Your vocabulary is increasing everyday. The toddler stage really is so much fun because you are learning and doing new things all the time. It's fascinating how fast you learn!
Your favorite words are dada, uh-oh, shoe, and bow. You point to your head every morning when I'm changing your diaper and say, "bow." And shoes are still your favorite thing. You carry around shoes all the time. But anytime we go anywhere in the car, you always take your shoes off and pull your bow out. Your accessories are your favorite toys. You also say, "up," dog, "da," "nose" and ball "ba" and this month you put your first words together and you'll say, "bye bye dada."
You are turning into a daddy's girl, and he really loves it! The boys have always been momma's boy, so I guess I can share you with him. You get SO excited when he comes home from work, and run to him, waving your hands in the air and yelling, "dadda."
We were talking about our fun girls' day while the boys were gone, and all you kept saying was "dadda!"
You like to look at pictures on my phone or ones that are hanging in our house and point to your daddy and say, "Dadda." Sometimes, you do say "Momma." When we picked you up from the nursery on Sunday, you were crying, alternatively saying, "dadda, momma, dadda, momma." Heartbreaking and hilarious all at the time time!
Right after you turned 13 months old, you got two more molars and your last top tooth. Now we're just waiting on those awful canines. Maybe we'll get a little break first.
We've been struggling with your nap schedule since your brother started school. It's been really hard to get in two naps between school drop off and pick up. I tried putting you down for a short morning nap and then waking you up and putting you back down after lunch, but it wasn't working. So for now, you usually just get one nap on school days. You're pretty grouchy from about 11:00-12:00, but we are dealing with it. I'll put you down before 12:00-12:30 and then get you up around 2:00 to go get your brother. You usually wake up on your own right before we need to leave. You still go to bed around 7:30 at night and sleep until about 7:00am. You're cute because we have a little accent pillow that came with your bedding, and you always lay your head on it when you're going to sleep.
You are a snacker, and love to bring me bags of snack food from the pantry. You'll grab a bag of goldfish and then pull a bowl out of a drawer and run to me grunting and asking me to open it for you. Your favorite snacks are goldfish, raisins, and yogurt melts. You also really like peanuts, but most of the time you chew them up and spit them out, so I don't give you them very often. You still love cheese and meat and mac and cheese.
You LOVE bottles, and I have no desire to wean you from them anytime soon. Anytime you see them in the cabinet you point and say "baba" incessantly, and you get SO excited any time I give you one. You consistently get one when you wake up in the mornings and at bedtime, and usually one or two more during the day.
You love playing outside, swinging and climbing, and your favorite toys are trains and the train table (pulling the track apart and making a big mess), the kitchen (you like to push buttons on the microwave) and any kitchen toys that have buttons on them, and your baby stroller, shopping cart, and toy purse.
You're wearing 12-18 months clothes and a size 4 diaper and size 5 shoes.
Your hair is growing and has some definite curl at the bottom. I never thought you'd have curly hair, but I can't get enough of it! It's adorable. And I love that your hair is long enough for some cute, tiny pig tails
You love to sing songs. You're a wiggle worm when I change your diaper, so I sing to you to try and distract you. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
We sure love you sweet girl! You bring such sweetness and sass to our family.
We had a full and fun weekend packed with so many great activities. We started a little early with a Baby Shower on Thursday night for Erica and sweet Baby Elise. I was excited to be able to host it in my home. When we bought our house, I really desired to use our home to bless others through hospitality, and I hope Erica and everyone who came had a great night! I certainly did!
I'm a sucker for baby showers. I love them. It's such a happy and exciting time and always fun to get together with a group of girls and eat and talk!
We spent the day at the fair on Friday and all came home and rested Friday afternoon. Nathan has been asking for MONTHS to go to a football game. Matt and the boys tried a couple of weeks ago to go, but the game got canceled because of lightning, so everyone was excited about the opportunity to go on Friday night. Elisabeth stayed with Grammy and Papa Joe, and Samuel had decided he wanted to stay with them too, but he changed his mind at the last minute and decided he wanted to go.
We had to get popcorn of course. I think that was Nathan's favorite part.
Samuel liked looking for the Tiger, and they all liked dancing and cheering when we scored which happened a lot.
We left after halftime. We stayed for the band though, but everyone was cold and tired, and the score was 49-0, so we were ready to go.
Nathan even started cheering for the other team, so they could get some points, and it would be a better game. Ha Ha!
We came home and went straight to bed because we had a early morning scheduled on Saturday morning.
Saturday morning, we woke up and headed to the zoo bright and early for the Zoo Run! The weather was a bit chilly, but really perfect for an October morning run.
My parents and Elisabeth met us at the zoo and the kids played on the playground, while Matt and I ran our 5K.
Matt and I were pretty pleased with our results.
Matt's time was 29:11. His stats were overall 201/934 and 127/377 in his age division.
My time was 31:59, and my stats were overall 308/934 and 134/557 in my age division.
My time was pretty much exactly the same (off by 3 seconds) from when I
ran it two years ago, and considering this Little Cutie rocked my world
and my body in that time, I was happy with it.
We let the kids play for a little bit and then headed home to shower, eat lunch and rest for a bit.
The boys helped me make a fruit pizza after lunch
Nathan arranged most of the fruit himself and did a great job. He called it a rainbow pizza.
Some new friends from church invited us over to watch football with them for the day, and we were really excited to hang out with them and watch the OSU game. Nathan is in the same class at school as their daughter Makinley, so he and Samuel were also pumped to play at her house. He kept telling Samuel, "We're going to Makinley's house. She's my friend at school, and she's really nice!"
My parents were sweet to keep Elisabeth for us, so we could actually watch most of the game. She's not quite old enough to send to the play room with the big kids.
We had an awesome afternoon. Another of Nathan's school friends (and his parents) joined us, and I'm not sure whether the kids or adults had a better time! The kids played really well together and stayed out of the Living Room for the most part.
Occasionally, we'd see them file through in a line (like little
ducklings) headed to another room or to the back yard, and Samuel was
always at the back of the line following along. He knows how to be the
Little Brother. He just makes himself fit in and plays fine with the big
kids.
Nathan didn't mind playing with girl toys. New toys are new toys.
We had fun visiting and watching our team win! It might be one of our last wins for the season if we don't improve, but a win is a win!
I dropped the boys and Matt off at our house for baths and ran to get Elisabeth. The kids went right to sleep after their busy day.
Sunday morning we headed to church. I love my Cuties all dressed in their Sunday Best.
Sunday was a special day at church because we went forward and officially joined our new church. I haven't written much on here, but I want to take a minute just to praise God for His faithfulness in our lives in the last few months. At the end of May, Matt and I prayed and decided that we needed to leave our church and look for a new one. We had been dealing with issues at our church for awhile and didn't feel like it was the right place for our family. I was dreading the process of finding a new church and having difficult conversations with friends and church leaders about our decision. I also really struggled with feeling like we were "homeless" without a church family for a period of time. But the Lord was so gracious and so faithful and quickly led us to First Baptist Broken Arrow. After our first visit, we were both hooked and knew that we belonged with that Body of believers. They've welcomed us so lovingly and openly, that I never really even felt like we were without a church family. We were desiring a place that would facilitate our personal spiritual growth, where we could build strong, authentic relationships and friendships (and our kids could too) and where we could serve within our Body and in the community and the world, and we have such a peace that FBC is the right place for us. I think I've teared up every Sunday during the service because it's so evident that God is at work within that church changing lives, and we are excited to be a part of it! Again and again, the Lord proves his faithfulness to our family.
We rushed home after church, grabbed a quick lunch, and the boys and I headed back to the fair with my mom to see Frozen on Ice. Nathan was really excited, and we watched the movie a couple of times the week before in preparation.
Samuel was just a tad young for it (he could have left at intermission), but I thought he was too old to be left out.
Nathan sang and danced and they both enjoyed the overpriced snacks and souvenirs.
Nathan belted out "Let it Go," and both boys loved Olaf
And the Snow Monster of course.
Nathan's favorite part of the movie is when Hans pulls out his sword and Anna freezes. He and Samuel both came home with new swords, and have been having Frozen shows ever since.
We left the fair and my mom dropped us off at church so we could join Matt and Elisabeth. We're doing a Bible Study at church on Sunday nights, so I carried in a sleeping Samuel for part of it. He eventually woke up and went to his class, but everyone was exhausted after such a busy, FUN weekend! I never thought I was a big Fall fan. I'm more of a Summer girl, but Fall weekends really are the BEST weekends!
Matt has been working a lot lately, so we were all looking forward to last Friday when he had a day off scheduled, so we could spend the day at the Tulsa State Fair. Last year, he took a Friday off too, and we just had the best day together as a family. It felt like our first real family day as a family of five. We had such a great time last year, that I was SO looking forward to spending the whole day with my family, and we had a wonderful day!
Our kiddos were ready for a fun day!
Our first stop was the kids building, and our boys headed straight to the ball pit obstacle course.
Elisabeth was bummed she wasn't tall enough to play in the balls. She kept trying to sneak in.
The boys got balloon animals, but neither survived the day.
The kids' favorite part (besides the sand box, which we saved for later in the day) was the ride on toy area.
Nathan rode these motorcycles for a long time and said it was his favorite part of the whole day!
After the kids building, we headed to the Expo Center. We walked around looking at all the booths and exhibits.
The boys were most excited about the police car, ambulance, and firetruck exhibits.
When we hit the food court, we decided to stop for lunch. Elisabeth was getting grouchy, and we hoped some food would perk her up.
Nathan liked his cheese on a stick.
After lunch and a cotton candy treat, we headed to the rides. Samuel was big enough to ride them this year. We let them choose three rides. They rode the helicopters, alligator roller coaster, and ATV's
The Alligator Roller Coaster was probably their favorite ride.
Matt and I still needed our treat for the day, so I stopped for a Pineapple Whip. I hadn't had one before, and I was in the mood to try something new. It was delicious.
Matt got his traditional liquid nitrogen ice cream.
Everyone enjoyed helping him eat it.
Before we left for the day, we stopped back at the kids building to let the kids play in the giant sand box. Samuel went right for it. It felt like we were back in Florida!
Little Sis still isn't a fan of sand, so while the boys played, she carried around our balloons. She tried so hard to carry all three of them at the same time, but she spent most of the time, picking them up, accidentally dropping one, and trying again. It was cute watching her process.
Success!
We had a really great day. The weather was beautiful and the company was even better! Elisabeth was out before we got out of the parking lot, and we lost Samuel shortly after, but they really did awesome skipping their naps while we were playing. We are already looking forward to next year!
