Happy Halloween!

Party Girl

Madeline was so excited to go to her really good friends', Jillian and Faith's, birthday party the other week.  

11 Months Old

Oliver turned 11 months old a week ago.  I can't believe he is going to be a year old in 3 weeks!  This year has flown by.  

Oliver woke up a little cranky the other day and nothing was making him happy.  So, I plopped him in the bean bag chair and turned on some Elmo, and he was a happy guy.  (It wasn't worth the battle to get his pants back on after the diaper change.)

This past month, he started walking all over the place.  He is getting pretty fast.  But, he is also still getting lots of bruises on his face as he walks into things.  He loves to carry a straw around.  I know you wouldn't guess it from the picture below.  But, he drooling so much less.  I usually don't have to keep a bib on him anymore.  

He wants to keep up with all the big kids at the park.  He can climb up the stairs and go down the slide, on his belly, all by himself.  He loves to climb back up the slide as well.  

He loves to play with the phone.  He has deleted our answering machine message and has left the phone "off the hook" for over an hour before I realized it.  He holds the phone up to his ear when we say, "hello".  And sometimes, even a fish can be a phone.  

I feel like this past month has been a big one for Oliver. 

~He is walking, as I have already said.

~He does the signs for eat and milk.  And will go stand in front of the cabinets that we keep the bottles in and do the sign for milk.  

~He is mostly down to 1, 3-4 hour nap a day.  And he sleeps about 12 hours at night.  

~He still drinks his 4, 8oz bottles a day.  Although, he just switched to milk instead of formula.  We ran out of formula and just went with it.  He didn't even act like he noticed a difference.  He will not drink it out of a sippy cup though.  He will take a few sips and then spit most of it back out.  So, we will keep working on that.  

~He says, "wah"(Whoa) and "uh" (uh oh).  He has also made the sounds for fire truck (woo oo) and a train (ch ch).

~He is usually a great eater and easily eats more than Madeline.  His favorite foods are grilled cheese, hot dogs, pb and j, green beans, apples, grapes, pretzels, cheerios, zucchini and corn.  But, he usually eats whatever we put in front of him, except for tacos.

~He got strep for the 3rd time this past month.  But, he is finally clear of it and we are hoping he doesn't get it again or he will most likely have to visit an ear, nose and throat doctor.  

~He loves playing with Madeline and she is usually extremely sweat to him and wants to help him.  If he wakes up first in the morning, he waits by her door for her to get up.  

~He is always excited to hear daddy unlocking the door at the end of the day and quickly walks to go greet him.  

~His favorite game is peek-a-boo.  When I lay him down for naps or bedtime, he covers his face with his blanket and waits for me to say, "Where's Oliver?".  Then he pulls the blanket down and gets really happy when I say, "peek-a-boo, there he is!"  He also likes to play peek-a-boo behind furniture.

~He definitely has a temper.  Whenever you take something away from him, he throws himself on the floor and throws a fit.  We're still trying to figure out how to fix that one.

When he doesn't have something being taken away from him, he's usually a happy guy that loves his big sister, farm toys, balls and balloons.  We love this little guy so much and are so excited to celebrate his 1st birthday in less than a month!

Oliver Videos

Well, I ran out of free storage for posting pictures on this blog.  So, instead of pictures, I am posting some videos of Oliver tonight.  After I figure out what to do about the picture storage issue, I will post about Oliver being 11 months old.

This first one is of him dancing.  He is taking after his sister.  She always loved to dance to some Motown music.


Oliver is starting to use some signs now.  The first one he started using, and the main one he still does, is "eat".  This has been very helpful.


Oliver also likes to say "whoa" now.  But, it sounds more like "wah" or even sometimes just yelling.  There's a little of both in this video.


Whenever Oliver drops something, he says, "uh".  His version of "uh oh".


And he has figured out how to play the recorder.  Fun times!  I'm sure you will think twice about letting your kids use our recorder from now on.  :)

Wordless Wednesday

The Best Seat in the House

Andrew put Madeline on top of the refrigerator one day and now she asks me all the time if I will put her up there.  I always say, "no, you will have to wait until Daddy gets home."  Bitter, when did I become the boring parent?  Let's face it, with Andrew as my competition, I never had a chance.    

The Cinnamelt

If you find that McDonald's Cinnamelt isn't quite sweet enough, try some sprinkles. 

Family Devotions

Butler's Orchard

Whenever we need a sniff of fresh air or a taste of the country, we head to our local orchard, Butler's Orchard.  And this past week, I went with my MOPS group for a playdate.  

We got to take a hayride out to the pumpkin patch.  She may look likes she praying.  But, she's just checking out her cool gloves.  

The closest shot I got of the 2 of them.  

My little man in a pumpkin patch.

It took Madeline a while to pick a pumpkin.  She probably picked out about 15.  But, she would usually just drop them back on the ground and find another one.  But, I think we ended up with 3 pretty cute ones.  (And now they have sharpie all over them because she wanted to draw jack-o-lantern faces on them.)

 After the pumpkin patch, there were tons of other activities to do.  This tire is part of a combine that was turned into a slide.  

Madeline got to pump water into a tray to try to make the rubber ducky floats to the other side.  It was "tricky tricky".

Madeline and Oliver both really wanted to play with the balls.  

 All aboard!

Our little walkin' man.  

 We never even made it up to the giant slides.  We ended our morning in the John Deere bike and tractor park.  

Madeline got pretty frustrated that she couldn't push the wheels around.  So, I pushed her around the path several times.  

 On our way back to the car, we enjoyed some really yummy apples.  

Oliver loves apples too, as long as he can hold onto it.  

Before we drove away, we stopped in the general store and picked up some apples and some cider mulling spices and I think they totally make fall official!

This is How We Roll (around town)...

...at least for another month or so when Oliver can turn around.   

His poor little neck is probably getting sore from trying to turn around and watch the DVD player. 

Life sure can be fun with 2 little kiddos in the backseat.

Good Bathroom Reading Material

(In case you can't tell, it's the Bible.  And it might be upside down.)

Ponies, Friends and Balls

We went to "Celebrate Gaithersburg" in Olde Town Gaithersburg with our friends, The Holmes', several weeks ago.   There were vendors, food, crafts, and lots of childrens activities, like riding ponies!

This was Madeline's first pony/horse ride.  She loved it, but didn't want me to let go of her.  She went 3 times.  

Oliver missed his morning nap and eventually tuckered out in the stroller.  

 Sweet baby Anna!

 Faith sure does love her daddy.

 I think the feeling is mutual.

 Brad and Lauren

We enjoyed the other animals as well, like the miniature horses.  

And some goat butts.

Do you like their matching outfits?

We ended our day in the ball field.  It was just a field with balls.  But, the kids thought it was great!

Oliver just wanted to eat them.

 The giant beach balls were pretty cool.  

So Strong!