Oliver's Christmas List 2017

Take One:

Let's try that again.....

Take Two:

Night of Lights

As we always do, we went to the Night of Lights in Horton.  It is the kickoff celebration for Christmas and takes place the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  

The kids get to see Santa, we eat, and they give away gifts/prizes.

Oliver practiced his smile for his photo with Santa while we stood in line awaiting our turn.

Both kiddos were a little unsure of Santa at first.

It didn't take long though, and they both warmed up.

Here are a few snapshots of our crew attending the festivities:

Hudson won this tool set, which Ollie was pleased about too.  They played with it together as soon as we got home until it was time for bed.

Paisley won a Little Tikes shopping cart and Oliver didn't win anything, but he didn't seem to notice or care too much.  Kaylee won a bike, the exact one that she had been eyeing when she and Eric helped deliver the bikes with Glen, a family friend.

Thanksgiving

We had a great (and busy) Thanksgiving this year.  Lunch was at Riley's parent's house and supper was at my parent's house.  We all ate way too much, but had a wonderful time being together.  

For Thanksgiving at my parent's house, I was in charge of bringing corn and a kid friendly dessert.  I made turtle caramel apples (forgot to take a picture of those) and some dirt cups.  

Of course, since I am a teacher, the dessert was also educational.  I put Swedish Fish in the dirt cups and told about how the Wampanoag taught the Pilgrims to bury fish in the soil to make it fertile for corn to grow.

I'm not sure if the kids cared about the meaning behind it, but they sure did enjoy digging in!

Along with all the yummy food, there was lots of baby snuggles, book reading, and hanging out together.

Packed up and ready to head home...he made it about three minutes before falling asleep!

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Zach & Emily's Wedding

My cousin, Zach, got married this past weekend in Topeka.  We had a wonderful time celebrating he and Emily's marriage.

I was busy with the kiddos while Riley bartended so I didn't get many pics (and missed the bride and groom all together!).

We did take advantage of the photo area before leaving for the evening.

K-State Football Game

Yesterday we had a little family outing at the K-State Football Game.  Riley and I have been to several games in the past, but we hadn't been to one since Ollie was born.

We were anxious to go and also a little nervous as we were taking both kids with us too.  To top it off, it was also cold and rainy.  We scored some tickets from Riley's work and ended up on the 50 yard line.  We had great seats and didn't get any of the cold wind.  It never actually rained, but misted on and off.

We managed to stay warm and just a little bit wet.  I wore Paisley in the ergobaby carrier and she by far had the warmest and driest spot.

Both kids were doing really well by halftime.  We decided it would be better to quit while we were ahead (us in terms of the kids, not the score... I don't even remember what the score was.)

We met up with Shelby and Jaime, who were also calling it quits, and walked to the car with them.

Three Months Old

 Our little Paisley girl is three months old. She rolled from her tummy to her back for the first time today!  Most likely she just did it to avoid tummy time since she isn't a big fan of it.

She is in 0-3 month clothes with an occasional 3 month outfit, but they are generally a little too big for her.  She has been sleeping through the night pretty consistently with going to sleep around 9:30 and waking up around 6:00.  8+ hours for a 3 month old, I'll take it!

She is still a pretty good baby.  Typically she only fusses in the evening for a bit when she is fighting sleep.  She has become a mommy's girl and sometimes will cry if somebody else is holding her other than mommy.  I'm glad that she loves me, but I hope she passes by this stage sooner than later.

Paisley is still sleeping in our room in a bassinet.  She has been right next to the bed with the side of the bassinet butted up against the bed.  The plan is to move her bassinet away from our bed and see how she does with the intention of moving her to her room next month.  

Her next well-check is when she is four months old, so not sure how much she weighs, but she sure is growing!

Ollie's Favorite Movie

For quite a while now Ollie has been into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  Riley and I are completely sick of it as it seems that we are always watching the same few episodes again and again.  With the hopes of a Mickey break, I introduced him to Monsters University.  It is a cute movie (even better than the first in my opinion) and he fell in love with it too.  He also likes Monsters Inc and cracks up at several parts in the movie.

Mike is his favorite :)

Trick or Treating

This Halloween was our first in Clay Center and our first where I felt like Oliver really knew what was going on.  He was excited to go trick or treating and we had practiced saying "Trick or Treat" and then "Thank You" after getting candy.

We ended up just going downtown to the Halloween Howl where we trick or treated at the local businesses.  It had snowed (yes, SNOWED!) earlier in the day and it was cold!

We didn't visit them all, just the most populated areas and called it good.  He kept saying that he wasn't cold, but his little cheeks sure felt cold to me.  We didn't even change Paisley into her costume for this.  She stayed in her car seat with extra warm blankets as we pushed her in the stroller.  She was happy as could be and so smiley during our outing, but apparently I was too cold to even get a picture of her.

I think his favorite part of his costume were his gloves.  They were adult sized gloves because I couldn't find any plain white toddler gloves or mittens.  They made candy picking up a little tricky, but he wasn't about to take them off :)

Halloween 2017