life lately

This week you guys, it's not been an easy one. With daylight savings time (6 AM wake up calls from a certain 3 year old), Liam's cold, diving back in to exercise, and cutting processed sugar (operation lose the baby weight) it has been a long one for sure. Thankfully it is Nic's Friday and we have a 3 day weekend ahead of us to look forward to!! Our weekend agenda includes prepping our yard for winter because believe it or not, we haven't gotten to that yet since Lyla was born, hanging the Christmas lights before it gets too cold, and having Lyla's baby blessing at church on Sunday. Her little white dress is so beautiful!

Before jumping in to all of that, I thought I would share a bit of our life lately ...

We've already gotten our first snow fall of the season during the second week of October but it lasted a whole 5 minutes because it was so wet (sorry Liam who wanted to play in it!). Also see what I mean by our yard not being prepped ... the sandbox isn't even covered for heaven sake. haha

We tried to squeeze in as many walks as possible while collecting leaves along our way. I had what I thought was my best mom idea ever and brought a bunch of different shaped leaves inside to teach Liam how to put them under paper and color over the top with the side of a crayon to see the outline of the leaf show through. While showing him with one leaf, he grabbed the rest of the pile and crumbled them all over the kitchen. Then proceeded to find his big tractor and scoop and dump leaf crumbs everywhere he went. #fail This cute little leaf skirt though ...

Liam had a birthday party for his friend Trey at Jump In a couple weeks ago. It was the first time I had ever taken him there when it wasn't a designated "toddler time" and I sincerely feared for his life several times. Lots of big kids racing through the jump houses and not watching for little ones crawling underneath things. You better believe momma bear showed her protective roar. 

Lyla has started smiling so much lately and it completely melts our hearts! She opens her mouth so wide and smiles with her whole face. Of course the moment I pull out my phone to capture it on camera she usually stops but she was giving me a little smile while I was reading to her the other day and I just so happened to have my camera ready ;) ... cutest!!

It has been a month of wellness visits between my yearly physical (a woman should not have to get weighed right after having a baby if you ask me haha), a trip to the dentist for Liam (went about as good as the first time), and Liam's 3 year old check up with the Dr. Burton. Thankfully no shots were required this time! Our growing boy was 36.4 pounds and I'm sure is still in the 99th percentile for head circumference. ;)

The spiders, cobwebs, witch broomsticks, and bats were put away on November 1st leaving the pumpkins behind for the month of Thanksgiving. 

We have family night on Monday nights and this last Monday we read a cute book called "Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving", a spin off from the Christmas version, and then made a gratitude list as a family on the chalkboard in our kitchen. Liam's answers were my favorite! See if you can pick them out. ;)

While Lyla and I met up with one of my girlfriends on Saturday morning, Nic and Liam had a dad-son date at Home Depot. They have a free activity once a month you can sign up for and for Veteran's Day this month they got to build a humvee. It was adorable how excited Liam was to show me when he got home!

Liam blows Nic and I away these days with how much he is talking. He seriously never stops and we are able to understand more and more every day! He recently learned all of his colors and now he is quick to notice and point out color in everything around him like his playdo for example.

I am truly terrible when it comes to building legos and it is one of Liam's favorite toys right now. In the evenings, Nic will sit down and creatively build him these masterpieces out of a handful of legos and I am over here completely dumbfounded every time because I think it is a true talent. Anyways, it is a talent that Liam wishes I possess as well but despite Nic's hard effort to teach me the foundation, my skills are clearly lacking. However, Sita (my mom) got him this little building set for his birthday, complete with a "map" as Liam likes to call it, of things you can build with them. Now THOSE I am a champ at! See dinosaur below ...

Other than that, it is a whole lot of nurse nurse nurse nurse nurse around here. ;) Got to keep the baby happy and fed! We are finally starting to get into a rhythm with two kids and have even started back up family lunch dates at daddy's work during the week. Hope you have the BEST weekend! XO

Halloween 2017

It's hard to believe Halloween 2017 has already come and gone, mostly because it crept up on me so quickly this year. It was sort of a mad scramble finishing costumes (the night before haha) and even more chaotic getting everyone dressed and out the door this year. Man it is hard enough on a normal day getting two kids dressed and out the door without the added accessories. ;) But, we did it! High five to us, Nic!!

 Happy Halloween from my darling little jewelry box ballerina and the world's best big brother, ready to take her on all of her adventures! 

We faced her toward her nursery window for this picture and she had the sweetest little surprised expression on her face! Killed me! She is cuter than I could have ever imagined!!!

And this little pilot, I have a feeling I'll have a heart breaker during his teenage years with that kind of smile ...

Tiny Dancer!

One of my mom's coworkers bought these cargo pilot suits for his grandkids and he gave his extra one to Liam. Seriously the nicest man!! Anyway, when it came in the mail a few weeks ago we had yet to get any Halloween costumes together. After he tried it on (it barely fit, growing boy! haha) it just seemed perfect to have Liam dress up as a pilot. Especially with how much he loves his "zooms"! The patch on the suit originally said "Andy's Airplanes" but I cut out Liam's name in felt and attached it over the top to personalize it. And of course a pilot can't fly without his airplane. :) Made it from spray painted card board boxes and it turned out so adorable. Our dress up and make believe collection certainly grew after this Halloween! My little pilot ...

And because I love a good family theme, our costumes this year ...

"It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's Superman!"

I was a stork with the most special delivery.

Liam the pilot flying his airplane.

Nic, definitely the Superman of our family!

Sporting a bandaid on that right middle finger thanks to a wicked hot glue gun blister I got while rushing to make this bird hat the night before Halloween. WORTH IT!

Lyla slept the entire time we were trick-or-treating, cozy and warm in the baby wrap.

I wish you could have seen Liam trick-or-treating. I thought last year was fun, well 3 years old is even better!! He wore his airplane for two houses until he got smart and took it off because it was too bulky and held him back. haha The rest of the night he went running ahead of our group from house to house with his hat flapping in the wind and jabbering the whole way. "Daddy look at this bat! Mommy candy! Daddy this is a sucker! Mommy he is Batman" and on and on and on. I don't ever want to forget his little voice and the funny things he is constantly saying. It wasn't that long ago he wasn't saying anything at all and now he doesn't ever stop talking. He had us all laughing between tripping up someone's porch stairs and trying to go inside everyone's home after they opened their door. haha Don't worry, we were right beside him and we knew every house personally that we trick-or-treated at. Ah I love holidays with kids so much!

We made it to a total of about 15 houses before the sun was long gone, it had gotten cold, and Liam was worn out and ready to dive into his candy.  We left a bucket of candy on our porch with a sign to only take one piece (which always feels like a risky choice). We likely got a kid who dumped the whole thing in his bucket and kept on his merry way but neither of us wanted to miss seeing Liam trick-or-treat so it was worth it. As we were walking up our driveway to go inside, a big group of teenagers had just approached our empty bucket and were warning another group of girls not to even bother coming to our porch because it was all gone. One of the girls shouts, "I'll just take the bucket then!" Little did she know we were right behind her. I smiled and said, I probably wouldn't take that bucket if I was you and started opening my garage. haha Stinker!

I let Liam pick a few pieces from his pumpkin bucket and turned on Hotel Transylvania 2. Nic answered the door to the last few trick-or-treaters circling the neighborhood with part of the bag we saved inside and then we called it a night. 

I love watching him love on her!

Lyla has gotten so big in the last couple weeks, filling out those cheeks, belly, and adorable thigh rolls!

I'l leave you with a picture of them in their Halloween jammies from Friday the 13th since I didn't get one on Halloween night. The bats, spider webs, and witches brooms all came down on November 1st and we are ready to spend this month focusing on the things we are thankful for because there really is so much. Starting with these two right here ...

Hope you had a Happy Halloween! Kisses! XO

Carving Pumpkins

Creating holiday traditions is one of my favorite things to do with our family and I hope we have many years ahead of us carving pumpkins together. The most special part about this year was having a 3 year old little boy who wants more than anything to help and when you tell him we get to carve with tools, he runs to the kitchen junk drawer and runs back with his arms full of tools ... a tape measure, a screwdriver, and a pair of pliers to be exact. ;) 

Last year we could barely get Liam to touch the guts of the pumpkin and this year he dove all in! It's amazing how much can change in one year, isn't it?!

While he tried all of his tools to gut the pumpkin, he finally realized that mom's spoon was the best tool of them all!

Lyla girl watched the whole thing from her cozy blankie!

Since Lyla can't really cast her vote yet, we let Liam choose what he wanted to have carved on both pumpkins and he picked a ghost and a meow "kitty". I don't think I've ever seen two cuter pumpkin choices! He was a little disappointed he didn't actually get to help carve with the knife so he did his own carving on the other side of the pumpkin with his screwdriver. haha 

Those trusty pliers came in handy when it was time to put the lid back on the pumpkin! I love him so much!

I drew the faces on the front and then left the knife carving part to Nic. I got the better end of the deal if you ask me because it left more time to snuggle with Lyla on her blankie! Aren't her candy jammies the cutest thing you've ever seen!?!

We brought Liam home from the hospital on Halloween after he was born so we didn't end up carving pumpkins with a newborn that year. Then the year after that he seemed a bit big to fit inside of a pumpkin so I had to jump at the chance this year with a 6 week old baby! Right as Nic is finished carving the kitty pumpkin I said to him, "Hey, I want to do something really quick before you put in on the porch, okay?" He turned to me and with the most sarcastic expression and said, "You want to put the baby in the pumpkin don't you." haha He knows me SO well!

Look at how adorable she is though!!!

Even if she didn't like it a moment later ...

Right after the sun went down we brought everyone out on the porch to see our ghost and kitty lit up for the first time. I know this is going to sound completely cheesy but I really really mean it ... this is what my dreams are made of! Making traditions with my growing family, squeezing my two babies on the front porch of our home while their daddy takes our picture. My dream come true.