Christmas Craftiness

I guess the title of this post is a little deceptive because my craftiness has been lacking lately.  As many of you know, I'm totally obsessed with Pinterest lately, so I have all of these cute holiday ideas and they are just going to have to wait until next year. My craftiness around the house has been limited to 2 things:

This idea is courtesy of my friend, Jamie.

And this is from an evening spent at Sunshine Glaze with my friend, Erica.

I did convince Eric to let me do something a little crafty for his team members at work.

I found these ideas on Pinterest or blogs I follow, but I'll give you the original source in case you want to use them. In the bag are Crock Pot Sugared Almonds & Walnuts. I tasted a few that didn't make it in the bags and they were so yummy! In the jar is Mocha Cocoa. I made the top label with the instructions and then printed these great tags from Hostess with the Mostess at Peppermint Twist Printables. It's not much, but it was fun to do and I can say I was a little bit crafty this Christmas.

Caiden's 18 month photos

In the middle of November we had Caiden's 18 month photos taken. We still use our favorite photographer Lindsey Rabon. She is great, so easy to work with and takes great pictures. It's always so hard to choose our favorites, but here's a few of them!

19 month milestones

There is not much to report but I wanted to make note of all of Caiden's new words.

pa-pa-dos= zapatos (shoes)
apple-da =apple sauce (his current addiction)
big = usually in the context of big puppy
poo-poo = he will let us know he's done the deed
moo = for a cow (and sometimes a pig)
baa-baa = for a sheep
roar = for lion
ee-ee-oo-oo = for monkey
bird
owl
eye

The other developmental news is we've adjusted his bedtime to 7:30 pm and so far this has helped him to sleep in a little more. We've only been doing it for less than a week but he's been sleeping in until after 6:30am! This is WAY better than the pre-6am time he was waking.

November wrap-up

I can't believe it's been a month since I posted last. I don't even really have a good excuse. My blogging app on the iPad hasn't been working and I haven't felt like sitting upstairs to write. I can summarize November fairly easily though. Caiden and I had lots of fun with moms club activities, I got sick just before Thanksgiving so we couldn't go to Iowa, and the month wrapped up with American Airlines filing for bankruptcy. Fun, huh? All in all it wasn't terrible though. Eric worked his butt off to make us a nice Thanksgiving dinner. It was  the first time for him to cook a turkey and it turned out great. Although I'm glad we've never had to eat leftovers for 4 days before.  I did miss visiting with family and all the extra goodies that Eric's grandma makes!

I'm ready to move on into December and enjoy the holidays. We've got the house decorated as much as possible with a toddler running around. Caiden has done pretty well not bothering the tree, but he does like to turn the lights on and off.

I put a small tree up in his room with some fabric ornaments that he got as a gift last year.

Here is our entry table with some random decorations- since he can't yet reach on top of it.

And my Hallmark village on display. My uncle, Dan, started a long time ago by choosing an ornament series to get us each year. My series is one of the longest running ones in the family. I think this year will be the 28th or 29th year!

I promise I'll do better posting in December!  Hope all is well with your families!

18 month milestones

My baby Caiden is 18 months (+ a week) old. I know I'm a little behind on this but he didn't have his doctor appointment until today. Here are his stats and milestones:

• 23 lbs 4 oz (15%)  and 32 inches (40%)
• His words are probably the biggest achievement this month, since we have been anxiously awaiting them.  His current words are mommy, daddy, up, apple, bubble, puppy, meow (for a cat), please, cheese, aahh (for agua), ball, baby, tick-tock, ouchey. He still does the signs for more, thank you, please, cheese, milk, cracker, eat and done.
• He has 10 teeth. He cut the bottom right incisor  and his top left molar. I'm dreading these other molars coming in with how bad the right ones were!
• He can use a spoon and a fork- but he's better with the fork.
• I think I forgot this last month, but he is down to one nap. He usually wakes up around 6am, takes an hour nap abound 12, and goes to bed at 7pm. Yes, that's a long day! Although I love spending time with Caiden, I'm a little jealous of the 3-4 hour naps that their kids take.
• He is still trying to jump, but he has started something that looks like skipping.
• He can put together his transportation puzzle.
• Can identify his head, eyes, nose, mouth, belly button, and feet
• Can follow multi word commands (in English & Spanish) for example: Put the book in the bookcase or Go get in your chair
• Likes to wash his hands and put on antibacterial gel
• Points to the sky whenever he hears an airplane or someone says airplane/avion

Boo at the Zoo

The Fort Worth Zoo holds a special halloween event the two weekends before Halloween called Boo at the Zoo. We actually went last year, but didn't go inside the special part because I thought Caiden was too little to enjoy it. We went this year and it was Caiden debut for his Halloween costume. It was a pretty warm afternoon and I left off his pants, so he looks a little goofy. He got lots of compliments though. There were some carnival games and the kids got to trick-or-treat and decorate pumpkins.

Pumpkin Village at the Dallas Arboretum

The Dallas Arboretum is a WONDERFUL place to visit in the fall. It's more than just a pumpkin patch. It's a village, with a theme, made of pumpkins. This year's theme was Cinderella. Unfortunately, Caiden was still not digging the pumpkins. It started off well enough. He enjoyed running around on his own.

He sat with me in Cinderella carriage, but you can tell he's not happy.

 When I tried to actually put him by the pumpkins, he let me have it.

 

So we left the pumpkin area and explored the other parts of the gardens. Caiden was now a happy camper.

Here he's pointing at an airplane that he heard go by. He does this EVERY time he hears one. Indoors or out!

Here's a pic of us from last year and one from this year.

a few more scrapbook pages

I haven't been working of Caiden's scrapbook too much lately. Learning how to knit, decorating for Fall, and making some new crafts have kept me busy.  But if you are interested, here's a few of the pages I've finished since I posted them last. Lots more to do!

One documenting my obsession with taking pictures.

One month photo shoot. This is one of my favorites but the colors just did not scan well!

I'm pretty proud of this one- even with my dorky poem!

Meeting Aunt Jenny, Uncle Rusty & cousins Addison and Ethan

Mother's Day & Father's Day

Two month milestones

Meeting the Glamann family

Visit to the pumpkin patch

Last week we made our first trip of the year to the pumpkin patch. We actually visited 2 in one day! We're gonna have to go back though because Caiden was a little out of sorts and didn't want to cooperate with pictures.

In the morning we hit the Flower Mound Pumpkin Village. He wanted to check out a bounce house for the first time, although he wasn't too sure about it.

Here is a good picture that my friend, Kate, snapped.

In the afternoon, we went to Hall's Pumpkin Farm. Caiden was in a little better mood after his nap.
Check out the cute shirt my friend, Ashley, made for him. She makes really cute stuff- you should check out her site Shaw Swag. This picture was as close as I could get him to take a picture with the pumpkins :)

 He loved riding in the wagon.

And playing on the slide (of course).

They have a full size corn maze, but we didn't do that. Instead Caiden mastered the hale-bale maze.

And he absolutely LOVED playing in the old truck they have there.