16 Months!

TWO MONTHS TO NURSERY! I am sooooooo excited (if you couldn’t tell)!!!!

*We’ve really had a breakthrough with signing. He can sign “more”, “all done”, “please” and “thank you” in the correct context. YAY! This has been so helpful at mealtimes. He still likes to throw food on the ground though. Old habits die hard, I guess. ;)

*He’s trying to say more words, too! He tries to say socks (sounds like “sauce”), cookie (coh-coh), and our favorite is “oh wow!” I still think his favorites are da-da and pup-pup though.

*This kid rarely stops moving. He is always running, climbing, dancing, doing something!

*His rare pauses are for sleeping and looking at books. He is seriously adorable when he sits down and looks at books. He still doesn’t seem to notice/care when they are upside-down, but I think that just makes it cuter, ha!

*Wants to do everything that big brother does. They can’t seem to be in separate rooms for very long. When big brother gets put in his room for time out, Spencer is usually outside the door feeling left out. Then they make a game of looking at each other through the crack at the floor.

*His most favoritest food in the whole wide world are fruit snacks. Would eat them all the time if I let him. I’ve had to limit him to 2 pouches a day. He’s still not happy about that.

*There’s a really cute song that Nathan learned in nursery that we call “The Friend Song” that includes patting our laps to the beat and pointing at our friends. Spencer loves this song and loves to do all the motions and he is a most exuberant lap-patter. It’s adorably hilarious!


*Loves loves loves to be outside. He is always asking for me to open the back door (aka whining at the back door) so that he can play with trucks on our balcony, even if it’s freezing outside. He also gets ridiculously excited when he sees us getting ready to go and getting our shoes on because it means we’re going outside.

*He loves to open his mouth really wide and stick out his tongue. He thinks it’s super fun if you copy him doing it too.

*Love you little man!

Apple and Pumpkin Picking 2016

We made our annual trip to Larriland Farms to pick granny smith apples and a pumpkin for the boys. We love making the trip out there. The area is just gorgeous and the weather was lovely that day. It was so great to spend some time together as a family.

Our kids are so good at looking at the camera…
Snack break!
They had some llamas and goats in the pen to feed that day. Spencer was so excited to see the “pup-pups” ;)
Nathan was most looking forward to picking out a pumpkin
Spencer mostly wondered what the heck we were doing…but he definitely enjoyed running around outside.
“See ya!”
We found a perfect little 7 pounder for Nathan – he loved it!
I tried (somewhat unsuccessfully) to get my yearly picture with the boys at the pumpkin field…
“The Pumpkin Thinker”I made apple crisp that night and then this last Friday we had our annual caramel apple making date – definitely one of my favorites of the year!!

Yum!

The Magical Halloween of 2016

I know I’ve already put these up on facebook but I always have to add them here :) I had so much fun with our costumes this year – love me some Harry Potter!!

I was sorted into Hufflepuff on pottermore.com and I made John take the sorting quiz before making his costume and he got Hufflepuff too! Nathan was a Gryffindor quidditch player and Spencer was our snowy owl. (aka the most adorable owl you’ve ever seen) ;)This is Spencer’s camera face. I promise he smiles. And he actually liked his costume. He started taking the hat off after a while but didn’t have any problems with wearing his outfit. I modified THIS pattern, you’ll recognize it from the year we did Mary Poppins Jolly Holiday :) I wish I’d gotten a picture of the back, his wings totally spread out and it was so CUTE!
My little quidditch player :) I used THIS pattern for all the robes. Or it was more of a set of instructions with a picture of what the pattern pieces were supposed to look like and you had to use your own measurement and draft the pieces yourself. It wasn’t too bad though. I made Nathan’s out of fleece so that he would be nice and warm. Again, I wish I’d gotten a pic of the back, it has his name and a large 3 on the back as his jersey number :)
I made them both little treat bags and they enjoyed trick or treating at all the cars. Spencer liked to put his candy on the ground, then pick it up and put it in his bag. Little weirdo ;) I’m terrible at night photography, so I didn’t get a picture of our trunk, but we had a Hogwarts banner and I strung up battery operated tea lights up with black thread. The black thread was really hard to see so it really looked like the lights were floating on their own. And we had some of our favorite Harry Potter soundtrack songs playing in the car. It was pretty awesome if I do say so myself!
Hope everyone had a great Halloween this year!

Spooky Cookies 2016

I made some Halloween cookies for our Trunk or Treat at church this year, as well as for John’s department at work. Most of the cutters used were from this awesome new set that I purchased a few weeks ago and was itching to try :)

I really love my stack of pumpkins, they were made from a snowman cutter. Fun, huh?
Happy Halloween! :)

Harry Potter Cookies!!!

Okay, can I just say that I’ve been wanting to make Harry Potter cookies for FOREVER?! I finally had occasion to make some last week.

One of our family friends is courageously battling bone cancer and celebrated her birthday last week. She loves Harry Potter so I made her some Harry Potter cookies as a birthday present. :)

I think they turned out pretty magical, yes? ;) So glad I finally got to make some Harry Potter cookies! I’m thinking I need to find a reason to make these again really soon!

Wine Glass and Bookworm Cookies

I know, a strange combination, right?

So I made some wine glasses and corks out of cookies last week (and my picture isn’t that great because I’d forgotten to take any before I put them in their container to be delivered and since it’s such a fragile shape, I was not about to risk taking them back out…so…lame picture ;) )

I’d had a bit of a crisis because the cutter I’d ordered was waaaay too small and so I made my own using some sheet metal and then all of those cookies broke, so this was take two using a sturdier shape, but yeah, was not going to risk breaking these ones. But thankfully everything worked out without tooooo much stress and were still completed on time. Whew!

I’d still some how managed to have some leftover dough after losing the first batch so I made some school cookies for my mom because she helped me out by delivering the wine glass cookies for me. Aren’t the bookworms so CUTE?! Since she’s a librarian, I knew she’d appreciate these little readers ;)

Too fun, right?! ;)

15 Months!

Spencer is 15 months! Yay!

*This kid is GO GO GO!! I am constantly chasing him around. He also has a knack for running away when he sees me coming with a diaper, tissue, play clothes, etc.

*Also very adventurous. He loves the slide at the playground and can go down all by himself! He can usually get up to the slide by himself, depending on the playground.

*Still says Da-da, but will say Ma-ma (hurray!), and pup-pup (puppy). Also makes a sort of ‘buh’ sound when he wants a book read to him and when someone makes a “beep-beep!” sound, he says “boop!”. Occasionally uses the ‘more’ sign, but overall sees signing as unnecessary when he can throw his food off his tray to say he’s done eating, or pull at the refrigerator door when he’s thirsty or shove things in my face when he needs me to do or fix something. He’s got his own sign language, you could say. ;)

*Cut FOUR more teeth in the last month. He now has eight teeth! It was a very long month of teething…

*Loves animals. All animals right now are ‘pup-pups’ but he loves watching them.

*Already has an attachment to his stuffed puppy. It’s so funny to see the differences between Nathan and Spencer. Nathan didn’t really get attached to a stuffed animal or a blanket until he was almost 2, but Spencer already has his favorite stuffed puppy and blanket. 

*A bit of a stinker. He can tell when I don’t want him to do something, so he keeps doing it and laughing. He’s got a thing for my glasses, which totally makes me crazy because I really don’t want them broken, but he loves to knock them off my face when I least expect it and then laugh like a maniac.

*Starting to fight back a little more when Nathan tries to throw his weight around. Just yesterday he whacked Nathan upside the head with a hot wheels car. Yeah. That was fun…

*Definitely wants to be in on anything big brother is doing. We’re definitely at a point where, for everyone to be happy, we need two of every. single. toy. Oof.

*Responding to lots of verbal cues. Almost always responds when we say his name, he will wave to the rest of the family when it’s time for bed and I say “Time to say good night to Spencer!”. And at the end of prayers, he’ll clasp his hands together when we say ‘amen’ (even if he was making a racket during the prayer ;) )

*Gives the best little hugs!

*Crazy boy at bath time. We’ve recently started putting bubble bath in the boys’ bath and he loves to splash most vigorously. He’s also has started sticking his face into the bubbles (presumably to eat them) and then abruptly comes back up once his face hits water with a santa beard of bubbles on his chin. It’s hilarious!

*Still puts everything in his mouth. I’ve caught him several times over in the corner by the washer and dryer, eating stray lint off the floor. Yep. Gross. He loves it though, whenever I find him back there, he’s always got a big grin on his, as well as slobbery lint. Silly boy.

*Keeps us laughing! Love you little man!