Happy Thanksgiving

Mason got up one morning and apparently wasn't ready to get up. He wasn't feeling well and fell asleep on the living room and then the kitchen floor. Poor kiddo! It was the week of Thanksgiving so our doctor was packed and I had to take him into Express Care. He had been exposed to COVID at daycare and now wasn't feeling well. UGH. I was selfishly disappointed, I had an appointment to do my hair and was going to go shopping in DSM. It's my one day a year :) ha! He ended up feeling better later in the day and the COVID test came back negative. All was good :) 

My birthday was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so we stopped at Hickory Park for lunch on our way to Minnesota. 

 Addison and Parker playing candy land. 

Building a ginger bread house takes a lot of hands! 

Finished product! It was hard work and Makena was dying to eat it. She thought the reason you built the house was just to eat it :) She ate some of it, but decided it wasn't any good. 

Addison said she was very thankful for her family this year. Me too kid, me too! 

Dear Santa,

Addison got to talk to Santa, she did really good and was so excited. It was nice Santa had time to chat! 

Our annual tradition is to visit Santa at Bass Pro prior to Thanksgiving. We avoid the rush, have time to chat with Santa, and be sure that we get our request in early - hah! Not to mention.....checking a to-do off my list :) 

Addison wrote her letter to Santa for her and Mason and dropped it in the mail. This year she asked for Kinetic Sand, a doll, and a Unicorn. Not too hard - ha! 

 Mason asked for a tractor and a ball. 

 Love the pic! Didn't get a smile out of Mason, but he sat there and we thought that was a win :) This is a picture of a picture, that's why there is a glare. Oh well! 

Christmas blow-up decorations

My little Turkey with his Thanksgiving hat :) 

It never ceases to amaze me how daycare gets these kiddos to sit and eat! This was their Thanksgiving feast :) 

Grandma Rita took Addison to Lowe's and picked out some inflatable yard things, Addison was so excited! We put them up during Mason's nap one day, she was so excited to see them. 

He thought they were pretty cool. Addison says the little snowman is Mason and she is the big snowman. The kids loved watching the blow-ups outside Addison's window. 

They loved that the blow-ups lit up :) 

Took the kids to Theisen's Christmas Shopping and Addison loved that they had a popcorn machine. Not many stores do that anymore! Mason LOVES the little trucks & tractors. There was a massive fit when I told him we had to go. Ryan was at the check-out with Addison and heard Mason across the store. 

His hair is getting long! He has the cutest curls after his bath :) 

Ryan was walking around Hilton with the kids during a basketball game and got this super cute picture of Cy & Addison! She was so happy, she asked to see this picture frequently for a couple weeks :) 

 

My buddy Cy

Mason was waving to Cy, I was so proud of him! Addison would not have done that at that age. Cy came up the stairs and tried to give Mason a high five, then he hid. 

My happy little guy! 

I didn't get a picture of the clone cone fast enough - ha! She loves them. Now she eats all the cone, I used to at least get the bottom of the cone :) 

Addison happily smiled for my photo........ 

Mason didn't. Ha! He wouldn't look at me for nothing. You can see he is holding his little Cy squishie in his hand. He loves that thing. You will see in later posts that I try a few more times to get this photo. 

 And a random football picture mixed in with my basketball photos :) 

Addison loves The Grinch so I took her to Hobby Lobby to pick out a new Grinch decoration. We loved this giant Max :) She wanted the even larger Grinch, but we said not this year :) She is SO into decorating the house. I'm posting this in March, she wanted to decorate for St. Paddy's day last week. I have NO St. Paddy's day decor!! Now I'm looking for some on sale for next year - ha! 

Haha, this little guy LOVES to get into the spice cupboard. He gets out all the silicone baking cups and then pretends to pour spices in them. In the last few months though, he has learned how to open some of the containers...... I had a $4 bottle of cinnamon he dumped out - ha! 

Hop on Pop

My little turkeys! Addison loved that they both had turkeys, even if they weren't matching. 

Addison walked Mason around Home Depot to show him the holiday decor..... he was a little scared of some of the big blow-ups and she loved "comforting" him and telling him "It's okay buddy, they aren't real" Ha! 

Man this little guy loved the tractor section at stores!! He was in heaven. Addison picked out a tractor and wagon to give him for Christmas. :) 

 Ugh - this little stinker let Ryan sit down and cuddle with him, he NEVER lets me do that! Ever! I was so jealous. Then I found out he lets the daycare lady in his room do that too. Little stinker! 

Addison was reading Hop on Pop! First book she's read. I was so proud of her. And it was one of my favorites when I was little, I can remember making my dad read it over and over again. She was pretty excited that she could read a lot of it! Not all of it, but a lot! 

When she was younger there were two parts of this book that she would laugh at when we read it - "fall off the wall" and "no pat no, don't sit on that!" She would just look up at us and laugh :) 

Her art project displayed in the library during conferences.... her comment made us laugh "I like my artwork because I like the flowers falling down" - we laughed because we thought that meant the flowers dying - haha! 

Dance class! Addison is in the middle, black leotard next to the girl in the teal skirt. It was a Halloween dress-up night that we didn't get the memo - ha! 

First Bball game

This little guy was being super silly while helping Grandma Rita decorate her Christmas tree. 

This kid LOVES balls. He saw this ball at TJ's and took off running to the door. Ha! 

This shows how far behind I am..... this was the first game we went to and now the NCAA tournament starts this week! Yikes, I'm far behind. 

Mason enjoyed clapping to the fight song. He also loved seeing Cy :) 

With covid last year, we only had tickets to 3 games. And we only had 2 tickets, so we did not take the kids. So it had been almost two years since Addison had been and Mason had never been! 
 

Fall Fun

It was hat day and she chose to wear her Cubs hat. She wanted to wear her matching 1/4 zip. Girl loves her 1/4 zips! I thought she looked like a pretty cute Cubs fan! 

It was nice day on a Sunday after a football game so I told Addison I would take her the park. On our walk back to the car, I told her she could run through the leaves. She thought that was a good idea :) 

She's wearing jeans in these photos, which is a rare occurrence. She doesn't wear jeans often because she insists on wearing a belt with them and I don't trust she can undo the belt and jeans IF she has to go potty at school. I say "if" because she rarely has to go at school - ha! 

Addison loves to help out, with anything we are doing. She is helping Ryan build a bookcase here. 

Ryan caught a football players glove for Addison. Addison can't wait for her hand to grow into it. The glove belonged to Zack Pedersen. 

 Mason's daycare did "school pictures" We had just had family pictures taken so we didn't order any, but we keep the little postcard of proofs. He actually had some good smiles, we were shocked. Ha!