Happy Birthday to Me

I have ALWAYS loved Halloween. Mostly because it's AWESOME but also because it's my birthday. This year I was so caught up in Molly's first holiday festivities etc. that I'd kinda forgotten to plan for the party we have every year. So for the first time ever (or at least that I can rememeber) I didn't dress up in a costume to celebrate. We had a few friends over to hang out by the fire pit & eat pizza and beer. We didn't hang the lights, drag out the decorations, or make any of the cute food ideas that I'd pinned on Pinterest. Instead I put on a pair of new jeans & a pair of heels I hadn't worn in I dont know how long and spent time catching up with friends. It was a wonderful feeling to know that Molly was safe with my mom & dad and I could be me, not me in mommy mode.



Sunday for lunch we went over to my parents to celebrate with my family. Mom made a great meal of Chicken parm with noodles & my favorite Fun-fetti cake for dessert. It was a great day with family. After lunch the kids all carved pumpkins. Rustin carved Molly's.

Off to the Nursery

Last Sunday Molly went to the nursery at church for the first time. She was perfectly happy to go to Miss Ana, Mommy was not so eager to hand her off. It was the first time I'd ever had to leave her with a non-family member and I definately shed a few tears on the way to service. The sermon was good but I kept waiting for someone to come get me and tell me she was screaming. It never happened. At the end of service we went to pick her up and she was sleeping in the rocking chair with Miss Ana.

Month 3

Molly,
What everone says is true, time is flying by! We've survived 3 whole months together and they've been AMAZING!

This month you are still wearing size 1 diapers. Your Papa is afraid you're going to outgrow them soon but I doubt it.



You still have your bath every night around 8:30 and you LOVE it! You spend the first 5 minutes splashing around and kicking at your rubber ducky. You don't mind at all when your head sinks into the water. I think you're going to be a little swimmer. Most of your clothes are still 0-3 some NB outfits still fit too.
After we get you all dried off and ready for bed daddy reads you a story.



You still like your trusty ol swing but you've started to play on your playmat a whole lot more this month. Daddy also put together your excersaucer and at first you didn't like it, but you've sat in it a couple of times and didn't seem to mind it.



You still eat every 2-3 hours for 30-45 min. You're still sleeping through the night but the last few days you've been getting up much earlier than usual.



This month you met Meredith & Sarah on our trip to Houston with Mimi. You also stayed in the nursery at church for the first time this past Sunday. Miss Ana said you did great!



I'd like to say that I can't wait for the next month but it will be our last month home together everyday just the two of us and I CAN wait to pass you off to someone else each morning. I love you so much peepers!

Love,
Mommy

Pumpkin Goodies with my Punkin

My husband is the most AMAZING pumpkin picker EVER! Not only is it BEAUTIFUL, but I didn't even need this little gadget that I bought because it was the CLEANEST pumpkin I've ever seen. Really it only took me 10 min. to gut this pumpkin and I only used a kitchen knife and a spoon.



So this morning Molly and I got up and made pumpkin seeds. I've never made these on my own and it's been years since I've even had one since the only person who ate them growing up was my older brother. Molly and I made 2 different kinds carmelized (on the right) and traditional salted. They look pretty and the carmelizzed ones are my favorite of the two but I'm still not a huge fan of pumpkin seeds.



Then we attempted to make pumpkin empanadas since Rustin loves them so much. Needless to say they weren't pretty at all. Nor did they taste good. I followed the recipe to the letter but they just didn't come out right.



Then I had left over empanada filling so I mixed in a chocolate chip cookie mix and baked them. They may not be a traditional tasting cookie but they're pretty yummy. Plus I cut out the egg and stick of butter so better for you, so that's a plus. They'll be bagged up later as "Boo" gifts for our neighbors.



And I'll leave you with a picture of our Halloween card, which were supposed to go in the mail yesterday but I forgot to buy stamps.

Pumpkins and Bluebonnets

Yesterday's link in the chain said "Visit the Pumpkin Patch". So we loaded Molly and all her things into the car, met up with our friends, Matt and Christy and off to Marble Falls we went. First thing Rustin did was hop in line for pumpkin ice cream which was AMAZING! Then we plopped Molly into every pile of pumpkins we could find.







Most of the time she was so well behaved and just loving being outside but occasionally when the sun was in her eyes she looked like this





Of course we had to get a few family shots for our Halloween card. (We saw a family there in full on church clothes (shirt & tie/dresses) for their pictures)





After all the pumpkins we had to hit up Bluebonnet Cafe because what's a trip to Marble Falls without lunch & apple pie at Bluebonnet Cafe.

The 12 Days of Halloween

I said in a previous post. that the thing I'm most looking forward to about being a parent is family traditions. Continuing the ones that our family's have passed on to us and creating our own family traditions. I was looking around on Pinterest for an advent calendar. I didn't want to use the store bought punch out candy kind. I wanted one that focused on things that we can do together as a family. I also wanted one that was easy to store throughout the year so that I don't have to remake it each year. I found this idea that used a fabric paper chain.




Then I decided that I didn't want to wait until Christmas. So I decided to create one for each of the different holidays. While I didn't want to do the entire month leading up to Halloween, Thanksgiving etc. I still wanted to do something to celebrate each holiday and so the 12 days of Halloween was born.

Layer fabric, heat bond, & felt.

Cut into strips. The tutorial called for 7x1 inch strips but I'd say 9x1 inch would look better.

Attach velcro to each end and form a ring.


Our first activity was footprint art so I thought it'd be really cute to use it to "hold" our chain.

Inside each ring there's a strip of paper with a family activity. Here's the list of things that we'll be doing starting today with footprint art.


12. Visit the Pumpkin Patch
11. eat Halloween Pizza
10. Mail Halloween Cards to friends and family
9. make halloween hand/foot print art
8. Make Halloween Rice Krispy treats
7. wear halloween PJs
6. "BOO" the neighbors
5. carve pumpkins
4. ghost pancakes for breakfast
3. Eat pumpkin icecream sandwiches
2. Photo shoot in costume
1. wear orange

This is the list for this year. In the future we'll add things like choose your costume (from McCalls/Simplicity pattern book), bob for apples, watch a scary movie, read ghost stories by flashlight. I like that some will be classics that'll never change and some will need to change as she grows. I'm workin' on the list for Thanksgiving if you have any great ideas.

Here's the finished Thanksgiving and Christmas chains too!

Our own little TV star?!?

Well not really but I love this commerical. I Always have. You know the one with the baby that gets in trouble for riding the dog as a horse. It makes me laugh out loud, for real (not to be confused with LOL).


Anyway here's our own version

Celebrate Good Times!

This weekend was Molly's first girls weekend. My mom and I packed up the car first thing Saturday morning to head to Houston for Meredith's Bridal shower. It was a sweet time with friends and I feel so blessed to have these girls in my life. We ate, laughed, and watched Meredith open gifts. It definitely made for a good time.


After the shower my mom and I checked into the hotel and did some much needed shopping. But not before a quick photo shoot with Molly-Molls!


I left Molly with her Mimi and met up with the girls for dinner and drinks. We had a great time. Our waiter was a good sport and played along with us. After dinner we went back to the hotel so Meredith could open a few "something specials" for the honeymoon.

Traditions

One of the things I'm most looking forward to about being a parent is creating family traditions. I got the idea from Pinterest to do a reading countdown to Halloween. I thought the bucket was cute and I had a similar on in yellow so I tried to find one in white. NO LUCK! So I found a plain white basket and instead of writing BOO I threaded Halloween Ribbon through the basket and tied a bow.

I love the idea of reading a different Halloween book every night before bedtime. So I hit half price books and found 30 Halloween books including this one. (I know Halloween is on the 31st but since the final book is the Night Before Halloween I stopped there). While I was there I noticed the 4 shelves of random Holiday books and thought this would be a great idea for other holidays as well, plus I can rotate in age appropriate books as she grows, and all I'd need to do is change the ribbon to match the holiday. So here's our Countdown to Halloween basket (the piles of books nearby are the Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, and Valentines Day books for the future)




This is the first of many holiday traditions we can share with Molly.

UPDATE: Here's Molly and Daddy reading "Biscuit's TRICK OR tREAT"