December is here

December is in full swing! I feel like it came suddenly out of nowhere. I don't know if it was the late thanksgiving or what. I found myself December 1st wrapping as many books as possible for our nightly Christmas book reading and planning advent activities. Its already such a busy time of year, I didn't want to make things more stressful, so some of our "activities" are events we already had planned on a particular day, some are fun crafts, and some are inexpensive surprises left in the stockings. That way I could see what days were already busy and plan something easy/fast for that day.

I found a kit to make this at the Deluxe Winter market. I've just written on slips of paper what the activity or event is for that day.

December 1st-
For the first day we had the annual Mitchell pizza/tree decorating night with Michael's family. 

The kids always get new pajamas. This year the theme was reindeer. Isabella was pumped to get some "footy pajamas like Benny".

Nana and the grandkids.

Izzy's face!!! :)

Ben got a new teething ring. He was a fan!

Izzy got a new little people manger set. She's been playing her "mangers" a lot since.
Its always a great night together with family! 

We've been opening a book every night and having a reading from an advent calendar we are doing.
Isabella really looks forward to it and asks me 5 times a day if she can open a book right now.

December 2nd:
Today's activity was to choose an animal from the world vision catalog to buy. We looked through all the animals and Izzy wanted to buy Ducks. So I read to her from the catalog how the Ducks would help the people in that country and we watched a video on the website about a family that is blessed through the world vision program. I'm not sure how much she understood...but I tried to explain how some people can't go to the store and buy food anytime they need it because they don't have stores like we do or money to buy food. Hopefully our 10 ducks are on their way to someone soon!

December 3rd:
Today we went to Lighting of the Commons at OC.

 There were free carriage rides!

Music and fireworks!

 Isabella is even more fun to experience this season with this year!! So fun!

The night after thanksgiving, would have been our tree decorating night...but since we had jumped the gun on that, we didn't have our tree to decorate. We had Hartman Thanksgiving at my Aunt's house and left early to go downtown to the tree lighting. But we didn't get there in time. As we were walking from our car it seemed like there were a lot of people coming toward us, which didn't seem like a good sign. And when we got there the tree was already lit.

But there were still bands playing and free popcorn...so we hung out for a while. On the way back to the car we were talking about what a bust it was to miss the countdown, and Isabella said, from the stroller, (where she couldn't hear us talking), "Downtown was so wonderful tonight! And so musical!" So she had fun. We went home and the kids had their new Christmas pajamas to unwrap.

 
I've laughed and laughed at some of the pictures of them together from that night.  Isabella was really excited and fun during it all. I added a video of them opening their pajamas. My favorite line is: "I got frosty's and you got frosty's! How amazing!"  It still feels a little surreal to have two kids this year at Christmas, even though we are 7 months in to having two! 

Thanksgiving 2013

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving Michael went on his annual fishing trip. Isabella had a sleep over at Mom's so I enjoyed a quiet morning at home with Benjamin. I got to sleep in after being up for a couple hours with him in the night, and get my work out in (in the quiet without 100 questions of what I'm doing) while he took his morning nap. I met mom for lunch to pick up Izzy and we headed home for nap time. Both kids fell asleep in the car on the way home, but I was successfully able to transfer both of them to their beds. 
I began some cooking while they slept.

Izzy joined me when she woke up.

Same caramel apple cranberry pie we've made the last few years.

But I tried I new pie crust recipe from Annie's Eats. She's never let me down yet!

Thanksgiving morning I went out for a run. Michael got Isabella bathed and dressed while I was gone, and I came home to her "parade" that she made with her little people and my little ponies.

I thought it was pretty clever!

Benjamin's first Thanksgiving!

We had Thanksgiving lunch with my family and dinner with Michael's. I only took a couple of pictures the rest of the day.

 Post lunch nap at Mimi's house.

My boys on Thanksgiving!

Mitchell family

We did a thankfulness tree again this year, and here are a few of the things we were thankful for:
-Jesus and Mimi (I)
-Two healthy children (A)
-the rain (A)
-My job (M)
-a nice day at home in pajamas (A)
-trees, owls, and thank you notes (I)
-this lovely dinner (I)
-mustard and the foxes (I)
-cucumbers (I)
-the loving kindness of a gracious and patient God (M)
-That I'm going on a trip to Mimi's house for a sleepover. And pumpkins. And turkeys. (I)

Isabella was pretty funny this year. Often she would mention things she could see sitting on the table.

We were blessed to be able to spend time with both of our families and have tons of good food. We truly have so, so much to be thankful for!

The difference a year makes: Last year's pie making

7 Months

How is my baby 7 months??!!

 This is not a good picture, but I post it for the streams of drool coming from his mouth...are teeth coming?!?!?

You still sleep with your hands over your head sometimes like you always did when you were a tiny baby. I love it! At 7 months you are sitting up really well. It seems you don't like to lay down to play anymore because you'd rather be sitting up. You seem to have the mechanics of eating down really well. You really like apples, pears, and prunes. You gag when I feed you sweet potatoes. You kind of like sweet peas and bananas. Recently I mixed carrots and apples together and you liked that much better than carrots by themselves. Your sleep has been all over the place. Sleeping through the night one night, waking up three times the next night, two the next...who knows what you will do! Its a little bit exhausting! You seem to have settled into a morning nap about an hour and a half after you wake up, an afternoon nap about two hours after you wake up from the first, then usually a 45 minute or so nap in the evening if we are home or somewhere where you can nap. You have begun to make a reaching motion for me with your arms when you want me to pick you up, and have gotten a lot better at reaching for and picking up toys. You like to chew on toys and bang them on things. When you aren't tired, hungry, or your mouth is hurting- you continue to be a really content, happy baby. That has been such a blessing!
I love you so much my sweet, blue eyed boy!!

"snow day"

I'm way behind on posting...so I'll be playing catch up for a while. Looking over how many posts I've had this year vs. other years is telling of the fact that I don't have as much time for some things as I used to.

The Sunday before thanksgiving we had an unexpected "snow day". Which turned out to be more of a sleet day, and hardly any snow. Isabella kept looking out the window and asking if there was enough snow to make a frosty- and there never was. But plans were canceled and we found ourselves with a full day at home.

 We mixed up some pumpkin scones with a maple glaze from a stonewall kitchen mix my mom had given me. They were so good!!

Benjamin was drooling like crazy this day...I sure hope a tooth pops through sometime soon!

And never in history have I put my tree up before Thanksgiving...but thanksgiving is late this year, we had an unexpected day at home...and so we did. :) 

Christmas tree decorating in Halloween pajamas, before Thanksgiving...

 Reaching some of the high places with Dad's help.

I didn't mention anything, but somewhere along the way Isabella said MOM! I need some Christmas pajamas on! So she changed into some. I love that she is starting to enjoy and appreciate holidays as much as me! :) We did save the star to put up on our actual tree decorating/new pajama night the night after Thanksgiving. And I didn't get out any of the other Christmas decorations...haha! I'm done justifying! I've enjoyed the glow of the tree lights!

Loving fall

I've really loved our leaves and fall this year. Our trees are rapidly loosing their leaves and one in the backyard is almost bare. I've gone out in the backyard every day to take a few pictures before everything turns to brown and winter sets in.

Wednesday: 

Thursday: 

Sunday:

Benjamin is changing and growing so fast. I can't believe half of a year has already gone by!! I feel like his baby days are slipping away quickly. Parenting is not for the faint of heart, but there is so much good in it too. Right now I'm loving the funny things Isabella says at times and listening to her when she is deep in play and doesn't realize I'm watching, and Benjamin's happy heart and gummy smiles.