Happy Halloween!!

In the Des Moines area we have Beggar's Night, which we learned was put into place to keep kids safe when Halloween started having a lot of vandalism years back in the area, so we dressed up the boys and headed out for a fun filled day!  We started by hitting up the Pumpkin Parade in Valley Junction.  Finnean wasn't quite sure what to do, he thought as soon as you got a piece of candy you were supposed to eat it!  Hutchinson just relaxed and enjoyed the ride and the view of all the people dressed up as he was "perched" on Michael's arm.  Then we hit up the Murphy's and the Darrington's for a little trick or treat action.  We finally ate some actual food before "Trunk or Treating" with the Blanchard's at a local church.  It was a sunny day but the wind kept it chilly.   It really felt like fall, like it should on Halloween.  As you can see Finnean was a fire man.  He picked it out himself and thought he looked pretty cool!  As soon as he put it on, he said-"I want to look in the mirror!'  He had the biggest smile when he checked himself out!  Little Hutchinson was dressed as the sweetest little owlet!!  Kelcee got him the little hat and I made the little feather onesie!  A lot of cutting and a whole tub of fabric glue later...he had the sweetest costume.  I found the little booties at the Gap and of course he needed little tights for the skinny owl legs!  I okay'd the tights with Michael and he said only for a costume can I put our children in tights.  I agreed that is probably a pretty good policy!  The way the feathers got ruffled from all of his snuggling and carseat riding really made him look like a baby owl.  Our sassy fireman (I say sassy because lack of sleep and a need for sugar-make an interesting combination) and little owl were so fun to be with today. 

three whole months...

WOW! 3 months!

We cannot believe that our little Hutchinson is THREE months old!  He continues to steal our hearts.  He has started cooing and ahhing and we have had the start of a giggle!  It is about the sweetest thing ever.  He is a good sleeper at night and has slept through the night a couple of time.  Naps are hit and miss but I will take nighttime sleep anytime.  He still loves his play gym and is a champ at sitting up in your arms.  His head control is awesome.  He looks so old sitting up!  He is such a good smiler and just melts my heart.  He is wearing 1-2 diapers and will move to size 2 here shortly.  He is offically wearing 3 month cloths and does wear some 3-6 month stuff.  It is so sad to be packing up the newborn stuff :(  I am thinking consignment shop, here we come!  Hutchinson loves to watch Finnean do just about anything and Finnean still loves him lots.  It is finally starting to feel like it is normal to have two children....thank goodness!  Hutchinson hasn't had his "offical" 3 month photo shoot yet...I am waiting until he is in his little owl costume.  Here are a few pictures from the last couple days...

Seriously...have you ever seen anything so cute!?!? 
Thanks Uncle Kevin and Aunt Nancy (my aunt and uncle) for this awesome hat!

Oh! I forgot to mention he is trying his darnest to be a thumb sucker.  He is so silly because he has been fighting himself to get his thumb in his mouth when his paci is in but the thumb doesn't satisfy him as well as the paci.  He is a torn little boy :) 

Love that warm weather...

It was beautiful here earlier this week (77 degrees for late October-we will take it!) so we hit up the park to get out of the Clubhouse.  Finnean LOVED it!

Running just as fast as you can...

Love his little face!!

FREEZE!

He loves to pose :)

A little Finnean update...he has turned into a wild man.  He loves to run.  He really loves to talk.  I am pretty sure there is some sort of word limit that he has to get to each hour.  He says the funniest things.  For example:  "that is pretty darn cool" (chalk that one up to Michael) and "Awww Bam!"  that is an expression of awesomeness.  For example, we were at Scheels today and they have a bunch of Iowa State helmets.  He walks by, looks at it and says "Awww Bam!"  They were pretty cool!  I am sure there are many other cute Finnean-ism, I just can't think of them now.  I will try to keep you up on the new lingo we have going on here.  Other than that, he is really into matchbox cars and anything with wheels really.  He likes a lot of buildings and wants to know what every building is.  He loves "church school."  He has also been telling people that he is going to preschool.  He says he likes his teacher and if we ask him where he learned something he says "at preschool." We have know idea where this imaginary preschool is but when he actually goes, I hope he likes it has much as he likes made up preschool :)  He loves to read and memorizes books like crazy.  He loves talking to Hutch and is always saying "he is getting bigger" and "he's so cute!"  Finnean is full of energy and we spend a lot of that energy working on being polite and respectful, which I am pretty sure he is actually starting to figure out what that means :)  He can draw an AWESOME person (will post a picture soon)!  He keeps me on my toes but I wouldn't have it any other way.  We are having so much fun being together! 

Jace turns ONE!

Family photo.
I love Hutchinson's eyes in this one :)

The almost 3 year olds know how to get dirty!  They LOVED playing in the sand!

Hutchinson getting some snuggles from Miss Kelcee.

I LOVE this one of Jace.  His little belly almost prevented him from getting after his cake!

Finnean the Grumps

Mr. H getting some love from the Murphys!

The birthday crew from left to right
The Folkarts-Dana, Tonya, Drew, Coen, Beckett
The Blanchards-Ben, Stephanie, Grady, Jace
The Kenhoulds-Jesse, Jen, Easton
The Waglers-Michael, Courtney, Finnean, Hutchinson
The Murphys-Kelcee, Matt

Pumpkin Time!

Due to being at the Clubhouse for Halloween this year we decided to paint our pumpkins instead!  Finnean picked our pumpkins out this year.  He picked a gourd for himself because it is a "crazy pumpkin" (very fitting because he is CRAZY these days!) and a tiny one for Hutchinson because he is little.  He picked a round one for Michael and a short, round one for me...hope that he doesn't see those qualities in us and that is why he picked them :)  We had a lot of fun painting away (thanks Tonya for the awesome paint supplies!!)

Getting ready and all clean!

Hard at work.

Giving Dad some ideas of what to put on his pumpkin.  Michael had creative block on this date, but his pumpkin did turn out pretty cute!

Happy as a clam.

A little big more messy!

I think Michael used Finnean as a model for his pumpkin design!!

Finished product!
Mommy's, Daddy's and Finnean decorated the last three :)

Hutch was in on all of this but didn't get quite as messy as the rest of us!

Sweet, sweet boys!

CLUBHOUSE!

Rough shot of what the kitchen and living area looks like.  Think two bedroom apartment with tiny appliances and no food in the cupboards.  Okay-we have food but no spices or stuff you actually need :)  Thanks to all of our friends who have kept us fed with awesome meals!!!  You are all amazing! 

Looking back at the kitchen and in the living area.  You can see the halls to the rooms and you can see the blur of Finnean too!

Jerry's house that he is none to thrilled about!

Grady and Finnean chilling at the Clubhouse! 

Hutchinson doesn't seem to mind the Clubhouse at all.  He sleeps well and I am doing okay without my rocking chair.  I didn't realize how dependent I was on that thing!

Finnean loves his little brother!  It is so fun to listen to them talk to each other.  It is amazing how much Hutch watches Finnean's every move and how Finnean can really imitate the noises Hutchinson makes. 

Best napping spot in the house.

Just relaxing at the Clubhouse.

No word on when we will be out of the Clubhouse, so until then we are just trying to enjoy our time here and be grateful that we have a place to sleep!

Wagler Boys!

Do you think they are related?!
We can't wait to see if Hutchinson looks like the rest of them!

Hutchinson's Baptism

On October 16th, Hutchinson was baptized at our church.  It was a beautiful day celebrated with many of our family and friends.  For some reason as I went to post about it, I realized that we did not get a good picture of just Mr. Hutchinson on this special day. 

Thanks Adam for getting a good picture of us!  We often only have pictures of the cute little boys :)

Abby, Cory and Little Hutchinson

Kelcee, Matt and Hutchinson

We have always said that we have amazing friends.  We asked that the Murphy's and the Darrington's be sponsors in our boys' lives to help us raise them in a Christian way and to be a support to our family.  They all agreed and we were thrilled to have them be apart of this special day. 

Bloomfield Retreat

After our little flood we headed to Bloomfield because we didn't know that we were going to be put up in the "Clubhouse" by our insurance.  We took advantage of the trip to hang out with Grandma and Poppa and to hit up a pumpkin patch. 

Finnean loves looking out the window with his "mon-oculars."  He went crazy for all the animals, barns and buggys that we saw on the way to the pumpkin patch!

"A green John Deere tractor!"

Sweet cheeked little pumpkin head!!

Bucking Bronco

Carter has been begging us to hold Hutchinson since the day he was born.  He finally got his wish!  He did a great job and Hutchinson LOVES to talk and smile at him!

Finnean looking old and burning off some energy at Grandma and Poppa's.

Love the expressions of these boys...

Oh the adventures you will go on...

It has been a crazy few days here in the life of the Waglers...I will fill you in! 

Wednesday morning Finnean and I noticed some water on the kitchen floor.  I went over to check where it was coming from (as it is not unlikely that something spilled!) and couldn't find a source.  Then I stepped closer to our washer (which is on our main living floor) and my foot squished into a whole lot more water.  I start to panic and open the laundry room doors, water everywhere.  Go into the bathroom, water everywhere.  I call Michael freaking out about there being water EVERYWHERE!  He didn't believe me as he has just talked to me about 15 minutes before and there was no mention of water being EVERYWHERE!!!  I went into our bedroom, more water.  It sounded like it was gushing through our return air intake.  Went downstairs, light fixture filling up with water and dripping on the carpet.  Boys bathroom, water.  Boys door jam, dripping water.  It was everywhere.  I could tell that the washer was full of water but could it really make EVERYTHING wet??

Yes, we found out indeed a washer can ruin a great deal of stuff in your house.  We first thought, we will just borrow a wet vac and get some fans, it will be fine.  Nope.  That is not the case.  Michael called ServPro (they have been amazing!) and they came out to check it out for us.  The last thing we need is to have mold in our house if we tried to just do it ourselves.  So Brian took out his little Ghostbusters looking meter and showed us that there is water everywhere.  The flooring, the ceilings of the lower level, the garage, the boys' room.  Sub-floor, kitchen cabinets, carpets, linoleum....all possibly will have to be replaced.  Okay-great.  So our house is going to be under construction.  Nope.  He tells me we will have to move out for 3-5 weeks to dry it out, demo it and then rebuild what needs to be.  WHAT!?!  So we spent the next 6 hours packing everything we thought we might need for two little boys and ourselves for our extended...vacation!!! 

Thankfully we have amazing friends and family.  Stephanie brought us supper, Keith and Jessica (Miss Kendall's mom and dad)  took the boys and Kelcee came to help pack.  The Matt and Kelcee put us up for the night (and cooked us an AMAZING breakfast the next morning) and then we headed to Bloomfield on Thursday.   Grandma and Poppa so graciously opened up their house to our craziness.  Michael has spent much of the last few days on the phone with the insurance people, the contractor, housing people, ServPro.  He has been amazing at coordinating everything not to mention all the times he has moved our stuff around. 

The good news is that we are officially in our "new home."  The housing people found us a long-stay suite at a hotel.  It has two bedrooms.  Finnean got to pick out his room last night and put all of his toys in here.  He thought that was pretty cool.  He finally went to sleep last night about 1015 after he continuously said, "I am not going to sleep!"  We have a little living area with a kitchen table and a little kitchen.  It has miniature appliances, they are kind of cute!  Thankfully the kitchen has some basic dishes.  There is also a bathroom.  One of the perks...complimentary breakfast!  We are also on the first floor, close to an exit for the little Jerry dog.  If anyone wants a mini-schnauzer for the next 3-5 weeks...call me!  I will get some pictures posted soon of our "new house."  We are trying to get Finnean to name it so he knows that it is not our real house but a safe place that we will be staying at for the next few weeks.  He keeps saying..."this is our new house??"  He is quite confused but also has been saying that he "doesn't want to go back to Ankeny."  He definitely knows there was water in our house and when he left it was in quite disarray.  I just want it to be put back together before he goes back there.  Hopefully...soon!

Michael meets with the contractor tomorrow to find out what they will be doing and how long it will really take.  We are hopeful but trying not to get our hopes up by any means.  We will keep you posted of our adventures. 

Keys to Sleep!

I am sure that I have mentioned that Finnean can be quite particular.  I thought I would share how that plays into nap and bedtime routine.  The following items are needed for good sleep at our house or any where for that matter! Also, for some reason Finnean has always been requesting a drink of water and a kleenex that he pretends to blow his nose in before nap/bed! 

1. Sleepy socks.
You must have "sleepy socks."  The crazier the better.  These are a recent purchase and Finnean loves them.  He is rocking the pink and the purple pairs as well (they may or may not be little girls socks...BUT they are FUNKY!)

2. Stripe Blanket
You must have stripe blanket to snuggle with.  He got this comfy blanket when he was born!

3. Sleepy music
AKA Jack Johnson.  Finnean has listened to him since he was about 3 days old and now Hutchinson is on the sleepy music wagon.  Oddly enough, we recently hooked up sleepy music by Hutch and the last two nights he has slept form 10p-6am!!  Maybe it really is sleepy music!