November in pictures

I am being a slacker(it's ok if I admit it right?) and I am showing our November rather than rambling endlessly about it. It was a month of change and news for us in many ways from my hair color to, completing our daily time with Izzy to the beginning of my nausea, grouchy pregnancy. I must do the obligatory Thanksgiving  greeting and add that I am so very thankful for my family, immediate and extended, even though we live in the boondocks and rarely get to see any of you.

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful day! We didn't have to get up until 8:30, which is always nice. Even at that, we had a bit of time with just Baylee before Tanner woke up. She was thrilled beyond words for Christmas. She was a little surprised by the hamster because she didn't ask for that, we just thought it would be a good substitute for a bunny, that was requested a while back. She has since named her hamster Seona. I'm assuming somewhere along the lines of Fiona is where she gets that? Her pet, she gets to name her! She opened and closed that cage more in 8 hours than I'm sure most people ever do throughout the life of their hamster. She would open, pet her, and close it every time Seona went up and down from her bed to her food. She is one busy hamster but Baylee was keeping up pretty well. She got a lot of great presents and was appreciative and thrilled over each one. She told me last night she had the best Christmas Ever! I'd say Homerun!

Tanner had no interest whatsoever in opening presents. I'm assuming this stems from the fact that he had to put the presents back prior to Christmas and was not allowed to play with them, of which he was not a fan. I think he was just so confused by being told to open them all of a sudden. Baylee opened most of his presents. He had a great time playing with his car ramps and workbench but his favorite seemed to be the basketball hoop and Baylee's Barbie car, of course.

 We had an enjoyable time watching the kids have so much fun. A nice, relaxing day at home suits us just perfectly. It's always a nice end to the day as our big Christmas Dinner tradition is always Mexican food! Yum!

Remainder of October

I just don't understand how this blog page is bookmarked on my favorites toolbar very close to the front of the list and it stares at me every day, haunting me and yet I continuously put it off. I would attempt to say maybe this should be one of my new years resolutions, but aren't you supposed to set yourself up for success not failure with those? I started out strong with Baylee doing it every week or every few weeks at the most. Yes, there is another child in the mix, should make it double the priority, right? Don't get me wrong, I love bragging about and showing off my cute munchkins and rambling on and on, I'm great at these things. I just haven't quite figured out why it falls so far down the to do list.

To finish up October....we of course did the Halloween thing. We had Nemo and Rapunzel or the Witch dependent upon her mood. I found it hilarious that Baylee wanted to be Rapunzel for our Halloween parties but had picked out a light up witch costume that was for Halloween only. I never  quite figured out the reasoning behind it, but I'm sure the lady had a plan. Tanner refused to walk in his Nemo costume thus the horrid set of pictures. Halloween night, I forgot to charge my battery to the camera after uploading pictures from it. Forgot that kills the battery if I don't unhook it. Go me! Thank goodness for the backup camera phone! We had fun at all of our little parties and trick or treating.

We also went to the apple orchard. After tasting my homemade applesauce, there was no way I was going to let the season end without finding a way to make more and doing it more efficiently in the cost and labor departments. I ended up canning a bushel and a half of apples into either pie/crisp ready slices or a variety of applesauce. It was loads of work and I thought I had a magic box of apples that seemed to multiply. I finally finished off the box by making snicker apple salad, what better way to celebrate the bottom of the box? This was definitely worth my time. Not to mention during the fiasco of the dying blender in the middle, I got a new blender. I do love new small appliances. I just think they need to come up with some super awesome tool box for a "woman that loves to cook"'s tools. Or is that what the purpose of a cabinet is? Might need a few more to house my contraptions! There was also of course, the apple donuts we had to purchase and while it was quite chilly, we still had to run around and play until a storm started creeping up on us.

We did mosey up to the mall one day and let the little ones ride the carousel. Baylee is an old pro. Tanner was amazed and it was funny watching him try to figure out the pole and the lights. He investigated it all and loved every second of it.

I would say those are the highlights I missed from the previous posts. I did turn a year older and am truly knocking on the door of 30...guess it's all how you feel and I definitely do not feel like I have been alive for 1 year shy of a generation.

Rest of Grammy and Grampas visit

Way back what seems like months ago in October, oh wait it was months ago,the author of this blog seems to be incredibly slow at this thing called writing and keeping up, we had a great visit with Grammy and Grampa.

Besides the pumpkin patch, we entertained by having them fly the kite with us. I'm pretty sure it gave them a new meaning to flying a kite, as it did us. We enjoyed hearing stories and catching up as well.

When we took them back to the airport in St. Louis, we made our way over to the Mississippi River where they had the most historically correct replicas of the Nina and the Pinta. That was fun to be able to see those in honor of Columbus day. I am pretty positive I would have had to jump ship off of those tiny vessels during a storm. To know what they conquered and then see in size how it was done, it's nothing short of amazing.

We all enjoyed the time together immensely!

The Great Pumpkin Patch

While Grammy and Grampa were here, we took the time to visit the Pumpkin Patch. We went to the Amish Buffet first for some tasty food, which was fun in itself.

While the displays and such are the same every year at the Pumpkin Patch, we had a great time. We did get to venture to the larger corn maze this year. Baylee was our fearless leader and got us out pretty quickly. We made a few wrong turns but not many. It was fun to watch her little mind at work using reference points of the other displays that were tall to navigate. From the small gardens to the oversized pumpkins and squash to the animals, it was an enjoyable day that Baylee is still talking about.

Tanner turns 1!

Our little monkey is a whopping one year old. He is a little dude on a mission at pretty much any given time. He definitely keeps us on our toes. We had it pretty easy with the Baylee. She was about perfect less the ear infections in terms of being a baby. Tanner, not so much. And yes a lot of it is simply personality and we are so grateful to have an assortment and love them each for the self that they embrace, yet it's hard not to compare the similarities and differences. And I say a lot of it is just the boy in him.

We have learned he is the reason there is such a thing as child proofing. He has done things already Baylee has still not tried to do. He is tenderhearted with a firm "no" making him cry, yet his thick skull makes him continue to play with plugs, feed my VCR, climb on unstable things, destroy anything that appeals to his destructiveness, stick his fingers in the box fan he turns on and the list goes on and on. It was something of a sign that there is a crash helmet in his near future, while learning to walk, he would take a few steps, stop, giggle and face plant on our not so soft floor. He's a pretty crabby kid, yes acid reflux is at times to blame as the spewing still comes in spurts, with the exception being it's all solid and nasty now. He's cried more in his year than Baylee has in her 4. We tend to lean towards bipolar as a summary for him. Though, through all of his fussing, his new habit of screaming and screeching, I know that at some point during the day he's going to throw his head back, squish up his face, crinkle his nose, squint his eyes and give me the biggest cheesiest grin he can muster and once I laugh, as I always do, he's going to do it again until he's cackling with us. Sadly, I am yet to catch this one on camera. He is hilarious (when he's not making horrendous noises that make you want to scratch your eyes out). He's a showman and loves to get us laughing. He has an obsession for placing things on his noggin and the things he comes up with are quite entertaining. And my, oh my, he brings a whole new meaning to Momma's boy.

We celebrated very simply for his birthday as I still believe he's too small to remember so he doesn't need a big shindig. Grammy and Grampa came to town and were here for the festivities. I was a little sad for his cake, in the middle of getting it done, Baylee got the stomach virus and I threw it together in between her sick sessions. They both were very sick. Terrible timing on it too! (of course that's how it usually goes)

All in all, we love this small guy and are so blessed and glad he's in our family.

Speedy September

In a nutshell, the month seemed to fly by. Maybe it was the Tanner walking or the fall weather coming in, no matter what I want to blame it on, it came and went faster than I had expected. (does it give me away since it's November and I'm just blogging Sept?)

You lucky ducks, I'm going to take the easy way out for the sake of trying to get caught up(or maybe it's the ever growing to do list stalking my peripheral vision as I type) and get these pictures posted....Enjoy the September slide show it speaks for itself :)