Christmas Tree

Yesterday we woke up to a lot of snow. Further down there is a picture where Eric stuck a ruler in the snow on our patio table and it came up to just under 9 inches! Oliver was amazed to look out the window at the snow in the morning. He was also excited to get to play in the snow. We spent a little time outside in the snow while Eric shoveled so we could get out of our driveway. Oliver seemed to get the snow thing pretty well. He did better walking through the snow than I thought he might, only a few falls :)

After playing around in the snow and getting shoveled out, we headed to a Christmas tree farm to pick our Christmas tree out. We found one a little faster this year since it was a little bit colder and we didn't want to be outside for too long. Oliver had fun looking at all of the trees and loved it when Eric would shake a tree to get the snow to fall off. It was very pretty to see all the snow and I think it put us in Christmas mode a little more.

The Christmas tree farm also has reindeer so we were able to see the reindeer. Oliver really wanted to pet them, but we opted not to (considering the sign said they might bite your fingers). It was a lot of fun to spend the day doing Christmas things.

When we got home, we decorated our tree. Oliver loved hanging ornaments on the tree. He definitely had a favorite branch and had to be reminded to put ornaments in other spots on the tree. We put tinsel on our tree this year and let Oliver help. If you notice in a picture below, we gave him a bag of tinsel, he pulled it out in a big blob, and put it on his favorite branch. Then he looked at Eric and asked for more tinsel. We did manage to get it thinned out a little bit, but a few parts of the tree are pretty tinsel-heavy.

Oliver also got to decorate his own little tree. He was very excited and proud of it. He put miniature ornaments of Scooby-Doo, Curious George, and Rudolph and Friends. He also put a snowman ornament he got from Aunt Kathy & Uncle Dale on it. The first thing he did this morning when he came out the living room was look for his Christmas tree :)

I go to the doctor on Monday for an appointment- I was 36 weeks on Friday so only 4 more weeks until my due date. We are getting more and more excited and have been getting a few baby things done around the house. I think Oliver is getting excited about being a big brother- he talks about the baby quite a bit and when we go places, he always makes sure we bring the baby along.

The pictures are actually backwards from how they were taken, but I figure you are all smart people and can figure it out :)

Oliver's 2nd Birthday

Oliver opening presents at his birthday party. He was very excited about it!

Oliver with his birthday cake!

Oliver's birthday cake- it was decorated with Cars. It had Lightning McQueen, Mater, and 2 tractors on it!

Oliver had a wonderful 2nd birthday party! He was lucky enough to have lots of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends come to celebrate with him. He blew his candles out of his cake and then picked out a piece of cake with a tractor on it. He was very interested in unwrapping presents and seeing what was inside. He wanted everything open so he could play with it. When he was done opening presents, he had the help of lots of people to take presents out of the packages and play with them.

Thanks again to all who came and celebrated with us!

The next 2 pictures are on his actual birthday back in Illinois after our drive home. Eric and I unloaded and unpacked while Oliver played in the living room with all of his new toys. He had a lot of fun!

Happy Halloween!

Ready to carve our pumpkin!

Touching the guts

Checking out the inside

Our finished product!

Here are the pictures from Halloween!

Going out trick-or-treating.

He had a lot of fun playing outside in his costume. We went to a few friends' houses to trick-or-treat. Oliver got to play with his friend Andrew and had a lot of fun playing there.

Happy Halloween!

Fall Fun!

We have been having lots of fall fun the past week. The weather has been gorgeous and we have all be enjoying it. We have lots of leaves in our yard and driveway. I raked a few up the other day for Oliver to play in. He thought it was pretty exciting. Eventually we'll probably rake leaves and bag them up, but too many of the trees still have green leaves on them for me to think it is a good idea quite this early.

Oliver sitting in a pile of leaves.

On Sunday after church, we took a trip to the pumpkin patch/apple orchard. The weather was perfect and we got there shortly after they opened so they weren't super busy. By the time we were heading out, it was definitely getting a lot more crowded.
Oliver with the apple when we first got there. I need to pull out last year's picture and compare the two.

Oliver and Eric in the school bus

On a pony ride

The three of us on the wagon ride. Oliver loved this. He was a little confused because a tractor pulled it and he definitely would have preferred a tractor ride.

Eric and Oliver went on the big, inflatable slide a few times. This was a big hit with Oliver and I think he would have done it as many times as we would have let him.

On the search for the perfect pumpkin

I found it!

Riding in the wagon with the pumpkin to go wash them.

Washing our pumpkins

Yesterday, Oliver painted with Halloween colors. He loves painting and painted three pictures.

At Blain's awhile ago, they had some drawings and I put my name in hoping to win tickets to Sesame Street Live, instead I won a big pumpkin with treats. So we are the proud owners of a giant stuffed pumpkin with arms and legs. Oliver has been enjoying the little toys that came in it.

Hopefully everyone else has been having nice weather and been able to enjoy it. We've had windows open the past few days. Tomorrow is supposed to cool down, but the weekend is supposed to be 70 so it looks like we'll have a few more warm days.

New Baby!

Oliver got a new baby today. We have been looking for a doll that doesn't wear pink or purple for quite awhile- there are not too many of them. I was at Blain's today and saw a Cabbage Patch doll wearing green shorts and a blue t-shirt with a bulldozer on it. It's name was Melissa... But I figured that was as boyish of a doll as we were going to find, so I picked it up. We gave it to Oliver tonight after him and I went and got our flu shots. He was pretty excited about it. Right away, he started calling him Tim :) He has been giving him baths (in a little tub, not the bathtub like he would like), feeding him bottles, and playing patty-cake with him. Hopefully this is a sign of how he'll be with the new baby- other than when he said "throw" and threw Tim across the room. :)

Tomorrow I go to the doctor for another checkup. I'll be 30 weeks tomorrow!

Happy Friday Eve!

A Weekend in New York

Amy & I ran to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner and they had foam maces and of course the kids needed to have them. So they spent quite a bit of time outside swinging them at each other and running around. I think maybe 2 of them didn't end up breaking.

Sophie, Oliver, and Henry sitting on the steps outside at Kathy's house. They had a lot of fun playing outside together.

Oliver is with Amy and he is showing off his tattoo. It was Obi-Wan. He still has it and gets pretty excited about it. He went to the pool later that afternoon and Eric said hew as very proud of his tattoo while they were swimming.

Timothy being baptized on Sunday!

Randy & Kara's whole family- Randy, Kara, Alex, Max, Sophie, Henry, and Timothy!

We went to New York last weekend to meet Timothy and celebrate his baptism. We left our house around 5:00 Thursday afternoon and got to Randy & Kara's a little after 7:30 Friday morning. We spent pretty much all of our time relaxing and visiting. Timothy is an adorable and very calm little boy with lots of loving siblings. Randy & Kara and Kathy & Dale made lots of yummy food for us to eat while we were there. My mom was already out there so we were able to see her too. Kara's grandparents were out also. Dale and Madison got there not too long after we did Friday morning and Coco, Chris, Amy, & Kelli got there Saturday morning. It was a fun weekend to visit with lots of family. After the baptism Sunday, we hung out at Randy & Kara's and had a brunch. We stayed all day Sunday (and stayed up with Randy, Kara, & Kathy talking until about 1:30 in the morning) and we went home Monday morning. We left Randy & Kara's about 10:00 Monday morning and got home about 11:00 that night. It was a very fun weekend!

Dinosaur Masks

Oliver has had a cough that has just been hanging on for quite awhile and after two nights of no good sleep for him, we called the doctor this morning and took him into convenient care. She said his lungs sounded somewhat wheezy and crackly so she wanted to try a breathing treatment at the office to see how he responded to it. Luckily, he responded well to it (she was throwing around pneumonia if the breathing treatment didn't help right away). So we were sent home from the doctor with a nebulizer and had to go pick up albuterol from the pharmacy.

He doesn't seem to bothered by the cough itself, it is the worst at nighttime so we'll see how tonight goes after 3 breathing treatments. The plan is to continue the treatments for sure as long as he is doing any coughing and then reevaluate after that. She said it could possible that he would benefit from getting breathing treatments all winter long- not exactly fun, but if it keeps him healthy, we'll do it. We go back to the doctor on Wednesday to see how he is doing. As of right now, she has given us the okay to travel to New York for the weekend, but wanted to see us the day before we leave to give us the final okay.

Oliver is getting much better with the treatments. At the doctor's office today, he screamed and cried and kept trying to pull it away from his face- not the most fun for anyone involved- but on the bright side, he was taking lots of deep breaths with his screaming so that helps get the medicine to him better. At home, we rented a new Dora movie and have done both treatments while watching Dora and after the initial fit of having to do the treatment, he relaxes and just sits and watches Dora. As you can see in the pictures above, he is pretty calm.

So that was our Sunday excitement. Hopefully this helps and we all get a little better sleep tonight and he gets feeling better.

Have a good week!