Fall is the best time of year!

I love Fall so much! The days are getting cooler and the leaves are so beautiful all around town, and plans are being made for Thanksgiving which will be here before we know it, and then Christmas will be just around the corner! It definitely is the best time of the year! I have been in such a pumpkin everything mood lately! :o) I have made pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting a few weeks ago (a snack before we went to the pumpkin patch), and then I made pumpkin muffins the week after and I think I'm going to make some more bars on Monday for my dad's birthday party / Halloween with my family! I seriously feel like I could make lots of pumpkin pies, load some pieces up with whipped cream and eat them with a big mug of hot chocolate! :o) Seriously, who could NOT like Fall?!?!

Speaking of this wonderful season, after wanting to take some leaf / fall pictures of the kids for weeks, we were finally able to go to a park in town yesterday and take lots of cute ones as Daniel ran all over the place playing in the leaves, and Lydia hung out on her blanket! It was such a beautiful day! We had just gone to my follow-up midwife appointment and Scott and I decided that it was such a perfect day and since we had the camera with us, we headed over to the park for picture time! It was also Daniel's first time this year to really get to play in a lot of leaves, so he had a great time with that! I love watching him play! He has the greatest time and it's so fun watching him run around, grab handfuls of leaves, and throw them everywhere! We took lots of pictures... here are some of our favorites of him!






We also took some super cute ones of Lydia. She was being so good just lying down on her blanket looking at us and the trees and sky! She will probably take after me... I LOVE lying on a blanket at the park just daydreaming and enjoying God's beautiful creation! After we got some good pictures of Daniel, Scott held Lydia up on one of the tree branches which she loved! Aren't these pictures adorable?! She is such a bright eyed little girl! I know that Daniel had really big, blue eyes, also, but sometimes I can't get over how big Lydia's eyes get! She definitely likes to take it all in! Sometimes so much so that she gets really, really tired after we are out for awhile because she feels like she needs to be a part of all the action! :o)







Here are some other pictures that Scott took of me and the kids and some really cute ones of Daniel. It was so much fun hanging out at the park! We stayed until it got a bit too chilly and then headed over to the mall...

















At the mall we ate some dinner together and then took Daniel to the little play area for kids. He LOVES that place and it is yet another place that I really enjoy watching him! :o) He is hilarious as he runs around playing, climbing, and crawling through things! He LOVES being there, also, because he really enjoys other kids and loves running up to the random kids and talking non-stop about various things! :o) He also likes giving all the cute little girls big hugs (what can we say?! Lol) and last night he followed this one little girl around all over the place, trying to show off a bit it looked like... I should bring my video camera in sometime and take a video... It is just so funny!

We had a wonderful afternoon and evening as a family! Definitely will need to make that more of a weekly event - doing a family night together! :o) We tried going to a Halloween party at some friends', but that didn't go over well after the busy afternoon and evening we had already had. Our poor kiddos were tuckered out so we had to leave within fifteen minutes or so of getting there. Missed everyone at the party, but I wouldn't have traded our family's great time together beforehand for anything! :o)

Today we carved / painted / drew on our pumpkins, which was fun! I want to do something on Lydia's little pumpkin, but haven't decided what yet... Daniel drew on his with markers and I think if we have more time tomorrow or Monday, I'll let him paint on it some, also! I painted on mine, but didn't have a good paintbrush nor very good colors of paint, so I don't really like it too much... Oh, well. :o) It was fun to do, so that's all that matters! We also just hung out and watched some Home Improvement together as a family and Scott got a lot of stuff done in the garage. OH, and I got grocery shopping done, which has needed to be done for like a week and a half now! :o( Finding time to go without just me and the two kids is HARD! I think it should get easier soon enough once she starts liking her car seat more, but right now I'm planning on going without both of them because the last time I did that she cried like the whole time and I felt so bad. So much so that I couldn't think so it took me twice as long to get everything! :o( Oh, well.

So, I am super excited because in just a week from Friday (I can't believe it's just a little over a week away!!!) we are headed over to Kansas and Texas to visit family! It has come along so soon, but I'm really excited!!! I'm praying and hoping that Daniel and Lydia do a lot better than I'm expecting right now in the car... I'm trying to get some different snacks to keep Daniel somewhat entertained, and I'll be putting together some cool activity bags of coloring books, books, toys, etc. for him. We'll definitely have to stop every four or five hours just to get out and let him play and run around, which will be good. I just hope he does well! As for Lydia, who sometimes loves her car seat, but usually hates it, I'm just hoping so will sleep or be happy most of the time! I wish she was of the age where toys somewhat interested her, but she really isn't quite yet, so I might just have to sit next to her a lot to talk and entertain her when she's not sleeping! But, at least we'll only have two full days and two half days of driving total... The rest of the time will be spent with our amazing family, so that'll make it all worth it! :o) We are super excited to see Scott's Grandma again in Kansas for a few days, and then I'm really excited to introduce Scott to my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that he has never met and show him all of the places he has just heard about a lot! :o) Yay!!! Can't believe it's so soon! Makes me think about all I need to do before then... Packing list to write, ideas of car activities to put together, a book to buy for Scott and I to read in car, etc... :o) OH, and I want to work on writing our Christmas letter while we are driving (if I'm not entertaining kids!), so I'm REALLY excited about that!

Okay, I should probably close this for now! It's about bed time I'm thinking... hopefully Lydia thinks the same thing. :o) She has not wanted to go down for a nap pretty much all day except for on us, which is really weird for her. :o( So, hopefully she will go to sleep easily enough tonight. She has been sleeping SO great at night! Two nights ago she slept for like 10 hours without waking (then I woke her because I was worried!) and then last night she slept for 9 hours! What can I say?! She loves her beauty sleep! :o)

Goodnight!

Pumpkin Patch Pictures

Here are some of the pictures I took at the pumpkin patch last week! I wish I had time to write all about it, but I don't! :o( It was SO much fun, though, and we had a wonderful time with Amanda and Vienna and our little family! It is definitely a highlight tradition of our fall season! :o)

Daniel - 18 Months Old!

Dear Daniel,

Hello to the most amazing year and a half old little boy I know! First of all, Mommy can hardly believe that you are already at this milestone in your little life! Why, it seems like just yesterday when we were celebrating your 1st birthday! How can that have already been 6 months ago, and you are already 6 months away from your 2nd birthday?! You are at such a big point of your little toddler life right now... every day you seem to be learning something new and growing, growing, growing! :o) You amaze me every day by how much you now know and how sweet you are and how much your personality is shining forth! Some days when I think back on when I was pregnant with you and how nervous I was when I thought about you being a boy - because I wasn't even sure where to begin to think about raising a son - I think about today and can't imagine not having you as our son to raise every day! You have made our lives so rich and full and Daddy and I seriously couldn't imagine our lives without you in it!



This month has been such a big month of exciting times! First of all, just in the past week or two I have been noticing more and more how far along your vocabulary has grown! It is still hard to understand everything you say, but we are picking out more words every day... For example, today you said "nice" as you held your friend Jaxon's hand for a few seconds after lunch, and earlier this week you said "sweet" when you were with your little sister and you are also finally saying "thank you" almost all the time when we give you something even without us having to tell you to, and you are saying "please" for often, too! There have been many other words, also, but I'm not remembering them all now! The main excitement for me, though, is that I can finally pick up different words you say when you are talking on and on about something, so I actually sort of know what you are talking about! That is SO exciting to me and makes me even more excited for when you will be able to really share what you are thinking and we can talk about things! :o)

The main thing that you and I have been doing this month has been many, many activities together! Mommy has been trying to focus on having a lot of one-on-one time with you doing various activities to help you with learning! Just a few of the activities we've done together has been puzzles (which you are amazing at after just the first time - you match SO well), painting (oh, you LOVE art time!), coloring, gluing pasta to pages, putting spaghetti pasta into the holes of a spice container (you were awesome at that from the beginning!), putting coins into a piggy bank, playing with magnets, etc. It has been so much fun doing things with you and seeing as you start figuring out how to do them! You are such a smart little guy and we are so proud of all you have been learning!



One of your new favorites to do is all the actions in an ABC Animal Action book that we have! We have been reading it to you for a few weeks now fairly consistently, and just a week or two ago I started doing the actions with you as we read each letter and action and looked at the animals doing the actions in the book! The other night I mentioned some of the letters and actions while we were at your Aunt Lelia's and Uncle Wayne's house and you totally did almost all the actions for us as I said each one without the book in front of you at all! It was amazing and you had so much fun! Some of the actions are A for Arch, B for Balance (up on one foot), C for Charge (you LOVE this one), F for Flap (you fly like a bird), M for March (like the penguins), P for Peek (you have always loved peek-a-boo), R for Ride (on Mommy or Daddy's back), S for Stretch (you stretch like crazy), and Y for Yawn! So much fun!

We went as a family to the pumpkin patch in town last week and you had such a great time running all over the place and picking out your pumpkin! You kept running to various pumpkins and trying to pick them up until you finally found the perfect one and we got that for you! You LOVE the country and having lots of acreage to run around on... one day we would LOVE to be able to live in the country to give you a big place to run and play!





Yesterday your friends, Connor and Jaxon, with their moms came over to hang out and play with you! You are so enjoying times with your friends lately! You played and played and played the entire time they were here and actually didn't go down for your first and only nap of the day until almost 3 pm! It was crazy but you just weren't tired! :o) That's another thing Mommy has been very thankful for... you are finally down to a consistent one nap a day, which has been SO nice for me to have more of a schedule again! You usually go down between 11 and 1 and nap anywhere between 2 and 3 hours, which is awesome!

We love you lots and lots, little man! Excited to see what new things you learn and do this next month!

Love,
Mommy