Festival of Trees

Our weekend was pretty chill, Scott had to work, so we stuck close to home.  We did get out yesterday to go out to eat and run some errands.  Today we did some Christmas shopping and then decided to stop at the Festival of Trees to check it out.  Carys loved looking at all the lights and watching the figure skaters.  She also meet Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph - both were walking around saying "Hi" to all the kids.  Then we stopped to see Santa and Mrs. Claus.  Santa even brought Donder and Blitzen with him, so we were able to meet them too!  I forgot my camera, but snapped a couple of pictures on my phone.

Here's Blitzen, or maybe Donder?

This was the third time Carys saw Santa this year.  She isn't scared to go up and say hello, but she had absolutely no interest in sitting on his lap and gets a little nervous anytime we get too close!

I'm sure I look super happy because I was trying to convince Carys that it was okay to sit!

That was about it for our weekend - thankfully Scott didn't have to work too much, so we still had time to have some fun!

Butterfly Kisses

We went out to eat and ran some errands today, and on the way home Carys was in the backseat just squealing and laughing.  I turned around to see what she was up to and and she was sticking her fingers in front of her eyes and every time her eyelashes brushed her fingers she started laughing.  I swear, she never stops cracking us up.  

Thankful

I love Thanksgiving and we had a really, great weekend this year.  Scott unfortunately had to work Thursday & Friday, and Carys was sick for the first half of the week, but thankfully she felt better on Thursday and Scott was still able to make it to both of our Thanksgiving dinners!  I cooked my first, full turkey dinner this year, and I can honestly say that it was pretty good and I had a lot of fun doing it!  Our schedule was a little crazy.  We went to my mom's house in the early afternoon for our first dinner, and then my sister's family and my brother all came back with us to our house to have dinner with my dad and grandma.  It was a whirlwind day, but it was great spending it with family!  Carys had a blast playing with my nephews and by the end of the night, she had warmed up enough that she was entertaining all of us with her dance moves! ha!  

Tyler and Carys at Grandma Judy's

Carys LOVED playing with Aunt Lisa!

Me and my handsome bro!

Carys with the teddy bear purse that was mine when I was her age!

My first turkey! (full disclosure - it was dry. I overcooked it, but not bad for a 1st attempt!)

All the fixins'!

I made the Pioneer Women's Soul Sweet Taters (except I did half marshmallows, half pecan topping) and used her mashed potato recipe.  I made Grandma Alice's recipe for stuffing and followed her instructions on making gravy.  I also made Scott a pecan pie - his special request.  I was a little stressed trying to figure out how to make dinner when we weren't even going to be home for part of the day, but I made all the sides the day before and that was definitely the way to go.  The turkey cooked faster than I expected, so by the time we got back from my mom's it was already over temperature, but at least I'll know not to make the same mistake next year!  Overall, with the exception of Scott working most of the day and the turkey, everything turned out great.

I have so much to be thankful for everyday, but in the spirit of the season I'd thought I'd share some of the things I'm most thankful for...

like these two... 

spending all my time with this one,

and the little things that remind me how sweet this time of our lives is, like...

shoes in the dishwasher,

Little People in my boots, 

and watching the joy of discovering cool, new things like a flashlight!

Hope your Thanksgiving was full of love and good food!

Swim Date

Scott has been working a lot of hours lately.  That combined with a trip out of town meant that he hasn't had much time to spend with Carys lately, so we were super excited when he called yesterday to say his schedule was clear for a few hours and he was going to meet us at swim class!  

She had so much fun swimming with both her mommy and daddy!  Carys is in the middle of her second round of classes and is doing so well.  I almost didn't sign up for this session, but I'm glad we did.  She loves the water, and even though we had a rocky start to her lessons, she's really improved and now loves to go.  Most weeks I have a hard time getting her out of the pool!  

Her instructor is so sweet and has an awesome camera/video recorder that is completely waterproof.  She took some pictures during our last couple of lessons and was kind enough to send them to me.  The two pictures above are from the one and only time she wore water wings.  She actually wanted them on!  Before that and since then - she screams whenever they get close to her!  

15 Months

This post is a little over due, but at the beginning of this month Carys was 15 months old.  I really can't believe how quickly time is going by - I know I say that every month, but it's so true!

Yesterday we had her 15 month check up and I can say one thing for sure.  When Carys doesn't like something she is not afraid to let the whole world know, or at least the entire Dr.'s office.  She was fine playing with the toys in the waiting room, but as soon as we walked into the exam room - she took one look at the table and the meltdown began.  The poor girl trying to take her measurements had to get help from another girl in the office and between the three of us we were able to get the job done.  Poor Carys, I even asked for her sucker early to try to help her calm down, but nothing worked.  She screamed and clung to me and pointed to the door.  She wanted out!  Thankfully everyone was really sensitive, and helped us get everything done as quickly as possible!  Then as soon as we left she was a happy camper again!  Before we left I heard the doctor say (it was pretty difficult to have a conversation with all the screaming) that she was growing and developing just fine and she was in the 75th percentile for weight and 50th for height.  He did confirm again that she's a little chunky, but nothing we have to worry about.  I did let him know that she is a great eater - I really can't think of anything that she's absolutely refused to eat and we've tried a lot of different things.  She's like her Momma - loves food!

She looked like such a big girl in her jeans, just laying there 'reading' a book!

Carys is really amazing us with how much she understands.  She still isn't saying much (her only words are Mumma, Dada and Ah-dah (which still has multiple meanings)), but she knows SO much.  She still loves to read and in every book we have (and we have a LOT) she can point out most of the objects in the pictures when asked.  She knows the signs for milk, eat, more, hot, bath and monkey (ha!) and also can point to most of her body parts.  She also can point out people in the room if you ask, Where's Grandma? Where's Daddy? Where's Nick? etc.

A couple other things to share... last month Carys experienced a few firsts! (in no particular order)

She had her first Sonic apple juice slush!  I'm addicted to Sonic diet vanilla cokes, but unfortunately since we moved the nearest Sonic is about 45 minutes away.  It is right next to Costco though, so at least we can get a treat once a month after our Costco trip!  It also comes in handy as a great distraction while I unload the car!

Another BIG first... was this girl finally has some teeth!!!!

As you can see I wasn't too successful in getting a shot of them, but her two, front, bottom teeth came in at right about the same time.  I could see them, but couldn't feel them.  Then the Monday before Halloween she took a drink out of my water glass and I heard them!  I think more are on their way because she still chews on everything (mostly her hands) and has been a little whiny.  She did really good eating pretty much anything without them, but we are glad they are finally coming out!  Just one more thing though that's reminding me she's no longer our little baby - those adorable gummy smiles are grown up now too!

She got her first ice cream cone after we visited the pumpkin patch.  

It wasn't just any ice cream either - it was a chocolate custard cone from Jimmy's!  So yummy!

She was all business, and polished off her kiddie cone so fast!  Of course, she didn't want to stop eating to smile for the camera, so you'll just have to trust me that she loved it!

Another thing she started this past month was walking backwards.  She loves to run around the house after her bath and one night she just turned around and walked backwards into her room.  She had a look on her face that was hilarious - it pretty much said..."Whoa, check me out - I am so cool!"  She was definitely proud of herself and while I was cracking up laughing at her, Scott was panicking that she was going to run into something!  She did pretty good avoiding the walls though, and we all spent the night laughing as she would run around, and then suddenly spin and moonwalk!  We did get a video, but of course she always gets shy when we whip that out, so it's not the best one of her performances that night.  I would upload it anyway, but I can't find my cord. Sorry!

So that's about it for the highlights of the past month.  Carys is really such a joy to be around and everyday I'm so thankful that God blessed our lives with her.  Sure, we have our moments - she's definitely learning to be more 'outspoken' about getting her way and we are feeling a little challenged entering this new phase of having to start disciplining her (which thankfully is rare at this point), but really she is so sweet and fun and we love her more than we ever thought possible!

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

James 1:17

Halloween Weekend

We had a really fun weekend.  Grandma and Grandpa V. decided to come down for a visit.  We haven't seen them since the Bug's birthday party, so even though we are getting together with them next weekend - they were free and decided to head down.  I think they were having some serious Carys withdrawals!  We had a great time visiting and I know Carys was loving all the extra attention.      

Carys was a butterfly for Halloween and she loved wearing her costume!  I decided to do a trial run a few weeks ago to make sure it fit.  Well, she liked it so much she ended up running all over the house playing in it!

Showing off her "muscles"

So, I was hopeful that once Halloween arrived we'd have no problem getting her dressed up.  I put on her shirt and tights, but we were just hanging out for awhile and I didn't want to put her in her full costume and have her get hot.  She saw her hat though and wanted it on, so Dad helped her with that.  Then she got to work inspecting the candy for the trick-or-treaters.  She was really interested in the bubble gum, she kept digging for those and pulling them out.  

Our trick-or-treating traffic started to pick up and Grandma Judy had arrived to help pass out candy with Grandma Alice and Grandpa Tom, so we decided it was time to get our Bug suited up and head out to let her try some trick-or-treating.  By this time she had taken her hat off, but Dad had her dressed with the rest of her costume.  We started looking for her hat, so we could leave and it was no where to be found.  I didn't want to leave without it, so we started tearing apart the house trying to find it.  Oh - and let me just say that Grandma Alice was playing a lot of new games with Carys this weekend.  One of them of course being hide and seek.  Carys had been hiding her toys for Grandma to find, so with that new "trick" we were realizing that this hat could be anywhere!  So, we had five adults, in a not very large house, checking every nook and cranny.  We even ran downstairs to check the laundry chute (twice) and still no hat.  Then, don't ask me how she thought to look, but Grandma Judy decided to check Carys!  Scott was holding her and she reached inside her little butterfly outfit and pulled out an antennae, and said, "what's this?"  At this point (way more excited than I should be) I yelled, "That's it, That's it!!"  I have no idea how it got in there.  Scott doesn't remember seeing the hat around when he got her dressed, so it could have already been in there or maybe she stuffed it in - who knows!   I do know that this really isn't the most exciting story, but if you could have seen the insanity of every one of us on a mission to try and chase down this stinkin hat - it was really quite comical!

So here we are - finally ready to take Carys out for her first time trick-or-treating.

 

We weren't sure how she would do and had planned to only hit one or two of our neighbor's houses and then head home.  We were surprised though because she loved it!  She wanted to hold her bag and walked right up to every door!  We ended up hitting about 10-15 houses, and got lots of compliments on our adorable, little bug!

When we finally made it back to our house, Carys walked up to her Grandmas got some candy from both of them, and then turned around and started walking away toward the next house!  Apparently, she wasn't quite ready to be done!  It was pretty chilly though, so we decided it was best to call it a night.  Plus, we had a nice dinner of chili and cornbread waiting and it was time to eat!  

We had a great time.  I loved seeing all the costumes and I think my favorite was a little Christmas tree complete with real ornaments and lights - I totally want to copy that idea.  We also got a ton of trick-or-treaters!  At the beginning of the night, Scott and Grandpa were giving me a hard time about all the candy I bought, thinking we would have a lot left over, but we ran out of candy and ended up passing out all of Carys's.  Sorry Bug - it's all yours next year!   

Little of This, Little of That

I was going through my pictures this month and noticed that I missed a few that I wanted to blog about, so this post is going to be a mish-mash of some of the things we've had happening over the last few weeks.

I know I already shared the pics I took on our date with the Quads to the pumpkin patch, but Auntie Jenn took some pictures too, and they were just too cute not to share! 

 

The gang, just missing the Daddies!

Cutest pumpkin in the patch!

Oh and just a quick flashback, this was Carys last year on her very first trip to the pumpkin patch.

Our sweet, tiny, little bug!

So happy to be a family of three!

Back to present day, we've had a couple of playdates with Carys's friend Nick and these two have a lot of fun together. Actually getting a good picture of the two of them together though - is not fun.

They either refuse to look at the camera,

or when Nick decides to look, Carys attacks his ear, 

and then Nick says, "I'm outta here."

They really do keep Tonya and I laughing though, and lunchtime is no exception.  One time Nick decided he was going to entertain us by making silly faces and noises.  

 We were cracking up laughing, but apparently Carys was not impressed.  She just kept looking at him like he was crazy,

so he tried a different face.

Nope, still nuts. 

We had Tonya and Nick over again today for another playdate, and this time Carys was the entertainment at lunchtime.  Although her form of entertainment was fussing up a storm, and this time it was Nick's turn to look at her like she was crazy!  I wasn't too impressed with her behavior either, so needless to say I didn't get any pics of that - ha!

So, while we are talking about fussing and mealtimes, Carys has been getting more and more independent, and sometimes she prefers to only feed herself.  This has been quite the challenge for both of us.  I'm trying to relax because I know she should practice, but Oh-My-Word, is this girl a mess!  Besides the usual smashing of food, throwing it on the floor and using it to 'condition' her hair, one of her favorite things to do is grab the spoon and flail it around until all the food flies off.  This by far is the biggest mess, because the girl has an arm on her and food winds up halfway down the hall.  I have learned though, that whatever you do - under no circumstances should you try to grab the spoon at this point.  Apparently, this triggers battle mode and always involves screaming, more intense flailing, and only makes you target #1 for the flying food.  It's best at this point to just walk away and get outside the fly zone!

All kidding aside though, she is getting better all the time with her spoon.  She can put it in her mouth no problem, but we still help her scoop the food.  She also likes to 'help' too by taking her finger food from the tray and placing it on the spoon before it goes in her mouth.  Sometimes this means she eats peas on top of yogurt, or beans on top of applesauce, but hey - whatever works!  

Scott was on-call a couple of weekends ago, so we needed to stay close to home.  The weather was beautiful though, so we decided to get out and take a walk from Lighthouse beach over to Lakeside park.  Of course, Carys had to check out the swings at the park.  She loves swinging! 

I love this picture - these two are best friends!

Love this one too!  

It was really windy that day, so the lake had some pretty whitecaps.

Well, that's about it for now.  I still need to share the pics from our trip to the farm with Daddy, and Carys has had a couple of "firsts" this month that I'll be sharing soon.  We are really excited for the weekend.  Grandpa T & Grandma A are coming down to visit and Carys is going to be a beautiful, little bug for Halloween.  We've given her costume a trial run already and she looks adorable!