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!

Family Update

We have been staying pretty busy around here and I have been informed that my blog is more exciting when I post... so I thought I would post something.

Eric has been very busy with school this semester. He took a big test (2 days of written testing followed by a few hour oral exam). There was lots of studying and stress involved with the test- but he passed! We were both very excited about this. He has also turned in a big paper that he had been working on. Now that these steps are done, he is able to fill out paperwork for his master's degree and will be able to get that. The test made it so he can be an official PhD candidate and not get kicked out of the department- which is a good thing :)

I have been working on things around the house and enjoying my last few months of only having 1 child to take care of. I have been feeling quite a bit better. I have had a few issues with low blood pressure, but there are more good days than bad so that is good. I think I have figured out if I drown myself drinking water and don't go more than 2 hours without eating something, it seems to be better. I've started getting a few things ready for the new baby- nothing too exciting, but we got a second mattress so Oliver's bed and the crib both have mattresses now and I emptied out some drawers in the dresser to start making room for clothes for the new baby. I will be 27 weeks tomorrow, so I think that is roughly the start of the third trimester.

Oliver has been staying very busy. He plays with lots of toys. Some of his current favorites are play food, a monkey puppet, trains, stacking cups, mega blocks, and legos. He builds lots of towers and yells out tower every time he adds a block. He likes to paint, especially water colors because he gets to dip his brush in the water. This is also how he spends a good share of his "toothbrushing" time- rewetting his toothbrush. He still likes books and songs. He is a letter junkie and points to and says most letters he sees. He is saying lots of words and starting to put a few together. He isn't the most understandable yet, but if you can see what he is doing, you can get more of his "language." He is pretty much a busy, happy little boy.

The new baby is just about 3 months from due date. At my appointments, they tell me everything is on track. This baby is very active compared to what Oliver was. Eric and I keep talking about how quickly this baby is going to be here. Oliver seems somewhat aware of the baby, he points to my stomach if you ask where the baby is and he knows the crib is for the baby and his bed is for him.

So there is an update on our whole family. We are looking forward to going to New York next weekend for Timothy's (Randy & Kara's new baby) baptism. I will try to get better about posting a little more often, I'm not promising everyday, but I'll shoot for a few times a week :)

Happy Friday Eve to Everyone!

Time with Daddy

Oliver has started swim lessons. He loves them. This picture was at his first swim lesson. He blows bubbles in the water, sticks his face in the water, dunks his head (with a little help), jumps off the edge into the water, makes "big arm circles," is getting better at kicking, and holds onto the edge of the pool. I'm not sure how much he will actually take away from the lessons, but as soon as we say it is time for swim lessons, he gets super excited. We actually don't let him see his swim trunks until we are ready to go because he gets upset if he doesn't get to go swimming right away :)

Eric & Oliver fed the fish together tonight. Oliver is finally big enough to stand on the step stool while feeding the fish so Eric doesn't have to hold him the whole time now.

One of the drawers in a dresser in Oliver's room broke a little so Eric and Oliver fixed it for us. Oliver was very happy to help- that little boy loves tools.

This picture was taken in Iowa a few weeks ago. Eric's great-grandma passed away and we went back for the funeral. We are sad to see her go, but know she is in a better place now.

*On a side note, I meant to mention the picture at the top of the blog was taken by my niece Heidi. She took a bunch of pictures of Oliver a few weeks ago. Eric has the oral part to a big exam he has been working on this Wednesday so after that we are hoping to go through the pictures and get some printed and some posted on here. They turned out great!