Advent Calender

Here is our advent calender this year. It's actually our first year having one and I love it how it turned out. Each day, Tyler will pull out a card and it will say something to do that day such as make a Christmas craft, read a Christmas story, go see Santa, make Christmas cookies, go get a peppermint shake from Chick-fil-a (my favorite), go see the lights on the River Walk...things like that. We will also be doing a Jesse Tree this year-I'll have a picture and post on that later. Honestly, I still need to make about 5 more ornaments and get the tree. I'll got till Dec. 1 to make it happen.

Giving Thanks

I copied this idea from my friend, Kate. Starting last Thursday, we put up one thing that we are thankful for each day.

7 Months

My little Molly Beth, you are 7 months today. You are still just as sweet and precious as ever! You are such a happy little girl and bring us so many smiles. This month you have mastered sitting up and even like to sit up in the bathtub. You are so cute when I sit you down with your basket of toys-you take one out, play with it, then take out another one until your basket is empty. You like to read. I know you're only 7 months, but you grab for books and get all smiley when I read them to you. You have 3 or 4 favorites that you love. You do like to chew on them too sometimes. You chew on everything, but no teeth yet. The last two weeks, we've done really well on having cereal and fruit in the morning and then a vegetable once during the day. This week I'm going to start trying for 3 meals. Since you're eating baby food more, you usually just nurse before your naps. You're naps have gotten longer-usually and hour and a half and in between then, you stay up about 3 hours. You reach out to me now to hold you, which I love. You've waved a few times. The other day, I sat you in the grass and you weren't really sure what to think of it. You still adore your brother and he loves to play with you. You like watching the dogs too. You had your first airplane ride in October to IL and you did great both ways! You had your first Halloween and were the cutest pumpkin. Molly, you are just a fun little girl! We love you!

Family Pictures

While in IL, we took family pictures. Here are Tom, Val, Me, Kim

All the cousins

My wonderful parents!

My older sister, Kim with her two kids, Kyla (6) and Kaleb (4) My younger sister, Val with her family. Her and her husband Jason, their daughter Allissa (14), Zac (2), and Bailey (2 weeks)

We did get a whole family one, but we still need to photo shop Scott in.

IL Trip-part 2

Here is the rest of our IL trip. If you remember from my post about carving our pumpkin, Tyler wasn't that into it. He didn't like the smell and would not touch any of the fun gooey stuff inside. Tyler's cousin, Kaleb is also not a big fan of carving pumpkins, so my mom got them chalk spray paint. They painted their pumpkins and then could change the face or just color on it with chalk.
Here is Molly with her "M" pumpkin.

For Halloween, Tyler was a builder.

Molly was a pumpkin. Is she not just the cutest pumpkin ever!!

All the cousins got skeleton pj's that glowed in the dark.

Tuesday was gorgeous out. The kids had so much fun playing outside and in the leaves. Once again, they played so well together!

Val and I took the kids on a walk to collect leaves for an art project. It was so nice to see all the leaves changing. I always miss Fall.

This is the art project. My siblings and I always made these growing up. You put leaves and crayon shaving in between wax paper and then iron on it.

When we left for our walk, both babies were sleeping. When we got home, they were both up. Here is Aunt Kim with Molly and Bailey.

Some other things that we did were-on Saturday I got to go shopping with my sisters with no kids! It was wonderful!! Sunday, we gave Val and Bailey a baby shower. Monday night me and Molly spent the night at Val's while the rest of the kids stayed at Grandmas to camp out downstairs. Tuesday, me and Val with just the babies got to go out to lunch and relax some. Also on Sunday, we took family pictures which I'll be posting soon. All in all - a great trip!

Illinois-part 1

Last Friday I went with Tyler and Molly to IL to visit my family and meet my new niece, Bailey. Molly did great on her first plane ride.

Here I am with little Miss Bailey. She was so little and such a sweetie!

Tyler and his cousins, Kaleb and Zac got busy working right away. They played great together the whole time. Molly got to meet her Great Grandma on Saturday. Here are Molly and Bailey. I had gotten them matching onesies-don't they look so cute. They also have matching clips that Aunt Kim made.

Molly with Grandpa

Molly and Grandma

This was Uncle Tom's first time meeting Molly.

Aunt Val with Molly

We had a fun time playing in the leaves and of course, Halloween...I'll be posting about those events later.