Thanksgiving and the Break

I'm so behind in posting about all of our wonderful happenings over the past month or so. Today I am going to catch up! :) 

Thanksgiving this year was a whole lot of fun. We again went to my mum's house to partake in delicious turkey, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. I really should've taken a picture of my plate with all of the food. It was so good! If you look closely at the plates though you can see these cute favor bags that my sister Laura made. She put runts and bugles in them to look like cornucopias. They were really adorable. I'm such a sucker for those type of things. 

Laura and my little man:

My beautiful little girl ready to get some food. 

Being goofy as usual

This year I decided to be in charge of the rolls this year instead of a dessert (which is what I normally love to do). I saw this idea on pinterest where a girl created gratitude rolls. I asked everybody in my family to email or text me things they were grateful for, then I printed them up and wrapped them in foil then stuffed them into the rolls.

Don't they just look delicious?

It was a lot of fun reading what people were grateful for, especially for me because I got to see all of them.  The only problem was the roll recipe I used was a new one, (a delicious one) and so I didn't know how many it was going to make and it made way more rolls than slips of paper that I had. It was really funny to watch people open up their rolls only to find it empty. It became the grandkids goal to find all of the papers. It still ended up being great though because we would share what the paper said so everyone got to hear it. 

I thought it was a really fun thing to do and I hope people are willing to do it again next year. I think I may even leave the names of the papers and we can guess who said what. I'll also make sure to ask for twice as many thankful thoughts. :) 

Brighton giving me a sweet smile. Isn't he the cutest?

This was his first Thanksgiving that he could really eat what we ate. 

I also made all of the grandkids these turkey crayon holder things. They were really simple and turned out cute. Thanks Ems for the idea!

We also took a picture of all of the cousins together in their shirts that we made. Lila had to have her hair redone for the picture. It was a beautiful mess from playing. So if you noticed that her hair is different, that's why. Thanks Tracee for doing it so much faster than I would've. It was quite the challenge to get all of the kids to somewhat look at the camera. Brighton kept trying to take off and poor Mia was so sick. They sure do look cute in their shirts though!

I love Thanksgiving. It's such a great time to have together as a family!

During the break Lila also went mini-golfing with her cousins. We got there a little bit early so all of the kids played games together. It was really funny to watch Lila try and keep up with older kids. They're always so sweet and helpful. They try and help her to feel included and successful. I'm so grateful that Lila has such wonderful cousins. 

Anyway, it was Lila's first time and she was pretty good. She did get bored by the end and only wanted to look at the glow-in-the-dark sea creatures on the walls. We had a couple of meltdowns but overall she loved being with her cousins. She even did one of the holes in 3 strokes all by herself! I was proud. :) After, they played at the arcade where Lila won 15 tickets by herself. She bought an eraser and a ring with it. Surprisingly, Lila still has her ring. She broke her eraser that day.  

Lila's cousin P is just a little bit older than her. It was really fun to watch them together.

Getting ready to hit the ball.

Lila doing her best!

Waiting for her turn.

A few of the sea creatures that Lila just LOVED!

This year my Thanksgiving break was calm and relaxing. I really enjoyed spending time with my extended family, but also having time with just my little family. The holidays are the best. :) 

18 months old

On November 20th Brighton turned 18 months old. I wanted to wait until his appointment to post, so that's why I'm just writing about it now. :)

About a week and a half before he turned 18 months, my friend and I were discussing the verbal skills of our boys. Her little boy is just 10 days older than Brighton. She had asked me how many words he said, and I said not many, anywhere from 8 to 10. Brighton has been slower at speaking than Lila was, but I wasn't concerned. She had been concerned because her little boy has had health issues since he was born and so he has been receiving therapy. One of the people that comes to her home to perform the therapy (not an actual therapist) mentioned that her son was really behind verbally for his age and that he should know 50 words by now. First of all, not that it is impossible because I know that there are some, but I don't know any 18 month olds that already know 50 words (and legitimately know 50 not just that their parents translate for them. ;) )  I told her that I'm not at all concerned about Brighton (and he knew less than her son) and to trust her doctor. She decided to do that and when she went in for her appointment the doctor said that he was just fine and that he's not behind at all. Every child at this age develops at different speeds. They don't start to really look at what words they know until they are two years old. Anyway, the reason I tell this story is because during that next week and a half Brighton started saying 7-8 new words. He suddenly took off. Had I bought into what that person who performed the therapy had said then I would've been really concerned, but look, just over the next few days Brighton suddenly almost doubled his vocabulary. I just think it's awesome how quickly kids learn and develop. :) (By the way, I know the girl was trying to be helpful, but really, she just stressed out an already stressed out mother who has a sick child.)

Since we're talking about Brighton's verbal skills, these are the ones that he can say:

mom

dad

help (this is adorable)

no (honestly, his favorite word)

ow

what's that

where's she

shoe

shirt

book

boo

hi

bye

let go (he picked that up from Lila)

un uh (how do you spell that? I couldn't figure it out, it's when you're saying "no")

ball

get out (when he wants out of his high chair or car seat)

get down (again, when wants out of his high chair)

go
shh (while putting his finger to his mouth)

Other things that Brighton loves include:

LILA- number one (still his best buddy, they are really cute together)

hitting things (we try to keep this under control, but he just thinks it's fun to bang things together or hit things against the ground and hit Lila, but he thinks he's playing)

blocks

BOOKS!!!

food

drinks (especially out of cups)

popcorn (just like his mom)

getting into everything

climbing on everything

bath time!

water

his green ball

pulling down his diaper

chocolate

mom

MAGGIE! (she is incredibly patient with him)

throwing things

getting chased

giving kisses and hugs

looking out the windows

playing with the curtains 

grinding his teeth (this one drives me crazy!)

string cheese
giving high fives

Brighton is a great eater and sleeper. The only thing that I can think of that I can't get him to consistently eat is broccoli. I think it's because of the texture. I could be wrong though, there might be more things that he won't eat, but that's all I can think of.

The stats from his appointment are:

height: 32.25 inches (39 %tile) so much bigger than last time! (from 6 %tile)

weight: 23 lbs. (36 %tile)

head size: 19.25 inches (86 %tile)
*funny thing about his head… we thought he would be off the charts because last time his head measured at the 99 %tile, but it turns out they measured it wrong. This time his head was a 1/4 inch smaller than last time and our doctor said that heads don't shrink, so it must have been measured wrong last time. So, Brighton does have a big head just not as big as we thought. :) 

Brighton is such a wonderful little boy. When someone is crying or sad he tries to comfort them. He loves other people just like Lila does. He seems to already love nursery. He is really social, but I do think he's a little more momma's baby than Lila was. He has been such a wonderful addition to our family. 

We love you Brighton!

In his new 12 month old coat. :)

I have to explain this picture… That day, Brighton kept bringing me a bunch of Lila's shirts for me to put on him. The funny thing was that he wouldn't let me take of one before putting on another. By the time we were done he had his onesie on and five of her shirts. One of them was so big for him that it looks like a pretty little dress. :) He loved it. It took a while before he would let me take them off. He loves to get dressed up, just like his sister. He's obsessed with shoes and everything.  

Brighton loves to show us where his belly button is. :)

Our New House- Before and After

This post has been a long time coming…

We have loved living in our new place. A place that is finally our own is so nice. We don't even mind the three story walk with groceries… at least not too much. ;) 

We've put a lot of work and love into our new home. Micah changed out a lot of light fixtures, door knobs, and he built the bay window bench with our brother-in-law Josh. I love it!

Our house is not perfect yet. There are still plenty of things we want to get, decorate, organize, but we're finally at a point that I can say we are officially settled in. It's been fun to decorate, but wow!, this place sure has a lot of wall space. I will definitely need some more things/ideas to put on the walls.

The kitchen, dining room, and front room:

 

 

 

The front entryway:

The hallway: (We still need to replace all of the doorknobs and eventually even the hinges.)

Lila's bedroom: (I used her decorations from one of our old homes. I still need a few more things, including paint.)

Brighton's bedroom: (I still need to decorate his room.)

Our bedroom- minus the bathroom and closet: (I have no idea when I'll ever get to decorating our space, but we are getting night stands and lamps next month probably. I will also be making a headboard… eventually. ;) )

Closet, guest bathroom, laundry room, pantry: (This stuff is really hard to photograph. You can't tell the sizes of the rooms, but they're big and we're really happy with them.) 

 

I didn't take a picture of our balcony, storage space, or garage, but you get the idea.

We love our new home! For this month I can definitely say I am thankful for my home.

Halloween 2014

Halloween was really fun this year. I did a few things for the first (and some for the last) time. At school we had a challenge between some of the teachers and we had to eat crickets. I really did it. I had to include this because I never thought that I would be able to bring myself to do it. I ate six in all and no, they weren't covered in chocolate or inside candy or anything, they were just crickets. At least I know I could survive eating bugs in the apocalypse right? ;) Well, actually that's definitely a one time thing for me.

Next, I made marshmallow fondant ghosts for some cupcakes for the first time. I was really proud of my cupcakes because I had made the fondant, cupcakes, frosting, and eyes all myself. They were really simple, but I was still proud. I will definitely be working more with fondant.

Finally, we had our first Halloween at our new house. We actually decided to go trunk-or-treating with my mum's ward instead of going around our neighborhood. I just felt like it would be so much easier with small kids and they had dinner and it allowed Lila to go with some of her cousins. It was a lot of fun and I'm really glad we did it that way. Lila LOVED it. She was a beautiful Cinderella, I was a pilot, and Brighton was my copilot. We had a good time as a little family. The only sad thing was that we didn't get very many trick-or-treaters at our place. :( Apparently that was common around our whole neighborhood, though. Too bad for some kids… our neighbors were handing out full size candy bars. ;) 

I'm looking forward to the rest of the holiday season!

Haunted Half Marathon 2014

My sister Jessica and I decided to run another half marathon. Two years ago we did the Halloween half, this year we did the Haunted one. It was great and I'm really glad we did it, but I had stopped training when we decided to move so I was NOT nearly as prepared for this one as I was for the last. I had only gotten up to 8 miles before I quit training. It worked out okay though. I ended up running the first 8 then walking/running the last 5. The whole race took me about 20 minutes longer than last time. Not bad considering I hadn't run even once in about 5 weeks leading up to the race. 

Our sister Laura also participated in the fun and did the 5k. We were so proud of ourselves for completing the races. My sweet, sweet, husband met me at the end with my kiddos. I'm really happy they were there to support me. He got a video of me running across the line and Lila cheering for me. I loved it!

We dressed up as fairy godmothers because it was easy and we pretty much had all the stuff. 

Laura actually had a different medal (you can see it in the pictures) for the 5k but then a half marathoner asked her to trade so now she matches us. :) 

All of us at my mum's house after the race.

It was hard! I'm still sore... but it was GREAT!