Trick-or-Treat - 2014

We didn't go out trick-or-treating last year since Kate was just turning one.  She wasn't munching on sweets at that point, so we figured we'd more or less be trick-or-treating for ourselves.  We figured we'd leave the sweets and treats for the kiddos who loved them more and stay home!  We did hand out a few treats to a few groups who came to our door but where our house sits is kind of in the middle of two blocks so we don't get a ton of trick-or-treaters.

This year, however, we decided it would be fun to take Kate out for a bit!  We walked up and down Kent Road near us and hit a lot of houses!  We saw a ton of costumes and lots of kiddos Kate's age and up which was fun!  Once Kate realized that she was getting sweets from people, she became a natural!  Though methinks we'll have to work on our stranger danger soon...

...Here she is - first time trick-or-treating!  Our little Halloween owl!

Halloween at her class!  She was slightly unsure
of what to make of all the kids dressed up...

These two!

Someone's gotta do the set up!

Hendu 3.0 Halloween selfie!

Our little owl!

Like a pro!

A trick-or-treat success!

Hootie hoo!

And this little montage just makes my day!

I love Halloween!  And I might be a little biased but our little owl is the cutest!  Happy Halloween!

Woodland Wonderland: Kate's 2nd Birthday!

I racked my brain FOR SO LONG trying to come up with a good theme for Kate's birthday this year.  I had a few parameters that I wanted to meet:

1.) I wanted to decorate once for fall and for Kate's birthday.  After all, I am extremely behind our on blog, if you haven't noticed, and this is how I feel with life in general so I didn't want to over complicate our lives by decorating for fall and then decorating again for Kate's birthday.

2.) I had already used pumpkins in her first birthday with a "Pumpkins & Pink" theme so I wanted something a bit different.

3.) I more or less make all of our decorations, so the more time I spent contemplating on a theme, the more down to the wire I got with my time to make our decor.  And if you re-read number one, you will see that time is very precious these days.

4.) I wanted her birthday to still be fun and toddler-esk, not just a house decorated for fall.

And one day it HIT me.  A WOODLAND THEME!  Of course!  We could do fall leaves, trees, red, orange, brown, yellow, woodland animals...YES!  YES!  YES!

So I got started immediately once I decided for sure that we'd be doing a Woodland Wonderland for Kate's 2nd birthday!

I made her 2nd birthday photo banner, two felt trees that had her favorites listed on one side and an open side for guests to write their favorites, a felt leaf garland to hang over the fireplace and leaves and hearts to hang over our island.  I spent a lot of nights cutting out letters or leaves, contemplating the menu, searching for cupcake toppers, or doing something else for her party, but it was all because I wanted to.  (And I was kind of down to the wire...)

I was so happy with how it turned out!

Hanging leaves and hearts above the island, photo banner, and
a glimpse of the trees in the background!

Festive fall food!  (Perhaps THAT should've been the theme!!)

Look whoooo's two!!  How is that possible?

Mimi and Gramma!

Our Guess How Many Acorns game!
(Note to self: acorns have little white worms in them.  And they
are disgusting!  They ended up all over the bottom and sides of this
jug.  There were so many that we threw the entire thing away when
we were done with the party.)

Now this is how you dive in!

She likes icing.  Can you tell?
(Funny thing - apparently when Brian was little,
he did NOT like icing and would request cakes
for his birthday sans icing!  Kate definitely likes
icing though!)

The birthday girl!

Opening presents!

Playing with new toys!

So happy for our two year old!

A bit of fun at the park!

It's way more fun to slide together!

The essence of being two!

Ice cream at Jeni's after dinner at Northstar.  Yum!

I have major plans to do another video just like we did last year for her first birthday.  When I do, I will post it here, but until then you'll have to just peruse the photos again!

Update: THE VIDEO IS AVAILABLE!!!

Kate's 2nd birthday was a complete success!  We'll leave you with a few of Kate's favorites at age two and the favorites of our guests that came to visit:

KATE'S FAVS (In no particular order!)
-Yogurt!
-Jack!
-Mommy!
-Daddy!
-Being silly!
-Applesauce!
-Mickey Mouse!
-All of her lovies!
-Chicken biriyani!
-Bone jammies!
-Doing things by herself!
-Helping out!
-Swings!
-The park!
-Wheels on the Bus song!
-Playing with her baby!
-Taking walks!
-Ketchup!
-Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!
-Word World!
-Hide-n-Go Seek!
-Blanket!
-Elmo!
-Exploring!
-Animals!
-Ice Cream!
-Chapstick!
-Play-Doh!
-Slides!

GUEST FAVS (In no particular order!)
GG - Videos!
Aunt Kathy - Making apple pie!
Uncle John - Golf and OSU!
Mimi - My Grandkids!
Papaw - Food and sleep!
Gramma - Walking on the beach and spending time with you!
PopPop Morris - The first hug!
Daddy - Sports!
Mommy - Music!
Grammy - Playing piano and my grandkids!
Uncle T - Mountains!
Mallory - Coming home from school!
Aunt Lisa - Birthday parties!
Gina - Binnie Boos!
Aunt Katy - Family and friends!
Aunt Judy - Buckeyes!
Aunt Colleen - Being outside!
Uncle Bob - Pizza!
Aunt Tina - Family!
PopPop Hendricks - The beach!
Courtney - My family and music!

#hashtagfour

#nudistcolony  #sheinsisted  #itriedtoclotheher  #ilostthatbattle
#theneighborsthinkwereweird

#fishfood  #thebestpartabouthaiku
#evenbeatstheyamayamaroll  #sushi

#forwardfacing  #newview  #homegirlgothookedup
#ithinkshelikesit  #mindblown

#ourlife  #myheart  #cuddles  #bink  #nevergrowup
#mommysnook  #pinkblanket  #perfection
#iloveher

#rockjumping  #nofear  #ourlittledaredevil
#crocsincluded

#gonefishin  #newgame  #mommywantstoplaytoo
#cani

Bye Bye Bink

When Kate was just a wee babe, we had several different types of pacifiers or "binks", as we call them, that we received as gifts from our showers.  We used it sparingly when she was an infant and newborn, but she was never really interested in it.  She had always preferred the real thing!  Even though we snapped the cutest photo ever of her with a bink when she was teensy tiny, for the next 12-ish months they didn't really excite her.

6-week old Kate with her first bink!
Be still my heart.

Just after Kate turned one and we officially weaned from breast feeding we noticed a change though.  The teachers at her school mentioned that she was particularly interested in other friend's binks.  At first I kind of thought, "Well, we haven't introduced one yet.  Why would we now?"  But then I thought that if she was interested that I'd let her explore.

She grew to love the thing.  Her bink and her blanket were her bedtime staples.  I can still hear her little voice, "Bink?  Bink?"

2 year 3 month old Kate with her bedtime staples!
Love.

Over the last ten months, her bink and her blanket have been her safety net.  But now she's about to turn two.  She is talking up a storm and, in our opinion, it's time to say adios to our binks.

I read forums and researched best practices for weaning off of the pacifier.  I hemmed and hawed and thought to myself of what would work best for us.  I put myself in Kate's shoes and I thought of how intelligent Kate is.  I thought the best way for us to say goodbye to our pacifiers was to explain things to Kate, in her terms, and have her help us put them away.  That way a.) she has an understanding of what we are doing, and b.) we can tell her where they are when/if she asks for them.

We decided we would do this on a Friday night so that we would have the weekend to adjust should we not get any sleep.

And last night was the night.

I scattered her binks around her room all in areas that we either put binks and/or found them at any points and put a couple downstairs in areas that she would see - the bench, the stool, etc.  Brian and I brought Kate upstairs and explained to her that we were going to put her binks away "until there was a new baby in the house".  We told her that we were getting bigger and didn't need to use the binks anymore, and we asked her to help us collect them all to put in the container that we had.

Bink and all of her blankets.  She knew something was up and
needed reinforcements!

Placing the binks she found in our container.

Mommy explaining there's one more bink left...
...in her mouth!

She made sure we didn't do anything else with
those binks and kept a very close eye on them.

She kept her last bink in all the way down to the
basement.

Kate really enjoyed this.  She loves helping and this challenge was right up her alley!

After we put all the binks in the container and Kate and I walked all the way down to the basement and put the container of binks into the plastic bin of "baby stuff".  (One of several, I might add.)  I debated letting her see where we were going to put the binks and decided that letting her see the whole process all the way through was the best thing for Kate.  I have always approached new things with her by explaining them all the way from the beginning to the end.  She is very much a child who may not be able to express everything that she comprehends just yet but fully comprehends what I say to her, so I figured it would be best for her to understand where we put all of our binks as opposed to lying and saying they went "bye-bye" or something of that nature.

We carried on with our night and did our normal nighttime routine.  She asked for her bink once and I reminded her that we put them away for when there was a new baby in the house.  Just like we had explained to her earlier.  And that was that.  No fuss, no tears, no protesting.

This girl is a trooper.  She continues to amaze me every day.  She is so strong and whether or not she really wanted her bink, she didn't let it show.

It makes me a little sad to say goodbye to the binks too, I'm not going to lie.  I felt like there was a little essence of babyhood that still lived in those binks and now she's going to bed without them.  She is officially my big girl.  I will always cherish that little binked baby who snuggled with me, her bink and her blanket every single night.  At least I know I've got a few more years of snuggles!

Brian added some filters to one of the photos above to capture this moment and he definitely nailed it.  Bink, blanket, baby Kate, perfection.  This is what it's all about.

Bye bye bink.

Kate's Greats & Finger Paints

We visited with Brian's Grandparents who live right in Westerville this morning.  It's really a special time when we can visit with them alone.  We get really good quality one on one time with them and we know it means so much to them to have all of Kate's attention.  So often, we see them at family gatherings or holidays where there's a lot going on and attention is diverted in many directions.

Brian's Grandparents - Morris and Marilyn - are wonderful people.  His Grandma reminds me so much of my own who is in a nursing home in North Carolina.  When I met her I felt an immediate connection.  My Grandma has been suffering from Alzheimer's for the last 13+ years and the last time I saw her was on the way back from the beach in summer of 2012.  The disease is debilitating and she was unable to speak.  It's heartbreaking watching her go through this.  It's been very, very slow, and I miss her more than words can describe.  Especially now having a daughter of my own.  I would've loved for her to meet Kate.  When we saw her in the summer of 2012, I told her I was pregnant and we were having a little girl.  Even though she didn't know who I was and didn't respond, I am hopeful that she heard and will one day understand.

This is why it is so special to spend quality time with Brian's Grandparents.  Time is just too short.  Life goes by too fast.  And in the blink of an eye, someone extremely special can no longer be around.

Plus, you can capture photos like these that just make you smile!  Love you guys!

Kate and her Greats!

When we got back from visiting and got up from our nap, we decided it was time for some finger painting!  And, boy, did we have some fun!

Choosing another color!

Giving Mommy a high five!

Checking out our messy hands!

Laughing with Daddy-O!

:)

Such a beautiful piece of art!

I mean, she's a pro at finger painting!

And now time for her next masterpiece!

Why is it so fun to get so messy?!  I even had to rinse out the tub after I gave Kate her bath!  We would've been left with a paint ring around the tub if I didn't!

Hoping you all had a wonderful Saturday!