All Bundled Up

Well today is New Year's Eve and I'm still posting about October (insert face slap). Ugh! I really thought I could be caught up by Christmas, but that doesn't work when you don't post for weeks at a time....... 

We went to the Pumpkin Patch on a chilly day and had Mason all bundled up. He couldn't even move :) Grandma Rita probably would have yelled at me for having you out.  

Brayden had a little North Face, it was so cute! Not practical for a 6 month old, but so cute. 

Waiting in line for the hayrack. Addison loves the hayrack ride. 

They have this little train where the cars are little wagons. Addison asked how old a kid has to be before they can ride the train alone. We told her she could ride alone, she's in the 3rd car. 

She was so proud and excited :) I wasn't worried, we could see the train the whole time and the guy just drove circles in the area. Ha! 

 Kelly gave us this Halloween craft kit. It provided hours of entertainment! The pieces were sticky and there were a ton of pumpkins to put them on. 

Back to the farm

October 10 was a beautiful day! We were able to attend another football game, against Texas Tech. This game was obviously warmer, but still wasn't too bad wearing a mask. We won 31-15. 

Addison stayed back at the Ames house and helped Grandma Rita babysit Mason. 

I just looked at last week's weekly photo (31 weeks) and he's wearing the same outfit. Ha! 

Addy doing tummy time with him to show him "it's not so bad". She definitely helped, but he still wouldn't stay there too long. 

Addison's school was closed on Columbus day, so her and I headed to the farm. This girl LOVES the farm and I LOVE that she loves it. :) Great part about COVID is how much time we got to spend at the farm this summer. We rode the four wheeler, jumped on the trampoline and she went and rode in the combine. I didn't get any pictures in the combine, I took her over to Gary's and she rode in the tractor out to the combine. She thought it was pretty cool. She was quite worried about what snack she was going to put in Grandpa Ron's lunchbox for the combine ride. Ha! She must be my kid, always thinking about food. She did get a little nap in on the ride. 
 

And then we did the farm kid thing and climbed a tree. As you can see, we needed to start with small goals. It took some convincing for her to do this. Ha! Mason will probably be the adventurous on that we can't control. That's how Brayden and Nolan are.... Brayden is the cautious rule-follower and Nolan is WILD. 

Little more adventurous here....I lifted her up there. She was pretty proud of this. There were a couple trees I used to climb as a kid but they were probably too big for her. 

Can't leave out this happy boy! He doesn't jump in this thing the way Nolan did. Nolan was crazy in this thing! Jumped himself right to sleep one day. 

Five Months!

I love this picture! This is one of my favorite outfits Mason had at the time. I can't wait to take more baseball pictures of this little dude as he grows up. It was a nice October day but the grass was still a little chilly. I didn't get any great smiling photos because of the cold grass. 

At 5 months, Mason is still sleeping through the night in his "magic merlin sleepsuit" He is rolling from his belly to back. He loves watching Addison. He laughs hysterically when his shirt is off and you touch his chest. His laugh is the best sound in the world. And we get to hear it often!  

This girl loves the jumping pillow at the orchard. 

Tried to get a nice fall photo of the kids. This was the best I got. Mason was knocking Addison over. 

She enjoys almost all activities at the orchard. I'm so glad we bought passes, it's nice to spend a couple hours there for entertainment. 

I don't know why, but she likes to take pictures backwards. She thinks it's so funny. I didn't include the photo, but she made Ryan turn around too. Crazy kid. 

Again, tried to get a good photo of the kids but Mason is just too big for her to hold. And he's squirmy. 

 So we just took a selfie instead. 

Since I am writing these for photos two months behind, I don't do a very good job of capturing the "in the moment" things Addison says. I need to try to do better at that. This morning she says to me "Mom, when is the coronavirus going to be gone? It's been here a long time" Yup, it sure has. And it probably will be here a while longer. I told her hopefully by her birthday things will be a little better. Although our family has been getting out and about more this fall, we just try to be safe. I loved being able to take her to the orchard to have fun since all the city sports have been canceled. She wants to do things but there is nothing to do! I should have signed up her up at the dance studio but the cost and time commitment was more than I was ready for. I really wanted to take her to Disney on Ice this year, that was a birthday tradition for me when I was younger. But I didn't feel comfortable going to an event like that inside. 

She also told us one night about a month ago about her day at the little school. The elementary school requires the kids to wear masks but the little school (daycare) does not. Apparently one day, she asked her teacher at daycare if she had any extra masks because she didn't have hers that day and would like to wear one. Ha! The teacher told her no. Addison told us that her big school has extra masks and she was sad her little school didn't. Haha! Crazy kid. I can only imagine what her teacher thought. Now the daycare requires masks too, I'm sure Addison was the only one happy about it. 

The new normal (for now)

We got to go to our first home football game of the season on Oct. 3. But there wasn't supposed to be any tailgating. But what's football without a couple beers? 

There were about 14,000 (25%) fans there and we were supposed to be socially distant. That didn't happen. Fans were not shoulder to shoulder, but also weren't socially distant. "Socially Distant" has been an every day phrase for us these days..... I wonder if when Addison & Mason are old enough to read this if they will know what it means. Ha! Ryan asked me the other day if there will be a day that we don't wear masks. 

We could still run out at halftime for a quick beer. Ironically, this only happens when Landon is here. ha! 

We were all so excited to be able to attend a game this year. Let alone beating Oklahoma! It was a fun game. 

 Yup, had to take the masks off for a picture :) It was so weird to not have a full stadium. They piped in crowd noise to make it a little louder there. Students were sprinkled among regular fans. The band was spread out. Sukup End Zone Club was basically empty. Only bottled pop and water were sold, no food.

Each game, we waited until the week of to see if we could attend the game in person. 

 Crazy times! 

Trying Rice Cereal

Mason was about 4.5 months when we first tried rice cereal. 

It went pretty good! He played with it and pushed it out as babies normally do, but it was a success. 

I wanted the photo op of Addison feeding him for the first time, she did not want to do it. At all. We had to make her. Haha! Her mouth is wide open as she is making an "ahhhh" noise in an upset tone. 

But she would pose for a photo :) After a few times with cereal, he started to stick his tongue out and tried to "lap up" the cereal like a cat. I just made the cereal thick and let him lick if off the spoon. The old wives tale is that he would sleep better after we started cereal. There was zero difference in his sleeping. Or Addison's when we did it with her. Ha! 

Ryan and Addison were out in the garage. Mason and I went out and found Addison buckled in the driver's seat. Apparently she did it all by herself. I've been a stickler for never letting her play in the cars (for fear she would lock herself in) or ride in the car not in her car seat (for fear she would taste freedom and then fight us)...... But apparently she still knew how to buckle herself in the seat. My dad had recently given Makena a driving lesson so Addison thought she was ready too! 

Mason at 22 weeks. I'm too lazy to figure out how to turn the photo....I apparently uploaded it going the wrong way. Oh well. Ha! 

Astronaut Mom

We got together with Lisa and Lauren's families in late September, Violet was so excited. She couldn't wait for him to walk in the door and was just beaming from ear to ear. It was so cute! Then she would ask if she could touch him and would rub his leg. She loves to hold him and gets so excited. She certainly has a motherly instinct! 

All the kiddos! I'm glad we all live close enough to get together, it's so fun! 

 

Trying on Conner's turtle costume. Mason hates being on his tummy so this didn't go well, despite the smile. The costume was a little small, Conner was about 2 months younger when he wore it. Mason's head apparently is quite large as the hat wouldn't buckle. 

We were looking for a stocking hat for little dude, found this skull cap :) Ha! The cap came with a bank robber Halloween outfit that my mom ordered, it was pretty cute. 

Wearing our Halloween costume around the house again. This costume is going to get it's money's worth! She was an astronaut doctor one day. She was also a mom with her children on different moons so she had to fly to different moons to feed them a snack. We read astronaut/space books at night and she will say "mom, I wish we could go to the moon some day". Me too kiddo, that would be pretty cool :) 

And this girl has a love for pockets. This costume has about 4 pockets, she was so excited. She liked to fill them with candy from Casper. Ha! She really thought this was the best costume ever. 

Family Game Night

Family game night - we taught Addison how to play UNO and Left Right Center. We had a good time! Mason hung out in the bumbo with some toys for part of the time and on my lap the rest. I'm excited for more game nights :) 

Addison usually chooses to play Hi-ho Cherry-O, Candy Land, and Sequence. Oh and Cootie. I played a lot of Hi-Ho Cherry-O and Cootie with my dad. 

Seriously, that smile :) 

We were at the pumpkin patch (again) and Addison asked how old she has to be to ride the train by herself. She was talking about the big train.... yea I'm not comfortable with that! But we told her she could ride the little tractor/train by herself. This is about 5 wagons pulled behind a tractor that goes around the yard and we can see her the whole time :) She was pretty proud of herself that she did it all by herself. 

Yes another picture of the back of his head..... It sounds weird but I'm glad I did this with Addison too. It's crazy how much their hair changes! Addison's hair was soo dark and she had more than Mason. Her's turned light and then fuzzy around 7 months. You couldn't help but to touch her hair! 

These are pictures of Addy with her fuzzy hair :) Mason's hair is NOTHING like hers! 

This isn't a very flattering picture of Mason, he looks like a chunky monkey! Addison refers to herself as "Big Sister" and insists that if I'm talking to Mason, I have to refer to her as "Big Sister" too. Last night we had the 'argument' about who is our best bud. Addison insists that her and Mason are best buds therefore Ryan and I can't be best buds with Mason. She also refers to Mason as "our baby" or "my baby". She got pretty worked up if Ryan or I tried to claim Mason as our best bud - ha! 

 And this is not a flattering picture of myself..... but that's life. ha! Addison loves to take photos and this was actually a pretty good one of Mason. I have been working from home the majority of the time, which is wonderful. I don't have to get dressed up and commute. I love it! And I can work out during the day, which is amazing. Probably wouldn't happen if I was at the office. Gotta lose that baby weight you know.... almost there! So it's t-shirts and leggings every day and maybe a nice top if I have a meeting :) I love working at home.