Picture Overload

Tis the season to be busy with fun Christmas activities!  Let's review our month through pictures.

C's Christmas program at school.

She was hyped up all week waiting for the day she could sing.

Part of her cheering section.

Small town Christmas at Franklin's square.

Thanks to some AMAZING friends, C got to ride in the Christmas parade.

In a horse and carriage no less!

She said it was the BEST EVER!

U enjoying his first parade,

and the candy.

Singing at church.

B and I had an adult night out at my work's Christmas party and no party is complete without a group selfie.

Pancakes with Santa at C's school.

Our first ever Gingerbread house.

C had the time of her life decorating the house!

U having separation issues while C was outside "helping" her daddy.

Having a blast at Warner's 2nd birthday!

I mean what kid wouldn't love this party?!

U not feeling the weekly picture before rushing off to church.

Can't wait to see these two go crazy Christmas morning!

11 Months

Uryah Bayles is 11 months!

I'm guessing he is around 30ish pounds, he wears mostly 24 month clothes and a size 5 diaper.

He decided he would become a crawler this month and naturally the first time he did it, we weren't there.

It was on a night when the kids and I were staying at my parent's.  He had crawled just a little bit before I headed out the door but apparently crawled cross the room while I was gone.  Thankfully my dad took a video of him crawling.  After that, it didn't take him long to figure out he could go all kinds of places and he is constantly crawling around the house.  So far he hasn't gotten into anything major that he shouldn't.  He tried one night to get in the dog's food bowl but we shut that down real quick and he hasn't touched it since.  And to be honest, he hasn't touched my Christmas tree either.  He has swiped at his a few times but has yet to break an ornament or knock it over so I consider it a win.

He hasn't said any new words but has found that he loves saying mama.  B tries to tell me that's not really what he is saying but I think he is just jealous that he doesn't say daddy 24/7 anymore.  :)

We are still struggling with transitioning over to real milk.  I've bought several different kinds of sippy cups but he won't even consider putting one close to his mouth.  He also doesn't like it cold so we have to put it in a bottle and warm it up.  My goal is to get him off the bottle completely by the end of the month.  We might just have to do it cold turkey which I'm pretty sure is how did it with his sister.

 He got another tooth this month and another is trying to poke out.  He is a BEAST when teething.  He becomes super whiny and isn't happy with anything you do. The other night, we laid him down at 6pm because he had whined for two solid hours and refused to eat dinner.  Refusing dinner was a huge red flag that he wasn't feeling life and he ended up sleeping a solid 12 hours!  He woke up a much happier baby.

That's about all that has happened this month.  We are gearing up for the holiday's and U's first birthday.   In four weeks and we will have a 1 year old.  The thought nearly makes me want to throw up.  Why does having children seem to speed up life?  At least I can say we are enjoying every minute of it.

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, we drove to Indiana to spend the holiday with B's family.  We spent Thanksgiving at my brother-in-law's where we ate too much and the kids played hard together.

Very thankfully that all the kids get along so well.

U seemed a little more excited about taking a picture than Etta.  :)

But he was less than thrilled at the end of the night when I made him sit with his sister.  He was done.

We went back to B's parent's to relax and hang out or so I thought.  At 8:30, B got restless and wanted to go shopping.  We sent him and his dad out to scope out the crowds and grab a few things.  Classic B got flustered over the TWO things I told him to pick up and came home empty handed so I went back out with him and we knocked out our entire Christmas list!

I have NEVER been a Black Friday shopper but the three places we went weren't that bad and I didn't have urge to punch anyone.  It was a win/win.

Friday morning, we all went back out to do a little more shopping and these two got matching coats.

They were stuck to each other's hips all weekend.

Saturday, we went ice skating down in Indy.

This was C's first time skating and she wasn't sure about it at first.

We had to have a little pep talk after one time around the rink but after that, she loved it!  Well except she didn't like holding on to her daddy.  

As my niece put it, 'he is unstable.'  Ha!  If she only knew.  ;)

So it was up to her aunt and uncle to take her around.

The ice skating crew.

All 3 big kids loved skating and it will definitely be on our must do again list.

The rest of the night, the kids played while the adults chatted and caught up on life.  We left Sunday morning thinking we would beat most of the heavy traffic.  Not so much.  We all were dead tired and this morning was by far one of the worst reality checks we've had.  C kept yelling no over and over this morning when we were trying to get her out of bed.  She is her mama's child.

Torture

Every year around this time, I torture my family with family pictures for Christmas card purposes.  Every year I hear a lot of moaning and groaning and a lot of 'I don't wanna.'  Every year it's a circus and this year was no different except we added one more to our act.

My dad (the photographer) and I decided we wanted to take the pictures at WKU's campus.  There are several cool places to take pictures so we decided to try it out.  I'm very pleased with how they turned out despite U being completely DONE 30 minutes in.  Short nap and almost dinner time is a bad combo for him.

I can't handle that she looks 10 in this picture.  

U was more interested he his surrounding than the camera.

There are about 50 horrendous pictures of either U throwing a fit, someone with their eyes closed or me jumping up calling quits on the whole thing.  I'm pretty sure a paid photographer would charge me double for the hot mess we always seem to be on these days.

Life This Week

We've actually had a pretty good week this week.  Last Saturday, we joined some friends for tailgating before the WKU football game.  C had a blast running around with all the kids and the adults enjoyed talking and hanging out.

U had his first tailgating experience and as you can see he was stoked about it.

There is a similar picture somewhere of their mama's tailgating together 12 years ago.

Oh how our tailgating days have changed but we still have a great time!

Later that afternoon, we had family pictures and they were pretty much a nightmare.  U was done after about 20 minutes and cried unless I feed him Teddy Grahams.  It turned super cold quick so our session didn't last long.  Thankfully, my photographer (aka my dad) is free and can deal with me calling it quits mid-photo.  I can only wrestle a crying 30 pound baby for so long.

Sunday was supposed to be the usual church day but U had other plans.

I was pulled out of Sunday School before it even started because U was throwing the biggest fit any of us had ever seen.  He was dead asleep when they tried to switch him off to the Sunday School nursery workers and this obviously ticked him off.  When I finally got him, he was barely awake but managing to cause quite the scene.  I grabbed both kids, our stuff and ran out like a woman on fire.  I left poor B standing there like a deer in the highlights as I peeled out of the parking lot.  He doesn't move fast enough for me.  :)

I headed straight to urgent care because I knew something wasn't right.  In the back of my mind I knew he probably had an ear infection.  It took the doctor 2 seconds to confirm what I already knew.  We got our meds and U took a nice long nap after we got home.

On the plus side, this week has been an awesome week for C.  She got chosen as a Leader of the Week in her class and Monday I get a phone call from school telling me her teacher gave her an office referral (a good thing at our school) for taking the initiative to help a student without being told.  As part of the reward, she got to talk to me on the phone from school.  She has been DYING for a referral.  She was a bit of a teacher's pet at daycare and her teacher always bragged on her so she has had a hard time adjusting to not being a favorite.  I kept telling her just to keep doing the right thing and be the best she can be and one day it would pay off.  Well that day was Monday! 

After her gymnastics glass, we took her to eat at a restaurant of her choice and ice cream to finish the night.  She was beyond excited.

She also got recognized in class for making good choices this week (something our school stresses to the MAX).  Sadly, those good decisions didn't extended into our house BUT I've always said my kids can act like heathens at home as long as they behave out in public.  C has that rule down pat.  She will be the death of me.