Happy Halloween!

Colt is a clown this year, my mom made the costume for him. He is one of the cutest clowns I have ever met!

They had a trunk-or-treat at the high school where I teach at last night so we took him to that. He was so cute walking around, we taught him to say trick-or-treat (I have been working on it with him for awhile now) he says tick-teat. He would hold out his halloween basket and then they would put candy inside. He loved the sucker, we gave him one of them about half way through and that's all he cared about the rest of the night. It was so funny to watch him suck on it like a big boy.

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch

We drove over to Kennewick this morning and met all of Dave's family at a pumpkin patch in Pasco. It was a lot of fun and the kids had so much fun, we did our family pictures, rode on a tractor and looked around at all the pumpkins.

Colt found one that was just his size.

He kept trying to pick up all the pumpkins and most of them were too heavy for him.

He had the worst cold but was still in a pretty good mood for feeling so crummy.

Colt and Camryn on the tractor.

Petting Zoo

After we got back from the hay ride and pictures we went to a petting zoo, Colt loved all the animals.

Checking out the cow.

Uncle Andy showing Colt how to pet the cow.

Pointing at the huge pig, he was in awe of it!

He also liked the sheep. He spent most of his time running from animal to animal over and over again.

Bouncy House

They had two huge bouncy houses at the pumpkin patch and so we got tickets for Colt and Camryn to go through. We must have taken both of them through the houses like 6 times. They both loved it and were smiling and laughing the entire time. It was so fun to go through with him and watch his face.

Going down the slide all by himself.

Both Camryn and Colt took really long naps after the fun morning of playing.

Spaghetti for Dinner!!

I made spaghetti sauce from scratch for dinner tonight. I got the recipe from a friend online and it was pretty good, it had sausage and hamburger in it. Dave tasted it and was like "Wow this is actually pretty good!!" Obviously he does not enjoy my cooking much:) Anyway, Colt has been battling a bad cold and cough for the last few days and has not eaten much but he was loving the spaghetti tonight!

Its such a messy food and a big pain to clean up but at least he enjoyed his dinner and got his appetite back for a meal.

Candy Thief

We were having company come this weekend so I put out all of my fall decorations along with the Halloween candy dish. Colt had been playing with his toys most of the afternoon and I was in the kitchen working on some more decorating when I noticed it had gotten very quiet. I walked around the corner and saw Colt reaching into the candy dish and unwrapping the candy and eating it. I did not realize he was tall enough to reach it but I have now had to move the candy dish, otherwise we would have had no candy left over.

Notice the wrappers on the ground:) He is getting so big that nothing is out of his reach anymore. We are really going to have to work on him not touching the Christmas ornaments this year!!

Life

Life seems to be moving at a pace which I can not keep up with lately. I find myself telling people that Jax is 3 months old when he is really 4.5 months, or that Colt just turned 2 (yea 4 months ago!!). I often find myself thinking about the future and saying things like: "I can't wait until June when I can stay home with my kids full time for a couple years" or "I am dreading having to go back to work and just don't know how I am going to do it, I am already exhausted all the time and I don't even have to work yet" or "In a couple years when the kids are maybe 2 and 4 I would like to have another baby and then maybe another."

Anyway, the point is that most of us tend to live too much in the future instead of being thankful for what we have today. Yes, I am excited that  most likely after this school year I will not be teaching anymore but instead going to get the opportunity to be a stay-at-home mommy with my kids, but the reality is that right now I do have to go back to my teaching job next month. The reality is that I still have another FULL MONTH at home with my kiddos. Why can't I just live in the moment and be excited about another full month of staying home rather than already getting anxious about having to go back to work and worrying about how I am going to handle the logisitics of it all? Or why am I already thinking about having another baby when I have a 4 month old 4.5 month old that I am still nursing and is completely dependent on his mommy being around?

The problem with my life is that I am a planner, in a lot of ways I am sure this is a good thing but for me it tends to work against me on occasion. For example, I make a list for everything: shopping list, to do list, weekly meal list, vacation items list, etc. I honestly get joy in crossing things off my list as I accomplish them, so if my to-do list seems too short then I find things to put on there even if they don't necessarily need to be done. Silly, I know. However, it makes me feel organized and productive about my day. The problem many stay at home mom's run into is that they feel that its not enough just to be a stay at home mom. They feel like they need to be volunteering for various things, putting there kids in lots of activities, keeping the home clean and putting dinner on the table all the while making sure the kids are happy and healthy. After being on maternity leave for the last 5 months I can assure you this is true because I felt the need to do all those things too, only I am trying not to. Since this is only my job for a short 5 months I have tried to just be a mom, I play with my kids, take them to the park, take them to playdates

unfinished and found August 26, 2014

Baking Cookies

Colt and I got to spend the day together today. Its so nice to get to spend a week day with him every once in awhile. Today we did not have a babysitter for him so him and I spent the day running errands and getting ready for company to come this weekend!! We can hardly wait to see Crew and Brody. In the afternoon we decided to make oatmeal crisp chocolate chip cookies.

Colt wanted to do everything I was doing, he would measure the sugar with his cup and then put it in the mixer (check out my mixer, I got it as a birthday present last year and I love it!! I am not much of a cook but I love to bake.)

He also of course had to stir whatever it was he was putting in his cup.....

......and he got a few good tastes in too. He tried sugar, brown sugar, butter, vanilla and flour. He did not like the flour too much. He was such a big help, I love doing stuff like this with him!!

Just being a boy!

Colt loves playing around the house, he is usually just happy playing with a bat, golf club, broom or stick. Today he also grabbed my strength bands and decided to wear that over his shoulder. I have no idea how he got it between his legs too but he cracks me up.

I was cutting up apples to put them in my food dryer (yum dried apples are my favorite!) and Colt was running around the house chasing Byson looking just like this. Those two have a great time together!

Fall Mornings

I bundled up Colt again this morning and took him for a run, it is so cold right now in the mornings and there is frost on the ground. Yesterday he had gotten a little cold so I made sure he was nice and warm today. He must have been comfortable because he fell asleep pretty quickly and he rarely falls asleep in his stroller anymore. I put my pink gloves on him so his hands would be very warm!

The minute he woke up after our run he wanted to play outside, I was trying to get him to stand in front of the pumpkins and smile for me.

This was the best I could get him to do.
He was funny because I told him I wanted him to sit on a pumpkin and he went and did it but I could not get the smile captured on camera:(

A Perfect Day!!

Strawberry-Peach Smoothie.....Colt's favorite!
Today was what I would describe as a perfect day! Dave and my dad left on Friday for opening weekend of chuckar hunting in Oregon. It is a tradition that they do this every year. That means Colt and I have the weekend to just ourselves. The day started off a little after 7 am when Colt woke up, I brought him into our bed along with his banana and milk and we stayed in bed snuggling for 30 minutes. After that I got him all bundled up and we went on a run with him in the jogging stroller, it was a cold fall morning but so beautiful out. When we got home I made us homeade egg mcmuffins for breakfast and then we showered and drove downtown to meet Di Di for some shopping. We have a cute little downtown in Walla Walla so we just walked around and looked through the little shops. We went to lunch at my favorite pizza place called Sweet Basil Pizzeria, it is New York style pizza so its real thin crust and almost no grease and they have the most amazing salads and then we walked over to my favorite candy shop called Brights and got a couple pieces of yummy chocolate. Colt fell asleep on the drive home and I put him down for his nap and I got busy pulling out the fall decorations and cleaning the house. We have company coming this weekend (Price Family...can not wait!!!) so I wanted to get all the cleaning and decorating done this weekend so I would not have to do it during the evenings after work. Colt woke up and after a small snack we drove to get some pumpkins for our front door.When we got home I whipped up a smoothie for Colt and he LOVED it, he sat on the counter while I made dinner (sloppy joes) and inhaled his smoothie. He did not eat much for dinner that night, I wonder why??:) We played some more , read a couple books and then Colt went to bed. I relaxed and watched the movie "Baby Mama" (just an okay movie) and was asleep by 10. I love days like this, getting to spend an entire day with Colt doing whatever we want!

Colt inhaling his smoothie while watching me make dinner. Yum Yum!

He loves to grab apples out of our fruit bowl, take a bite and then....

.....put it right back in the fruit bowl. It cracks me up at the tiny little bite he takes out of it. He would have done it with every apple but I stopped him.

After eating quite a few more bites he decided to take him straw and stick it in the apple.......

.....and try to get some apple juice out of it.

Driving Daddy'sTruck

Cousins

My sister and family came to Walla Walla this weekend to visit. We had everyone over to our house for breakfast Saturday morning and the kids had so much fun playing outside.
Colt thought it was so fun to run under the tree so Madelyn gave him a ride through the leaves.
Elena was trying to swing on the branches like Tarzan.
Colt getting ready to run under the tree....
and then stops short to laugh at Lucy and Elena trying to swing on the branches.
We headed back to my parents house in the afternoon and my other sister Ann and family drove over from Spokane. This is all the cousins on my side of the family.
Reese, my mom and Madelyn.

Pumpkin Patch

The weather was kind of rainy on Saturday but the minute it let up we drove to Klicker's pumpkin patch so the kids could all get a pumpkin and run around on the hay bales.

It was so fun to watch Colt enjoy it this year, the minute we got there I let go of his hand and he ran over to this pumpkin and gave it a big hug and a kiss:)

He wanted his own wagon to wheel his pumpkin around.

I tried to get him to smile for the camera but this is all he would give me.

This is the best group picture I could get, its not easy to get all of these girls to cooperate. They range in ages from 11 (Madelyn) to 15 months (Colt). They all had so much fun running around and playing. The older girls love there younger cousins and are such a huge help with them. Its like having babysitters around all the time.

Everyone got to pick out 1 pumpkin to take home and carve. The older girls had a hard time choosing just one.

My camera battery died just as my mom snapped this picture so I have no other pictures of the day. We went back home after this and had dinner and all the older girls carved there pumpkins on the front porch. Then once it got dark out we went to the corn maze which is about 5 minutes from my parents house. It was so much fun, it took us about an hour to get through it and I carried Colt the entire time, he ended up falling asleep on my shoulder for the last 10 minutes of it. It was like 8:00 and way past his bedtime (he almost is always asleep by 7). The older girls kept trying to hide and then jump out of the corn and scare us. It was such a fun weekend and so fun for Colt to get together with all his cousins and play. He is such a mommy's boy sometimes, if I was around he really just wanted to be next to me. My sister Amy would try and bribe him with food just so he would come and see her.:)

Daddy's boots are made for walkin.....