One of my favorite parts of the day, and my favorite picture by far of him today is this one…His smile and glimmering eyes totally expresses the way he felt.  He read the envelope and this is the smile he flashed after realizing who the gift was from.

Thank you to Ceci, for remembering him.  Such a sweet gesture, and sincerely made his day!  The dimple smile says it all :).

and the gift - yes, the enthusiasm is real.  Kiddo loves to read.  

8

He's 8 today.  Well at 4:56pm he is.  That exact moment, on October 31, 2006 will always be so profound.

At 8 he:

Loves doing "the talking thing" every night.  Which essentially is where Paul or I hang out and just spend time with him one on one each night at bedtime.  Sometimes we read books (he reads a page, I read a page alternation sort of deal) his current favorite - Captain Underpants (thanks to Nana for introducing him to this series!) 

Sometimes we talk about Spiderman/batman/legos/etc.  Sometimes he wants to just hold/be with Hartley.

 

 But every night I try to just say yes to his request for "the talking thing" even when it is tough.  He is a kiddo of affection, and quality time does wonders for him.  As a mama of 4, it is usually never very easy to be attentive and focused for long, but I do my best to give him my full attention for these 10-15 minutes often times while Hartley is screaming because she is overly stimulated/wants to nurse, or Jovie is fussing downstairs because I forgot to give her a pony tail/she is thirsty/she needs to go potty, or Kip is complaining because the cat is in his room...7:00-7:30 is the chaos before the calm.

Loves building with legos.

Was recently introduced to Minecraft (a "game" on the Ipad where he builds stuff, and he is pretty amazing at it. He has built an area with all the important things so far: a house, a place for his 20 dogs, a birthday cake so that on 10/31 his minecraft guy can eat it, two swimming pools, a train, and a school.

Loves to battle.  After this swim lesson session, I'm signing him up for Karate.  He hasn't been able to do both yet, because they are on the same exact days/times each week.  He's so excited to try something new, and I'm excited for him.

Is strong willed as ever.  Both a blessing and a curse.  He is a whiz at school, but doing things that require coordination are a struggle for him.  Not because he can't do it, I know he can and WILL someday.  But because he get so easily frustrated with himself and quits out of frustration.  We are working on riding a bike without training wheels.  He has mastered his scooter, so I think the balance issue is moving in the right direction.

Is the MASTER of Uno.  I adore his love for playing games.  Being a kiddo from a generation of electronic obsessed kids, the fact that he still wants to play cards/board games makes me smile.  Again, I think the quality one-on-one time with his mama/dad are a motivating factor.

For $5 (encouragement from his dad) he learned to pump his legs, to keep himself swinging on a swing.  Just yesterday.  Again, that coordination issue gets to him.  His little face of determination as he tried to figure out when to thrust his legs forward and when exactly to lean back to soar up higher, priceless.

LOVES to run and jump.  And goodness he is fast and has endurance.  He is highly inspired by American Ninja Warrior and makes all things, an obstacle to overcome.

He constantly attempts to be a mini-dad around here.  So typical for being the oldest, but goodness this boy sure loves to think he is in charge of his younger sibling, trying to boss them around. Despite his sometimes bossy behavior, his siblings sure like him.  Honestly though, they do play well together more often than they don't.  In fact, some days the noise that these three make playing well together is sheer chaos.  They are incapable of using inside voices under extreme excitement, and when they are all together it is always a state of extreme excitement.

 Sitting on "Ryk's stairs" they are his stairs because they only lead to one place - his bedroom.

To our Ryker Paul Loprinzi, Happy birthday to an awesome kid who continues to teach us everything we need to know about parenting.  So lucky he is the one leading the way in our parenting journey, he does a stellar job of keeping us on our toes.  Favorite firstborn ever.  Eight is going to be great, I just know it.

fingers and feet - Milestones for H

This 4th month of her life: she's discovered her feet, fingers, and rolling

and goodness, is she busy.

She has also figured out how to multitask: rolling while sucking her thumb or chewing on a toy.  Sister has skill.

She has her first ring too - a teething ring that is in the shape of a ring.  So much cuteness. 

Pumpkin picking

Here are the Loprinzi kiddos pumpkin picking pictures.  I say pumpkin picking, because we didn't go to a patch…yet.  The closest one says it is 1hr and 20 minutes away from our house, and no one was motivated to sit in the car for that long on this gorgeously sunny fall day.  So we settled on a church yard that had an enormous pumpkin selection.  Maybe tomorrow will yield better attitudes about the lengthy car drive it takes, so that they can go have a day of pumpkin patch festivities.  If not, we've got some pumpkins for seeds and carving at least.  And a few pumpkin pictures for me :)

 My pumpkin boy

 Kip wanted to buy a bunch.

 Preschoolers on the hunt for the perfect pumpkin

 Sweet Jovie-girl.

 Self styled outfit for Ryk.

 Sometimes she is a threenager, sometimes she is sweet as can be.

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Loprinzi boys on a pumpkin mission

The fantastic 4.

 This little charmer

Attempting to get a picture of all four together.  Hillarious.  So a few of them because, well Ryker's grin :)...

 Come on Kip, look a bit more thrilled…

 A bunch of noggins

 forced smile = picture fail.

 so looks like this is the "best" posed picture.

 Baby!

He wasn't a huge fan of the camera.  But his 5 year old hands are pretty adorable holding a cracked pumpkin.