From reading Thanksgiving books, to making Thanksgiving crafts at school, to recreating the first Thanksgiving with Little People, this family is ready for some turkey! We hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!!
Archive for November, 2009
happy thanksgiving!
Posted in holidays on November 23, 2009| 1 Comment »
playing with henry
Posted in emily, Molly on November 22, 2009| 1 Comment »
Last Friday we got the chance to babysit Henry, Abbey’s son, for the morning. He is such a sweet little guy and very smiley…much like our Molly. Here’s a picture of 2 month old Henry:
Molly was fascinated by little Henry. She couldn’t keep her eyes off him, and whenever I’d let her get close enough she’d try to grab his hair. I think she was just a little confused seeing a baby like her with so much hair! I think this picture is hilarious…it just shows how bald Molly really is!
And one more pic of the little cuties. As you can see, Molly was pumped up that she got to have a friend over to play. We wish we got to see little Henry more often!
it’s the 17th again…
Posted in the kids on November 17, 2009| 4 Comments »
…and Molly is 7 months old!
She continues to be SUCH a happy baby. We love our little Moo Moo. Lately she has started to develop a very goofy personality. She’s discovered the fun behind the fake cough. This is hilarious to her, and it’s even more funny if we fake cough back. She’s also started doing this really silly smile. Here’s a picture of it:
She does it all the time and thinks she is SO funny. I love seeing her personality emerge. Besides becoming a goofball, Molly has started sitting up this past month! She will still topple over every once in a while, but I love that she can sit up and play with her toys.
Molly has become very interested in developing her verbal skills this month! She is SO loud. She definitely gets her pipes from Travis’ side of the family…and I think they’d agree with me! This girl knows how to project and she does it well! When she’s talking, it’s hard to talk over her because she’s just so doggone loud.
On to Owen…he is 30 months today!
Owen is a really fun kid. I love hanging out with him and hearing what he has to say. He’s also become Mr. Independent. He wants to do everything by himself. I’m learning that I need to allow about 5 extra minutes to get anywhere because he’s going to want to do everything by himself. This is great, but when I’m in a hurry it can be a test of patience.
Owen still loves to sing. At the top of his lungs. All the time. He makes up his own songs to the tunes of other songs he knows. It’s great. He sings Happy Birthday at least 5 times a day. I never know who he’s going to be singing about, he switches it up all the time. He’s a funny kid.
Owen is fully embracing the “terrible twos”. Yesterday he woke up from his nap jumping on his bed so exuberantly that he knocked a picture off the wall. I put him in time out because bed-jumping is not an appropriate activity at our house. When time out was over, I told him that jumping on the bed is not safe and if he did it again he was going to be getting a spanking. He looked at me and said (I kid you not), “Wow! That’s awesome!”. Did my child just skip through the elementary years and become a teenager?? Seriously.
Despite the “terrible twos” episodes and the extremely large amounts of spit up that Molly continues to produce countless times a day, these kids are a joy. I feel so blessed that God has entrusted me with their lives and that I get to be their Mommy. Here’s to another month!
a dynamic duet
Posted in funnies on November 14, 2009| 2 Comments »
potty training vicariously through luke skywalker
Posted in funnies, owen on November 9, 2009| 3 Comments »
Potty training may not be something that Owen wants for himself, but he’s been pretty intent on teaching Luke Skywalker to use the potty chair recently. The other day I walked into the living room to find this:
No, our potty chair doesn’t make it’s permanent residence in the entry way. Owen had carried it out of the bathroom, stripped Luke Skywalker of his clothing (because Owen REFUSES to wear a stitch of clothing when he sits on the potty chair…evidently this is the way it’s done), and was telling Luke that he needed to go potty on the potty seat.
Now we can pretty much tell when Owen has to go to the bathroom. He goes and gets Luke and makes Luke sit on the potty for him. We’ve tried to get him to show Luke how to go potty, but he’s not interested. Evidently Luke is the one who has to go. I’m not sure what to do with this…so we just laugh.
the big costume reveal…
Posted in holidays, the fam on November 4, 2009| 5 Comments »
Drumroll please…
Molly was:
And Owen was (that’s Darth Vader for those of you out there that aren’t well versed in the names and appearances of Star Wars characters):
And here’s my attempt to get them to pose for a picture before heading out to trick-or-treat. They both look pretty miserable. Molly, due to the fact that I had just set her down in some mud (I found that out when I picked her up) and Owen, because he understands the concept of candy and wanted to get going!
Last year Owen was a bit young to really “get” Halloween, but this year he LOVED it! We practiced saying “trick-or-treat” a lot before we went out. He was doing really well…and then he got to the doors of the houses and froze. The person would open the door and say hello and he would just look at them and say “Yessss.” After each house as we were walking away he would look up at us and say, “I say trick-or-treat really loud!”. Not quite. He finally overcame his stage fright at the last house and gave a really loud “trick-or-treat!”.
Here we are at one of the first houses…and this man gives out soda instead of candy (a sure fire way to make your trick-or-treat basket super heavy super fast).
After a couple of houses, he really got into it. After each house he’d say “Let’s go to nother house!”.
Everyone had a great time trick-or-treating. We were lucky enough to have my mom, dad, and brother, as well as Nana and Bubba there to trick-or-treat with us. That meant a lot of people to hold onto Molly so Travis and I could go door to door with Owen. She did great…until she got sleepy and I had forgotten to bring her paci. Oops. We went home shortly after that discovery.
Once we got home, Owen couldn’t wait to examine his loot. We let him pick one piece of candy to eat. He wisely picked out a Hershey’s chocolate bar. (Some of that Halloween candy is kind of gross…Trav and I quickly went through his candy and sorted the ones that we like and the ones we didn’t like and gave those that we didn’t like to the big kids that came to our house a little too late at night.)
After candy, we got the kiddies ready for bed. Mimi (my mom) had bought the kids matching Halloween jammies. Aren’t they cute??
And one of just Molly because she makes picture taking so easy. (And it’s becoming a lot more fun now that she’s almost able to sit up by herself.)
We ended the night by letting Owen stay up extra late to watch Monsters Inc. with both sets of grandparents. It was a great night. We’re so glad that our families got to enjoy it with us!
first things first…carving the pumpkins
Posted in holidays, the fam on November 2, 2009| 1 Comment »
Yeah, I know. You’d like to see the kids in costume. But I like things orderly, and we carved our pumpkins BEFORE we went trick-or-treating. Bear with me…the costume post will come.
Nana and Bubba made a last-minute trip to St. Louis to make up for the very sad trip cancellation we had to make last weekend due to Molly’s swine flu fun. They got here on Friday night in time to watch some Halloween specials with Owen. Owen’s been really into Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin and the Monsters vs. Aliens Halloween special that was on TV last week. We’ve watched both numerous times. The next morning we got up, had a nice big breakfast, and carved pumpkins! Before the pumpkin carving began, we attempted to get a family picture in our Halloween clothes (well, the kids’ Halloween clothes). This is the first EVER family picture with Max! He actually stood still long enough for us to get the picture. (Notice how Molly has her hand up to pet him. She loves Max and wants to touch him all the time.)
Then we started carving. Owen liked digging out pumpkin guts for about 2 minutes. Then he found better things to do. Here he is with Nana:
And we managed to get a shot of all 4 of us hard at work before the kids got bored:
Pumpkin carving with my kids was just as I remembered it from my childhood. The kids’ interest was very brief and then the parents end up doing the work. Travis and I had fun carving up the pumpkins while the grandparents watched the kids. They wouldn’t have looked nearly as jack-o-lantern-like had we been carving pumpkins while making sure Molly didn’t ingest pumpkin guts and Owen didn’t run off with a knife. It was very peaceful…just Travis, me, and the pumpkins. Here’s the final product:
Then, because freshly carved pumpkins scream photo-op, we rounded up the kids and attempted to get some pictures. Molly was MUCH more agreeable than Owen. We got her to smile in almost every picture. Owen was another story. The kid doesn’t stop moving. This is the best we got of the two of them:
Once we got a decent one of the two of them, we let Owen run free and kept the easy child for some more pictures. Our little pumpkin is such a happy gal!
Stay tuned for the big Halloween costume reveal…
we got us a family here! 
