Baby Shower for Baby Baker

One of my best friends, Jennifer and her husband Kirk are expecting a little boy in January! Thanksgiving weekend we got to shower Jenn and help them get ready for baby's arrival. They are doing the nursery in vintage airplanes so we kept the theme of the shower the same so she could use some of the props I bought.

 

Each guest got to take away a little gift - an airplan shot.

 

These are little clouds that each guest wrote something special for mama or baby on. I have these from each of my showers for the kids and I've kept them with their baby books.

 

 

This is Ryan and Jenn's niece Kenzlie! They were double trouble together!

 

This pic should look familiar - this is the third enstallment of photos like this! The other two were me preggo with each of the kids. In the first one each girl had a balloon up their shirt and in the second one Jess and Kristin were preggo too and only Jenn had a balloon up her shirt. She said it was finally her turn to not need a balloon!

Ryan is 9 months!

Getting bigger and bigger each month...I'm a bit late on this post, but I also wanted to include his 9 month stats from his doctors appointment which was today!

Weight: 20 lbs 11 oz (50%)
Height: 30 inches (92%)
Head Circumference: 18 inches (60%)

Since his 6 month check up he's gained about 2.5 lbs and grown 1.5 inches. His head has stayed close to the same size so his proportions are evening out.

He's a mover - he is mobile, but not crawling. He's decided to pull an "Ellie" and be a butt scooter...he's got his own style though. It's hilarious. He can also pull himself up on furniture, walls, just about anything. At daycare, he's attempting to climb stairs - yes that's right stairs people. WHERE IS MY BABY?! Doc says he'll be walking early.

He just got his first tooth yesterday! Bottom left one finally came in. Hopefully he'll get the rest real quick like - good for us, but maybe painful for him. This kid loves food and his lack of teeth has not stopped him from eating. He's eating some soft solids and does such a great job of gumming them until he can swallow them.

He also learned to sit up from his back/belly on his own. Thanks to Nana spending some time over Thanksgiving with him! Its almost impossible to change his diaper any more! :)

Someone was super fussy-buns when I took this picture, but at least we got it captured!

Advent Activity Calendar

For Christmas this year I decided to do an advent calendar for Ellie. I remember doing these as a kid, but usually they were filled with chocolate. This idea I found on Pinterest (of course)! Its an activity based advent calendar. Perfect for a toddler who doesn't need candy and loves to spend time doing stuff with her mommy and daddy.

Immediately she was pretty interested in it. But now, every night when we get home, she asks "Can we do this (pointing at the advent calendar since she can't remember what its called)?"

24 days: Cut a Christmas Tree - we went out to Greenbluff and cut our very own Christmas tree from Deitz Farm.

23 days: Decorate the Christmas Tree - Ellie had fun on this one, but didn't keep her interest the entire time.

22 days: Write a letter to Santa - This would have been pretty hard for a 3 year old who doesn't have a strong grasp on writing letters - but I found a super cute form letter from Martha Stewart on Pinterest. She answered all these questions herself (even knew where we lived - Spokane). I had to help her with the house part and provide her with the names of reindeer (she picked the last one I said). I think the sweetest thing of all is that when I originally asked her what she wanted for Christmas most of all, her response was "Ryan wants a puzzle because..."

21 days: Wrap Christmas presents - we pulled out the gifts for her cousins and she got to pick the wrapping paper for each boy and then helped us cut and tape the paper. She then placed them all under the tree.

More activities and pictures to come.

Apple Cup

We love our Cougs, even when the season has been.... well terrible. But a season like this can be saved by one victory - an Apple Cup victory! This year Apple Cup was the Friday after Thanksgiving, which was a bit weird. But we were excited none the less. Our trip started, sans kids, but with Jared's dad and brother and our friends Joel and Cailin, from Spokane on a charter bus courtsey of Jared's work. There was tons of breakfast and mimosas, beer, hard alcohol...you name it it was there for an 8 am bus ride. We got VIP passes to a lunch buffet with sausages, pulled pork, chili and all the booze you could think of. Then we watched the game from the seats that came with this setup - probably about the same as our season tickets, maybe a bit closer to the 50 yard line on the other side of the field. A victory and a bus ride home with pizzas and more booze (if you could handle any more). Then I drove us back to Moses Lake to pick up the kids and throw a baby shower the next day! What a crazy weekend - but well worth it!

Fall Pictures

We needed some updated pics of the kids - Ryan's 9 months and Ellie's 3 years. So at the beginning of October, Rosanna Sales of Picture Perfect by Rosanna came from Moses Lake to Spokane to take these great fun shots of the kids. Just love them!

Ellie's 3rd Birthday

Ellie turned 3 on the 19th, but we celebrated a bit early so that all our family could be here to share in the fun! We had a Minnie Mouse themed party, picked by Miss Ellie herself. Nana and Papa got Ellie this giant sized Minnie stuffed doll. Nana decorated the cake - which turned out so cute. We played pin the bow on Minnie, which all the girls did really well at! Ellie had prizes for all her friends that she picked out - Minnie Mouse cups with crazy straws, mini nail polishes, play dough, play rings, Minnie/Mickey stickers, candy, and Skittles flavored Lip Smackers lip gloss. It was a great day, even though the birthday girl got up at 5:30 am and crashed on the couch at 7 pm. She was so tired that she had nightmeres all night and Daddy ended up in bed with her.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year! Ellie was the cutest little lady bug - courtsey of my mom's handiwork and Ry was a little monster. We trick or treated at my office and Ellie made quite the haul, including a mini can of root beer and some Minnie Mouse cheese puffs. That night we stayed home and handed out candy to all the cute kiddos that came by - which was a lot more than we saw last year. Our friends, Armando and Kandi came over for lasagna and Kandi brought 'bones' - dinner rolls shaped like bones to go with our blood (lasagna). Having blood (spaghetti) and bones (rolls) has been a tradition in her family for a long time so it was fun to share that with them.

Jared and I also got our carve on this year with a sweet set of tools from Auntie Becky. Jared carved the football looking face and the frankenstein and I carved Ellie a Minnie Mouse pumpkin. These were lots of work because the pumpkins must have been a good 2 inches thick.