Thanksgiving 2014

I will admit that this year has been kind of tough certain days for our little family- nothing too serious for the most part, just full of adjustments and some changes.  Transitioning out of working full time to working part time from home, having a new baby, adjusting to Barry's new job/hours and travel, life with two kids now that Ty doesn't just sleep all day (or night for that matter!)...some days have been challenging.  But, despite that, we have so much to be thankful for and this time of year just gets me all sentimental.  I am so thankful for the blessing of having another baby, thankful that we have jobs we both like and thankful to have supportive family and friends to help out on those challenging days.  But mostly I am thankful for time with family because even though some of the days go by soooo slowly (in my sleepless, zombie fog I am often in) time really is flying by!

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Yoakum.  We arrived on Wednesday and the 4 of us spent the afternoon out in the country hanging out in the barn and doing some hunting.  I thought Sawyer was going to be terrified but she loved it and couldn't wait to "put the pig on the fire so we could eat it because her tummy loves pig."  Apparently.

The only way to keep him quiet in the blind...puffs.

Sawyer watching the dogs (a.k.a. deer) with her daddy. And me practicing my impeccable photography skills.

Wednesday night we celebrated Granny's birthday.

And Logan and Sawyer were kind enough to serenade her.

We spent Thursday morning and lunch at Grandma Cowan & Raymond's house.  The kids had such a blast playing outside and sitting at their own table.  Side note: if Sawyer is wearing something that has a hood on it, she must wear it.  Regardless of temperature. #toddlerfashion

And Ty got to have his first taste of turkey.  He loved it and I couldn't get it to him fast enough.

We spent the afternoon at Aunt Gay's house - more playing with cousins and lots of Black Friday ad shopping.  Sawyer got her first birthday present - crowns and princess shoes and didn't take them off the rest of the weekend.

We spent Friday around the house, pretty much in PJs all day!  And crowns.

We stayed so that we could go to the Yoakum football playoff game Friday night.

We ended up driving back that night and spent Saturday getting out our Christmas decor.  I am thankful for such a great time with family and especially thankful for my two little helpers!

Ty: 8 Months

This kid.

This now 8 month old kid absolutely melts my heart.  He is the classic definition of a momma's boy and I kind of love it.

He is more than willing to smile at anyone else and is ok with them holding him, until he sees me.  And he is absolutely not ok with me walking out of the room.  He is definitely in the separation anxiety phase.

Ty's 8th month started off wonderfully - HE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!  And woke up so happy!  I woke up panicked, but happy once I realized what happened.

It was unfortunately really short lived because we went out of town for Halloween and he is in a constant state of teething so...it was nice while it lasted.

I ended my last post by saying I thought it would be any day now until he was crawling and into everything.  The day has come!  He is not only crawling - very quickly - everywhere, but he has also learned to pull himself up on everything.

Lori isn't super thrilled with another kiddo chasing her, but she is dealing with it.  She's a good sport. Ty loves all the animals - he has discovered the animals hanging above his crib and just beams whenever he sees them or any of the mounted deer of his dad or grandfathers.

If I turn my head for a second he is off!  He has also learned to stand up in bed and is beyond proud of himself.

We all took our first trip to the Houston Aquarium.  We went on a Monday morning and there wasn't anyone there so we got to ride all the rides basically by ourselves.  The ferris wheel was a hit...the train, not so much for Ty.

He is still wearing size 4 diapers and 9-12 month clothes.  Mostly 12 months.  He is doing great with solids and loves puffs.  He has contemplated taking a bottle from Barry but isn't totally convinced yet.

He still has just the two teeth but has a couple others that are starting to poke through.  He thinks Sawyer is just the greatest, especially her hair.  He is a hair puller in the worst way.  Besides hair, his favorite things are my phone, his activity table, trying to crawl into the fireplace and taking a bath.  He definitely keeps me on my toes and is already into way more than Sawyer ever was, but then he just smiles...I am not sure how he is every going to get in trouble for anything with those dimples!

Halloween 2014

Now that we have kids, it seems like holidays that used to last 1 day - if that - now last at least a week!  Halloween was no different this year.

First the pumpkin picking.  We tried to go to this pumpkin farm by us but after driving all the way out there the line was like 45 minutes long just for a ticket so we left and went to the local church we have visited the past few years - and we were the only people there!

Sawyer was pretty set on getting a purple pumpkin, and did her best to convince me to buy a giant one...

But in the end settled for this one.

And a few others - one for school and some for all of her friends to come over and paint.  The nice man that was working there offered to help up take our haul out, but Miss Independent took care of it herself.

So we had the girls over for pancakes and pumpkin painting one day.

Ty pretty much slept through all of this.  Then we had to carve the big pumpkin.  My mom came over and helped us.  Unfortunately for Sawyer, my mom and I are suuuuuper unartistic and she wanted a Hello Kitty.  Nothing a googled stencil couldn't help!

She was super into pulling out the "seeds and slime" and loved eating the roasted seeds.  The next night, my dad was back in town so we went over there to carve pumpkins and things got serious.

This time she wanted a bat.

Tuesday, Ty had costume day at Mother's Day Out.

Thursday, Sawyer had costume day at school. I dressed Ty up again just because...

Thursday was also Barry's birthday so we had a nice dinner out and a neon blue cake with blue icing, fish shaped sprinkles and rainbow candles.  Sawyer picked that because it is her dad's favorite.

We had planned to go to San Antonio on Saturday for Caroline's baptism, but last minute decided to take off Friday morning so we could trick or treat there.  Sawyer was so obsessed with the Belle dress, she basically wore it for 3 days straight.

Once we arrived, we had such a fun night trick or treating with Ariel, a sweet little flower and lots of cousins!