Nostalgia and Halloween

My kids have made me a nostalgic mess :). From the day I found out I was pregnant with Brayden to today when Paytin first rolled over, and actually long before, when I met and was woo'ed by their amazing and breath-taking Daddy, nostalgia seems to be a word that creeps more and more into my life and life dictionary. I find myself getting teary eyed at the smallest moments, and trying to constantly take "heart pictures" of the moments as they are happening that I never want to forget. I seem to get lost in the little moments and big moments these days and just love love love my little family. I love seeing my friends love their families, I love hearing my friends talk about what their kids are doing thats new, I love hearing them share their latest family adventures and I look around at the high schoolers in my youth group, at myself and the young age that I got married and started having kids, and just life, and realize on a constant basis how fast this roller coaster can whiz by, and how this life really is only a breath in the glimpse of eternity but how I don't want to miss the "moments" in it by rushing to the next thing. This comes on the backside of spending far too much time cleaning this weekend, and not nearly enough time on the floor hanging with my kiddos, and after way too many excuses for weeks and weeks without a nice date with my favorite man. But alas, tonight, kids are sleeping, hubby is working, and I just got to thinking about tomorrow being Halloween. It's Paytin's first Halloween, and Brayden's FOURth. Then I mentioned that to Mike, Brayden has now been Tigger, a Pumpkin, Thomas the Train, and now this year, Captain America. Tonight, we were watching Captain America, and he jokingly asked me to hold him like a baby, which he does when he is being super silly every now and then, and I held him on the couch, and got all nostalgic (but held it in) thinking about how 3 years ago Mike and I were so excited to dress him up in this fluffy, stuffed belly Tigger costume, to take him to his first pumpkin patch, etc. And here we are, again, so excited for Brayden to really get "into" trick or treating tomorrow, and super excited to get Paytin dressed up too. She is going to be a butterfly this year and even though I am bummed the costume was made very cheaply, she rocks it like nobody else ;). And it will fly by in a blur of Merchant Trick or Treat, costumes, candy, walking, jolly jumps, Harvest Festival, in and out of the stroller, sticky hands and face, falling asleep in the car ride home and before I know it it will be next year, and I will be having these same thoughts with another year under my belt. I so love memories, I so love blogging about them, I so love my family and my God who has blessed me beyond what I could ever have dreamt up (which is a whole other nostalgic post in itself) and I am so grateful for nights like this that I have a moment myself, to just sit and remember, and cherish, and be grateful :).

Kincaid Kidisms

• Brayden is still super into "moners" (monsters) and talks about them everyday and night. He either talks about how Daddy goes and fights the monsters and bad guys at work, or how Daddy "shoots" the monsters and bad guys, or how Brutus protects Brayden from the monsters in his bedroom at night. Occasionally Bray makes me run and hide in a closet or our laundry room in the dark with him while the monster goes away.  It's also cute because I try and make him describe the monster to me, what color is it, is it happy, sad or mad, is it big or little, or so on.  He's been so imaginative lately and this is one of the ways it comes out the most :)
• Paytin is such a crackup these days. She is desperately trying to roll over both ways at once which cracks me up.  She's closer, in my opinion, to rolling over from her back to her tummy, and has done it to about 90% (just her arm gets stuck) a few separate times. She just started being interested in trying to go from her tummy to back, but hasn't quite got the strength to flip her chunky body over :).
• One of Brayden's new lines is "remember me?!" It's come about in just the last couple days and I have no clue where he got it from. It's hilarious when he says it and I'm pretty sure he's just meaning to say "remember?" but accidentally throws the "me" part in there as well. He also was telling me to "focus" yesterday which made me literally laugh out loud, because I have a tendency to tell him to do that when he is helping me get him dressed or put his shoes on or something. He also is really good at putting his shoes on the right feet for the most part, but asks me everytime "right one or wrong one" and even if I tell him he has it right, he then holds the shoes to the other foot to hear me tell him that's the wrong way.
• Paytin LOVES Daddy. She still loves Mommy and Brayden, but she has very much entered the "flirting" stage with Mike. I love it. It's hard to understand and probably hard to believe, but she really does smile differently to Mike and she gets this cute little coy smile for him and giggles like crazy. We're getting some family pictures taken this week and I am hoping (and pretty sure) we're going to get some good pictures of her smiling simply because Mike will be there! 
• Brayden sleeps with Brutus almost every night now. Sometimes he doesnt want too, but for the most part he asks for him and Brutus seems to really love it. He sleeps right on the foot of Brayden's bed at night and is super super good about it. The only downside is that I've noticed Brayden gets up a bit earlier in the mornings that Brutus does sleep with him, something I guess I am willing to accept since they are such a cute pair. 

Paytin's 4 month Checkup

Ok, the stats are in! At Paytin's 4 month checkup she was 13 lbs 12.5 oz, 24 1/4 inches long, and head circumference at 16 1/4. Mike and I happened to be going through Brayden's baby book a little bit yesterday and noticed at 4 months Brayden was 13 lbs 13.5 oz, 25 inches long. And I didnt catch the head circumference. She's catching up and I have a feeling she'll have him beat by 6 months :). She's healthy and right on track! Did pretty good with her shots considering we had a practicing nurse student do them and it was her first time ever giving them to a baby! She was very sweet and I gave my permission for her to give them to Pay. The only bummer was when she stopped after 2 shots to ask a question before giving the 3rd, and I couldnt pick Pay up to comfort her and just had to wait. It wasn't excrutiatingly long or anything, but still a bummer to watch her in pain! Literally as soon as she felt my arms she stopped crying and was just minorly fussy with a low grade fever that night. Very happy with how things went! Paytin does have very very mild torticollis, which just means one side of her neck is slightly shorter than the other side. With some extra stretching, feeding positioning changes, and encouraging her to use the other side more, we should have it completely fixed by her 6 month check up!

First Rice Cereal: A Family Affair

We gave Paytin her first taste of rice cereal tonight. I think we waited till closer to 6 months with Brayden, but who knows, maybe this will help her sleep through the night (yeah right)! At first, I thought she hated it because she was already crabby and then got even more mad right off the bat. Then Mike and I quickly realized its because we weren't feeding it to her FAST enough! As soon as we threw caution to the wind persay and started shoveling it into our little miss piggy she ended up having a lot of fun. Of course I didnt get pictures of Mike and I in the first couple minutes trying to feed it to her unsuccessfully (though I did get that part on video) but Brayden really wanted to try it too and ended up being better at it than Mike and I!!! I'm not even over exaggerating to say that Mike and I were shocked that Brayden totally understood how gentle he needed to be from the get go and she didnt fuss one time for him. It was adorable to watch him do it, hence why I am posting way too many pictures of it, I just love all the facial expressions in all of these!

Bray showing her how to eat with his own face (now us Mom's know how we really look when feeding our babes)

Dottie really wanted some too but thankfully didnt find the bowl until after we were done feeding Paytin ;)

LOL

Proud Daddy with his girl (Dottie sneaking in again)

Loved how concentrated Brayden was!

and how well Paytin took to it!

Our chunky little monkey

Me and my chubby cowgirl!

Pumpkin Carving

Still not a fan of getting his hands dirty and sticky

but toughed through it for the most part anyways

loved the sticker carving kit that I found for kids on clearance for $1 with extra big carvers for small hands. Bray picked out the face himself (after I dissuaded him from the ghost he originally wanted to do, and after I donated my pumpkin to the cause since the face was too big for the "little pookin" that he insisted on getting at the patch)

working hard at carving it

waiting anxiously to see how Daddy's turns out.

and posing with our three pumpkins. Paytin slept through the carving, so I carved the butterfly one for her and I. Love that the stencil I downloaded helped to support the March of Dimes, even though I had to do a creative interpretation of it because I messed it up off the get go, I still loved how it turned out!

sooo proud of his pumpkin!

a very very successful carving year and lots of fun too!

Paytin's 4 month shots

God

did it all. I editted this picture in no way whatsoever except to add His awesome words to it as well. What an Almighty and All Glorious God we serve!!

Daddy's Girl

Daddy's Little Girl

Wemple's Pumpkin Patch Take 2