Getting ready for Christmas

Addison helping Ryan put up the Christmas lights :) So last I was dead set on we must only have clear lights, no colored lights. And I wanted the clear lights that are perfectly straight. Well I didn't realize you had to buy the giant bulbs to get the look I wanted. Then the colored lights of the neighbors grew on me. And Addison is obsessed with "rainbow colors" right now, so then I had to convince Ryan to buy new lights again after we just bought lights last year - ha! So we bought new colored lights and Addison helped hang them. They looked great! Us and our neighbors had the same lights, Addison thought that was pretty cool. 

FINALLY the time has come...... to set up the Christmas tree! Addison has been waiting since August or September. She helped Ryan move the bench so we could set the tree up. 

So much happening! It was the middle of November and big guy was trying baby food! Sweet potatoes were his first food. I can't remember why, but he was crying right before we put him in the chair. 

So you can see a gleam of a tear in the left eye but a smile on his face! He did not hate the sweet potatoes. 

Addison was so excited to help decorate the tree. She took her job very seriously. 

She was so excited to get out her snow globe. Shannon made this for her at daycare. I couldn't believe she remembered it. It has a picture of her in it. She was so excited to show Mason and probably showed him 200 times during the time it was out. Ha! I love the small things she gets excited for. 

 And the nativity scene - she played with this a ton too. I was trying to teach her who everyone was. She just loves that the angel plays Away in the Manger. ha! 

Had to go home.....

We spent a full week in Florida, but then we had to go home :( We were all pretty sad. I wish we would have planned to work from Florida and just stayed there! Addison does great on the flights, she usually watches a movie. She gets excited to fly. I've been looking for flights to go back! 

Mr. Mason did great as well! He was great on both flights. He slept most of the way home and we had to wake him up for a bottle. It was a great flight! 

We got this outfit from Nolan, we loved it :) The quote is from the movie Elf and it's one of our favorite movies at Christmas time. 

 

This is a screenshot from Addison's preschool app, she was making pumpkin pie. Which consisted of crushed graham crackers, vanilla pudding & pumpkin pie filling, then topped with cool whip. Addison's favorite part was the cool whip - ha! She was SO excited about this pumpkin pie and then got really excited around Thanksgiving thinking that's what she would get for pumpkin pie :) She did try Ryan's mom's pumpkin pie, she wasn't too excited about it but did say she liked it. 

Mini golfing

Addison went mini golfing for the first time when we went to Florida in July, but I stayed back with Mason. This time I went with. My mom and dad watched Mason and the three of us went. Look at those palm trees.... I want to go back! 

She loves mini golfing! She's better at it than I expected. 

Out of the whole big bin of colorful golf balls...... this kid choses black. Ha! She choses black for everything. She colors pictures at home, she chooses black. 63 other colors in the box, but she picks black. She has a little Tracey in her! People at Tracey's work used to call her Johnny Cash because she wears so much black. 

 

She is 4 years old and having her first juice box :) She says she likes it..... but she doesn't drink them. They serve juice at the little school but she always tells them she doesn't like juice. I'm perfectly fine with that :) She has enough sugar in her diet.... like with that donut on her plate. Ha! 

Hurricane Eta

Sometimes he gets all 10 toes in there. It's been interesting since he's gotten teeth, it has not slowed down his toe snacking. Those teeth make his little toes red then! 

Happy little boy! 

Addison wanted to feed him. She fed him the whole bottle. Normally she does a little and tells us he's squirmy and says we need to take him. 

Little dude liked the pool better this time! We were a little nervous to let go of him in the tube. 

Ryan was holding him from underneath :) Addison was so happy to have Mason in the pool with her. We are getting a snow storm right now and my parents are in Florida..... I wish we were there!! 

Hanging out by the little pool. I don't think I got a picture but we got caught in a big thunderstorm at this pool one day. Ryan was in the pool with Addison and could see the dark clouds looming behind us. Me and Mason didn't see them. The direction we were facing, was a pretty blue. Then my mom and Kelly came to the pool. They were there maybe 5 minutes and Ryan says "we should probably go back" as we turned around and saw some real dark rolling clouds. We hurried up and got our stuff together and Mason and I took off. It's technically 2 blocks home..... but they are real long blocks! It started pouring. Just down pouring. I thankfully had a towel to cover Mason a little. The rain was pelting! I was trying to go as fast as I could, but I didn't want to try to run because I was in flip flops. And then the others were behind me and Addison was wanting to ride in the umbrella stroller. We all made it back to the house safely, but it was quite the adventure! 

This is a good reason why I take silly photos sometime. This photo was to remind me that we were in a hurricane :) I had even forgotten about the rain shower from above until I saw this photo. Hurricane Eta hit Fort Myers while we were there. It was so weird, not at all what we expecting. Part of every day was still sunny and we got in the pool. The time it rained the hardest was of course when we were coming back from the pool. It wasn't really windy, just raining. We saw the news coverage from Fort Myers beach, I think maybe 15-20 miles from where we were, it was completely different. Hurricane Eta was going back and forth between a hurricane and a tropical storm. We watched a lot of hurricane coverage on the news. It really didn't effect us too much, we seemed to keep ourselves entertained :) 
 

Rolling over

This picture is pretty good - I didn't realize what they looked like until I looked at it later. Addison's eyes are closed and Mason's finger is up his nose. Ha! 

Due to COVID, we didn't get to go get ice cream cones like we normally would. We had to settle for picking out ice cream bars at the grocery store. Although, they were pretty delicious. They were Reese's ice cream bars. 

Grandma Rita hanging out with her youngest grandchild. He was telling her big stories. 

He finally rolled from his back to his belly!! He was 6 months old when this happened. We were so happy, we had been waiting for this moment - ha! He would get soooo close, but then flip back. And now, he's 8 month olds and doesn't do it much because he only wants to sit up :) 

Mason and Aunt Kelly! We were in Florida a full week, Kelly was just there part of a week. We had fun hanging out. We were jealous, Kelly went home for a couple weeks, then went back to Florida for 2 weeks! Kelly & Parker, and Landon's family, spent a couple weeks in Florida since the kids' schools were 100% virtual. 

 

Florida part I

We made it to Florida! The four us flew with Kelly and Grandma Rita. Addison was so excited, as normal. This girl loves to leave home, ha! In the picture above, she was laying on Mason and pretending he was a pillow. My dad does this with the grandkids all the time, I thought this was pretty funny. 

So we were hanging out on the lanai, and I was walking around the pool. I looked out the screen and saw this turtle. I had to think about it "Did they have a turtle decoration?" Then as I was looking at it, it moved. I ran and got Addy. I was pretty excited, I hadn't seen a turtle that big in the "wild". We had to FaceTime Grandpa Ron to show him his turtle :) 

She was so funny, she insisted on "taking care of Mason". She did a decent job of pushing the stroller, but we did have to stay pretty close to her. We didn't go many places while in Florida, but we did go to the outlet mall just to get out and walk around. 

First time in a big kid stroller. It was kind of awkward for him but it worked good enough. He also had a goofy sunhat in the hand-me down tub that we made him wear :) 

Mason in a 'big kid' swimming suit. This was a bigger size than he needed but it worked and was mighty cute! 

Second time in a pool! He seemed to have more of a reaction this time. 

 The swim wore him out! He had a nice little nap with me next to the pool :) Perfect way to nap in my opinion! 

The last time at the pumpkin patch

Thursday November 5 was an interesting day. I was working from home. Shannon had closed that day because her Mason was sick. So I had Mason at home with me. Around noon, the internet quit working. Ryan was downtown and he lost internet too. So Mason and I ran (literally) to the library to pick up a hot spot. So Ryan came home, I got a hot spot, and by 1pm, we were both up and working again. Then Mason went down for a nap. Then the phone rings. It's the elementary school. Ugh. Addison had a headache and fever. It was at the preschool, so they required a COVID test before she could come back. So I went and picked her up. So on a day I was supposed to be home alone working..... the whole family was home. Ha! 

So I got Addison and appointment at the doctor for Friday afternoon to get a COVID test. I had an event that day, so I went to the office. Ryan dropped Mason off at daycare, then by 9am found out big Mason had COVID so Ryan had to go get little buddy. SO, then he had to take both Mason and Addison to the doctor. Addison had to get a strep test first, and that was negative. So then she had to get a COVID test. UGH. It was the nose swab and Ryan said he had to hold her and it was awful. POOR KID. She was feeling awful already, then had to do strep and COVID tests. And I felt bad for Ryan, I wasn't there to help. Oh yea, then Mason had a dirty diaper as they were leaving. Ryan had a fun trip. ha! 

So the night of November 7, ISU was playing Baylor at home. Well, Ryan had to go to the game alone. I stayed home with the kids, completely stressed, waiting for results of the test. You see, we had flights to go to Florida on Sunday. So we were stressing out about if we should go. She felt good on Saturday, back to normal. So we went back and forth all day, not knowing what to do. Well, about 6pm, I got the email that she was negative. WOOHOO!!! This picture above is her reaction when I told her we could go to Florida - she was so excited. As were we!!  

We made a quick trip to the pumpkin path for the last time this season. She really wanted to ride the train. It had been closed a few times and it's one of her favorite activities. Guess what? It was closed this day too. Ha! But we bought an apple cider donut instead. That's the same, right? And then we got to smash some pumpkins. 

Love this picture! 

Pumpkin smashing was a little harder than we expected. She wasn't quite strong enough to break it.

It was a pretty nice day - she got warm running around on the jumping pillow. 

Hard to see, but she went down the slide by herself! She raced Ryan a few times, then I raced her a few times. She had a good time. We had a great year at the pumpkin patch and were soooo happy to have this activity with so many other things closed/cancelled with COVID. 
 

6 Months old on Nov. 1

In November, the little dude was 6 months! He still wasn't sitting up on his own, but he did pretty good in the box. He was rolling from his belly to his back. No teeth at this time. If you smile or laugh at him, he smiles back. We love it! He also reaches his arms out in the car seat for you to pick him up, Ryan especially loves that. 

But he had lots of smiles! 

Lots of smiles especially when I wear him. He laughs hysterically when he sees himself on my phone. So when we FaceTime people, he's always laughing when they answer. 

He actually kind of looks long and lean in the photo. Looks can be deceiving. ha! 

He loves to chew on those toes! Just like his sister. If his socks are off, the toes go to the mouth. Addy told him he has stinky toes so he better not chew on them.