Holidays

Yeah, so it's been over a month since I posted. Oops... life has been pretty busy around here! We have had a few holidays since I posted last, like Halloween. (Yeah, I'm THAT far behind!) Little Man wanted to be Elmo, and he got TONS of candy. We did the church trunk-or-treat, I took him trick-or-treating at the mall, and Mike took him around the neighborhood that evening. It's a good thing he's still young enough that he doesn't know when Daddy is filching most of his candy! :)

We also had Thanksgiving. Although we have often spent the holiday at my in-law's house, Mike had to work on both Thursday and Friday, and I didn't want to drive 4 hours away only a month from my due date. So, we had a lovely dinner with our friends the Packs, whose back yard looks into ours. I don't have any pictures, but it was a fun day. Mike DID have to be at work for about 3 hours that morning and then again for another hour and a half in the afternoon, but he was able to take time off in the middle to enjoy feasting, games, and pie.

So now we are looking forward to Christmas. Partly due to my lovely nesting instincts (I want as much as possible done before this baby arrives!), but also partly due to a son who is in LOVE with Christmas, we have already put up our tree and some of our decorations. Many of the presents have already been bought, a few have been wrapped (and we are waiting for the rest to arrive so we can wrap them, too!) I'll try a video here, but I have little faith that it will work, so I will probably come back and delete it when it doesn't. *Hey, it actually worked! He had been begging for nearly a month to put up our Christmas tree, so we actually had to get it out on Thanksgiving morning!

Anyway, that's us lately! I hope your holidays have been happy, too!

Pumpkin Patch

We took a trip to the local pumpkin patch. (The new background had to match, of course!)

Aidan picked his pumpkin,

played with (translate: threw a tantrum about) the beanbag game,

climbed the hay bale with Mike,

"rode" the "tractor,"

petted the animals, and had a great time.

I was there, too, for those of you who want a growing pictoral record of baby #2!

Canning

I have only tried canning twice before, and each time it was just tomatoes with my friend Ann Michelle. Well, this year I got brave. I took a lesson from my friend Jen, and then I spent a week canning like a crazy lady! (Can you say swollen pregnant feet?!)

But I'd say the results were definitely worth it:

peaches, pears, applesauce, and tomatoes. Yum!!

The Boy

He loves to help me cook. He saw me cutting and immediately ran to his room to grab his own plastic knife to help.

He was sleeping on just a mattress for a few weeks while we waited for his toddler bed (slash crib) to come in. Mike got this great shot one night:

The bed has been here for about a month, and he LOVES it. So far he's only fallen out once! :)

And last? THIS is what my kid does for fun:

Yes, he got that out, put all the pieces together, plugged it in, and started vacuuming all on his own. What a kid!

Fall Festival

Wow, this was almost a month ago... and I'm just now posting. And Aidan is still obsessed with all the goodies he got from this day!

Anyway... the local nature center had a Fall Festival, so we spent the morning there doing all sorts of fun activities. Aidan got to make a pin and color on a pumpkin.

He also got to pretend to be a bee (hence the headband) as he navigated through an obstacle course. I love his face in the second photo - he was trying so hard to get through the tunnel without knocking off his the headband!

We did a ring toss game and painted a paper butterfly (I had never seen these paints before, but they are great - no mess!).

He desperately wanted to go in a canoe, but alas, the youngest they would allow is 3. (I wanted to go, too, but pregnancy makes me strangely sea sick, which I never am at any other time.) However, Aidan DID love crossing this little bridge.

He got to dig through buckets of sand looking for little plastic dinosaurs. I think this might have been his favorite part - he was literally there for about half an hour!

We also helped him make a candle and we went on a long "bug's life" hike. And last but not least, the day wasn't complete without decorating your own cookie! (Most of that frosting ended up going straight into Aidan's mouth rather than onto the cookie!)

I love fun family activities!

Swimming Lessons

We signed Aidan up for a water readiness class. I thought it would be a fun mom and me thing before the baby is here, plus I want Aidan to get more comfortable in the water. However, after I went to the first week with him, I discovered that there was more lifting, pulling, tugging, and kicking than I realized. So now, it's a Daddy and Aidan swim class! I snuck in a camera and got some cute pictures:

Here they are listening to the teacher:

Here, Mike is about to lift Aidan up. (They are doing the Hokey Pokey and it's the part about your whole self in and out.)

And here, Aidan is "swimming" to the edge of the pool. (I was going to make a comment about how buff my hubby is, but he told me not to, so I'm not. But know I'm thinking it!)

And afterwards? We all had to go get some free Cold Stone! What a fun night!

Backyard

Sorry I've been so remiss lately. I have about 7 posts to put up, so hopefully I'll catch up here soon!

This one is a catch-up from WAY back in the spring and summer. Remember this post when we had our trees cut down and the stumps ground out? Well, it left big piles of dirt mixed with ground-up tree. Like so:

+

They warned us not to shovel it back in or we would get mushrooms, so I worked some over the summer on digging it out. But I'm pregnant and weak, so it was slow going. Then, Mike finished the deck, and Mr. Muscles totally stood me up! In about 2 Saturdays, he had shoveled out ALL of the piles, dumped in about 60 new bags of sod to fill the holes, and planted new grass seed.

Now our backyard finally has grass everywhere! It looks great!