A fun November day!

Last week, mom had a really nice outing with Isabelle and Mark on a warm November day.

First, getting ready to leave for Isabelle's swim lessons. She is getting quite good and we are so proud of her!

 

 Then, quickly changed and off to get a haircut/trim by a professional who could actually cut her hair straight for once (my cuts just weren't doing it).

 

Then a coffee for mom and steamed milk for Isabelle. Sorry Mark, no special Starbuck's drink for you. Just the tasty mom milk you enjoy.

 

A little play time around Cherry Creek.

 Mark getting very, very sleepy watching Belle all morning.

 After a short nap for Mark, back home for playtime with mom while Isabelle sleeps.

 How Mark usually plays...with something in or hanging out of his mouth.

 Again, something in or hanging out of his mouth....

 

What a great day!!!

F is for Fall and Fun!!

We had some fun this weekend piling up our leaves and watching Isabelle jump into them. The not so fun part was picking them all up. Thanks, Jamie! Luckily he was able to suck it up and mulch it with our leaf blower and dump it into our composter. Still, not much fun. Mark was fast asleep at this moment, so unfortunately, he didn't get to play in the leaves. I suspect he would have just tried to stuff as many leaves as he could into his mouth anyway.

We also had a snow storm a week or so ago which Belle was really excited for and Mark enjoyed watching from the window. He really had no interest in going out in it yet. His snowsuit it still a little big for him. He preferred to stay warm and play in the laundry basket.

 "Can you see me? I'm ready to ride!"

One More Halloween Post

I just had to add a couple more pictures from Halloween. We went to "trunk or treat" at the school by our house and then stopped by some of our neighbors houses afterward. It was about the cutest thing ever to see little Belle go up to the door and knock and say, "trick or treat," then say, "thank you!" and run back to us. She just loved it and had so much fun! We get such joy watching our kids get so excited about things.

When we got back home she had just about as much fun handing candy out to the kids who came to our house and watching, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Mark was fast asleep before we even got home from trick or treating. We had a great night. We now get to look forward to Thanksgiving and all the activities we can do leading up to it!!

Happy Halloween!

We are having a great Halloween weekend. Jamie had his Fall break which has made it even more fun for all of us because we get to hang out together for four straight days!!

About a month ago, Isabelle decided she wanted to be a rabbit for Halloween and never changed her mind, so I did my best to make her a handmade rabbit costume. Mark was a chicken and had no clue what was going on, but looked extra cute!

 Boo at the Zoo with some friends.

 A little rabbit snack.

 Mark loved looking around at everything going on.

 Trick or treat....

 Belle's favorite ride! Mark is in the back too (his first carousel ride). He was squealing and smiling the entire ride.

Dad, Belle, and Mark started carving our pumpkins last night while mom went out on the town with some friends. They did an excellent job! We finished the other three today in the nice weather.

 The final product.

Tomorrow we will be taking the kids trick or treating again. Just what Belle needs...more candy. But she is loving all the festivities and mom and dad love sneaking the candy out of their bags (shhhh).

Game on for Mark....

Watch Out! Here comes trouble. Someone was so eager to help me put up our Halloween lights that they started crawling for the first time....

Just Having Fun

Last week we went to our friend's house where Belle got to hang out with George and make Halloween cookies! I also enjoyed hanging out with Anne and Mark had fun with his new buddy, Gus.

Here are the snacks Isabelle and I made to take over. We were having a good time making these! Lately we've been getting really creative with our meals. (Those are witch's fingers on the bottom if you can't tell)

Getting messy while kneading the dough to make it orange.

 Orange hands!! Yeah!

 Rolling the dough.

 Dipping the cookies into chocolate after they baked. They both snuck a few licks of chocolate in this process. Who can resist?

 And finally, getting to eat them! Yum! Thanks for having us over, O'Reilly's!

Having some fun at home while Mark naps in the morning. Here we have princess Isabelle with all her accessories. She even has her high heeled princess shoes on.

Mark eating his book. Nothing new.

Mark checking out all the leaves we currently have falling in the grass. This didn't last long. About 5 seconds after this picture was taken, the leaves started going into his mouth. Again, everything goes into his mouth.

Belle helping us get the garden prepped for next season. She loves wearing her pink garden gloves to help.

Seven Months!

He makes us smile, he makes us laugh, he even puts us through pure exhaustion at times, but we can't stop cuddling and kissing his sweet face. We love our little Mark who turned 7 months today!

 He is changing so quickly! There are quite a few things we love about Mark, but a few of our favorites are:

• When he tries to blow raspberries with his lips and tongue, but nothing really happens
• When he takes his little hand and rubs your neck, arm, chest, or face while nursing
• When you pick him up and he wraps his arms around your entire neck like he's giving an extra big hug and smooshes his slobbery face into your neck like he's kissing you (then grabs your hair)
• When he reaches out for us to be held
• How we have to stick a binky in his mouth to keep him from chewing on everything in sight. This kid will grab anything (that is not his teething toys) and put it immediately into his mouth. We're talking cords, paper, hair, rocks....basically all the safe stuff :-)

 

Mark is the biggest cuddler EVER!  We do look forward to the day when he sleeps through the night, but in the meantime we are soaking up his cuddliness. I have just figured out that at 3:00 in the morning when he wakes up and won't go back to sleep, I just have to snuggle his body right up next mine and he will fall back to sleep within seconds. I know this is probably not going to help things when we move him to the crib soon, but at least we are all getting a little more rest than usual. Last night when I came home from work I saw Mark all cuddled up with Jamie. This boy really knows how to get the love.

We imagine he may be crawling in the next month. He is getting really good at lifting up onto his hands and knees and wobbling. You can tell he is working hard at figuring out how to move once he's in the crawl position.

 

He still gets very upset if you leave his sight, even for 5 seconds, but we love the huge smile he gives us the second we pop back into sight. Happy 7 months little guy!

And I just had to add one more picture of our little diva who is soon approaching 3. That can't be possible, can it?