Halloween

We went to Halloween in the Park sponsered by our community for Halloween. It was more crowded than I expected - but ended up being the perfect way for a 1 and 2 year old to trick or treat - during the day, on a paved park path that is less than a half mile long. And we got just the right amount of candy.

Dominic was a fireman - he loved his hat :) Natalie was a bear and Kirk, representing Target at the community function, was a gorilla. The Target shirt they brought for him was a little tight over his costume...

Dominic thinks the only logical place to put his hands when riding on dad's sholders is over his eyes.

It's a....

Baby Pavkov #3 is all girl according to the 20 week ultrasound. Kirk and I are thrilled our baby appears to be 100% healthy and normal. We don't have any names, and Kirk and I really disagree on girls names so we're in for a few battles :)

I originally wanted a boy because I was worried about Natalie being a middle child with a sister so close in age to compete with but now that our Talie girl is a little older it is obvious she is not going to let us forget about her, baby sister or not. She is full of personality and demands her equal share of attention.

We keep trying to explain to Dominic that mommy has a baby in her tummy and now he's going to have another baby sister, but every time we say anything about "baby" he looks at Natalie - she is baby in his mind. Maybe when I am more noticeably pregnant we'll be able to explain it better so he understands.

Fall

We had some GREAT weather last week which gave us the chance to clean up some leaves and go to Walsh Farms. I had great ideas about the pictures I would take of my children enjoying the fun activities, they loved playing in the leaves and everything at Walsh Farms, but they were so uncooperative when it came to taking pictures I just had to laugh. I don't think I got ANY pictures of Dominic looking at the camera so I did had to pull out the video camera to document that they were actually having fun. Of course I haven't ever taken the time to figure out how to get our videos onto the computer - something that is definately important that I could probably easily figure out. Add that to the list :)

Natalie playing in the corn sand box at Walsh Farms, not a very flattering picture of my gorgeous baby, but the only one that showed even part of her face :)

I don't know what look this is - but Nic thought it was pretty fun to look through the little hole for his cute little face.

Dominic has been talking about "punkins, yummy, yummy" for weeks now ever since he's seen them out on people's porches. I'm not sure what the facination is, or where "yummy" comes from since he seems to know you don't eat them raw like an apple, but I'm glad he's enjoying the seasons festivities!

Running out of the hay maze.

Real Life Lyrics

So I realized a few weeks ago that I was living the line of a country song. Luckily, it's a good line, and not one about losing everything you love or being a total redneck or anything like that. Anyway, here's some pictures to clarify...

"There's a carrot top that can barely walk with a sippy cup of milk"

"and a blue-eyed blonde with shoes all wrong 'cause (he) likes to dress (him)self"

Thanks Lonestar (and song writer) for lyrics that I'm happy to be living!

Natalie is 1!

Natalie turned 1 this week! I can hardly believe it has been a whole year. We had a great day and on Friday the family came over to celebrate with us.

The birthday girl

Eating cake

Dominic is missing from most of the pictures because he wanted to play on the four wheeler

More cake

Natalie showing us how old she is. Aunt Ali took this picture and I thought it was so funny that she is holding up one finger. She doesn't know that this means anything and she was probably pointing at her auntie - but I still got a kick out of it.

Lately

We had a fun week. (Of course I didn't take any pictures of us enjoying it) We started the week and Grandma and Grandpa's babysitting while they were out west visiting the rest of my siblings. Kirk got to go to cedar point on Wednesday and I started my graduate classes. KSU is holding a cohort at the Copley-Fairlawn schools which allows me to get my masters taking one class at a time, one night a week, at a local school, for less money. Its a perfect situation for a busy mom.

On Friday night Kirk and I took Dominic to the Barberton High School football game. The Magics won, and Dominic really likes the atmosphere of the games even though he'd rather run around then sit in the stands. The game would've been really fun but shortly into the second quarter a swarm of bugs hit the stands. It was disgusting. Anyone remember the Yankees @ Indians game a few years ago when the bugs were nuts? It was the same thing. It only lasted about 20 minutes, but it was a miserable twenty minutes. Everyone looked hilarious though swatting at the bugs.

Today we went and caught the last part of the Cleveland Airshow. Dominic really loves airplanes and anytime he hears them he gets excited. He was thrilled to see the thunder birds flying overhead and anytime there was an airplane in sight, he was telling us about it. "airpain in sky". Natalie didn't really care for the jets so I spent my time chasing her around. We didn't actually pay to go into the airshow since we were only there for an hour but there's a few good places to sit just outside of the airport where you can still see really well. We were on a hill the drops off onto some train tracks and of course all Natalie wanted to do was try and walk down this hill and tumble down - I had my hands full! We did successfully wear the kids out and they were both in bed by 6:30. I just hope I don't regret the early bedtimes tomorrow morning :)

Catch Up

Random pictures from July...

Natalie at the 4th of July Parade. It was freezing.

Nic and Papa at the parade. I showed this picture to Dominic and said "Who's that?" and he said "Peas!" (His name for his blanket - sorry papa, aparently you can't compete with peas :)

More parade pics - Aunt Bethy was here that week!

Talie girl and Aunt Sarah (who looks thrilled waiting for the parade to start - haha)

The Nicster first thing in the morning - making sure mom is working on breakfast asap!

Natalie loves to have her picture taken these days...

My attempt at getting a picture of both my kiddos.

This is the closest I could get Dominic to sit to his sister for a picture. The little stinker.

Talie girl getting ready for the pool

Natalie and I went to DC for a weekend to visit my friend Jenna. We had a blast hanging out with Jenna and her family and going into the capital. But, I am so cool that this is the only picture I took of anyone while we were there - lol. This is Natalie at the Smithsonian American History Museum. They had a lot of cool exhibits for the kids to play at. This one was a bunch of magnetic kitchen utensils that you could stick together, to the wall, and build with. (I'm not sure what this had to do with American History - but the kids loved it)

Edible Playdough

I tired to occupy Dominic with edible playdough today while Natalie was napping, it didn't go so well. I made the playdough based off of a recipe I heard on Jon & Kate plus 8 years ago - equal parts honey, peanut butter and powdered milk. I don't if dry milk and powdered milk are the same thing (I thought they were) but I used dry milk and it was SO sticky. I had to continually add flour to keep it a decent texture, and the dry milk made it kinda lumpy. Anyway, I have a son who HATES to have dirty hands, so the sticky playdough definitely didn't help with that :) Dominic was also awake way too early this morning adding to his crankiness. Maybe if I had used less honey...

Anyway, I did get him excited about the playdough when I gave him silverware and cookie cutters so he didn't have to actually touch the playdough with his hands - haha. He did like to eat it as long as he took small chunks - he took a big bite once and spit it all out. That was lovely.
He is into shapes so he liked that we made circles and squares and would sing the Steve song from PBS "line, line, circle, circle..."

And then Dominic's awesome mom made a car out of the sticky gooey playdough which made his day until he tried to pick it up and it smashed in his hands getting him all messy :)

Have any of you done this successfully? I think Dominic would have liked it much better if it was more like regular playdough (which we can't play with because he tries to eat it:)

For purposes of equal blog representation - here is Natalie enjoying Dominic's birthday present. Dominic woke up sick on his actual birthday (hense the towel on the couch and the bowl next to him) But at least Natalie had fun with his new toys.

The Zoo!

We went to the Akron Zoo to celebrate Dominic's birthday. He loves watching animals and was amazed by all of the animals he had never seen before. We managed to pick one of the busiest days to go to the zoo - it was SO crowded, and manuvering the double stroller around everyone elses' double strollers wasn't the best part of the trip.

I forget about how I need to upload pics to make sure they're in the right order, so here's our zoo trip in reverse...

Poor Natalie had had it by the end of the morning - she did not want a bottle for lunch and was hungry, tired and sick of being in the sun.


Dominic wasn't quite sure what to think of the penguin...



Daddy and Nic after a busy morning at the zoo.

Dominic looking for the bears...

Dominic did really well considering he is a notorious wanderer/explorer. He would ride on the stroller until we stopped at an exhibit and then jump down to go check it out. He only escaped a couple times - he did have an advantage being small in such big crowds, he could slip away really quickly.

There is a new jellyfish exhibit that was pretty cool - but hard to take pictures of. You can use the flash and see us or turn it off and see the jellyfish...

more jellyfish.

Natalie started out enjoying the zoo despite the ending results.

Daddy teaching Dominic about the fish.