Halloween at Our Place!

I’m going to be honest: I am not a fan of Halloween. Call me a Party Pooper if you’d like, but I don’t enjoy dressing up and given the fact that that is what Halloween is pretty much about -- well there you have it.

However, I’m not going to not let my child enjoy it just because I don’t. Preslie was a little kitty this year. The cutest little kitty I ever did see!

Since Kevin’s cousin and her family now live close to us I decided to have a little Halloween gathering at our place on Halloween night. We had Kevin’s cousin Sasheen, her husband Matt and their two kids Salma (5) and Laird (3), my MIL and BIL, and then my mom and Grandma Ruth came up a night early (family was going to be in town that weekend anyways for Preslie’s baptism).

I could kick myself because I completely forgot to take a picture of the table setting for dinner that night. I ended up serving chili in bread bowls and we had a salad. We ate first, took pictures as quickly as we could and then we were off for some Trick-or-Treating!

I’m so glad we decided to have family over that night. I think we all had a great time and it made for a great first Halloween for Sweet P. Next year I think I’ll have to dress up though. Ugh. Ha!

^ Laird giving Preslie kisses.

^ “I’m not so sure about your costume, cousin Salma.”

^ “I’ll play with your hair though!”

^ I’m pretty sure this is the cutest photo I’ve ever seen!

^ All bundled and bottled up for our walk. (Can you believe her eyes!? I still can’t get over how light they are.)

^ The kids were excited about the candy. The adults were excited about the wine.

^ Salma the orca whale.

^ Laird as Spiderman.

^ My BIL Matt as Waldo.

From all the Halloween posts I’ve seen and pictures of your cute kiddos in their costumes on Facebook and Instagram, I’d say it looked like everyone had a great time this year!

A Trip to the Pumpkin Farm

The weekend before Halloween, we took Preslie to a pumpkin farm. This is something I have always wanted to do once we had kids. Since she’s still so young I knew she wouldn’t know one way or the other what was going on, but I wanted to check it out and see if it’s a good place to take her for next year when she’s a toddler.

It was a very cool place. It had a petting zoo, corn maze, pig races, an apple cider press, a place that sold homemade pies, and all sorts of other things. The only thing we did was went through the petting zoo and purchased an apple pie and some apple cider. And of course took pictures. I’m looking forward to bringing Preslie back there next year and see her enjoy everything through her eyes.

It was nearly impossible to get her to smile for us while we were there because she was just interested in everything going on around her. But I’m glad we were able to go and enjoy a leisurely Sunday as a little family.

As these pictures will show, we are probably the worst photographers that exist. Ha! The sun was in Miss P’s eyes about 50% of the time. Oh well, memories were made!

^Just waking up from the car ride.

^Kevin and I laugh at this picture of Sweet P all the time. When she makes faces like this, we call her our “Little Bulldog.”

^Picture with Papa and some suspect-looking scarecrow.

^Her first time touching dirt. She was enthralled.

^ “This is as good as you’re going to get, Mama. I’ve got sun in my eyes!”

 

The End.

Preslie Kay at Seven Months

Preslie turned seven months old on Saturday, November 2nd.

Measurements

Weight: I'm going to guess and say she weighs anywhere between 18 and 19 pounds.

Appearance

~ She is thinning out a lot, mostly due to her being more active now. I call her my little Busybody. When I look back at pictures of her when she was younger, I chuckle because she was such a chub and now her face doesn't look nearly as chunky as it used to.

~ Her hair continues to grow. It's filling in in the back, where it was once bald from laying down.

~ Her eye color changes all the time. Some days they look hazel, other days they look blue.

~ No teeth. I give up trying to guess when they will finally break through.

Sizes

~ All 9 month clothes and pants are 9 month and 12 month.

~ She's wearing size 1 shoes. I bought her a pair of Pumas that I think are the cutest things in the world when she wears them!

~ Still in size 3 diapers.

Personality

~ We are discovering that Miss Preslie has a bit of a temper! She does not like when we take something away from her. She will throw a huge fit. In fact, we had to put her in her first "time out" the other day. Not really, but we had to remove her from the situation because she was just getting way too worked up and wouldn't calm down. So I took her in her room and put her in her crib for some alone time. The second I sat her in her crib she started giggling. Little stinker!

~ She smiles with her whole face and I love it.

~ We had a couple rough days this month. It seems like we learn something new about her all the time. This month we learned that she is not a fan of large, loud crowds.

~ If she doesn't get her bottle first thing when she wakes up in the morning, she gets maaad. I don't blame her - I'd be hungry too after 11 hours of sleep!

~ Changing her clothes and diaper changes have become nearly impossible. We usually change her clothes on the floor because it's becoming too dangerous when she's on the changing table and wiggling and rolling all over the place.

~ She grunts, yells, squeals and clicks her tongue. She's a loud little thing!

Likes

~ Loves, loves, loves food.

~ She really likes daycare and Miss Kara. That makes it so much easier to drop her off each week day.

~ Her high chair. Preslie will sit in it for at least an hour and just play with toys and bang on the tray. We'll roll it into where we are (sometimes into the living room, sometimes out in the backyard) and she enjoys being where the action is.

~ Our big girl loves to sit up and play. She does a good job of reaching from a sitting position to get to the toys she wants.

~ She is obsessed with "Peek A Boo!" That is one way to really get her to laugh.

~ Sweet P seems to suck her thumb more and more each day. Little Love Bug!

Dislikes

~ She still isn't a huge fan of tummy time. I think because she gets frustrated that she isn't physically able to get to where she wants to go on her own yet.

~ As I said before, clothes and diaper changes.

~ She doesn't like when we walk out of the room. She gets over it eventually, but is guaranteed to whine at first.

Eating

~ She takes a 7 oz bottle in the morning, two 6 oz bottles during the day and another 7 oz bottle before bedtime.

~ She gets cereal and fruit in the morning and vegetables and fruit in the evening.

~ I've started giving her some Puffs as a snack and she gets better each day with the chewing motion. I was so scared at first to give them to her because I thought she would choke, but it's like she knew exactly what to do and mooshed it up before she swallowed.

~ She loves eating from her mesh feeder.

~ She sucks her thumb between each spoonful of food! It makes feeding her quite a messy task.

~ New foods she has tried this month: artichoke bisque, potatoes, pasta sauce, apple pie, broccoli, Puffs, and RIBS!

~ Preslie's Godparents told us how they would give their twins ribs when they were Preslie's age, so I decided to try it at dinner. Oh my word, Girlfriend was in heaven with her rib bone! It sure was messy but she was so happy and content, and it was a good way for her to practice self-feeding.

~ She is a pro at drinking out of a straw.

Sleeping

~ She goes to bed at 7pm and wakes up any time between 6:15am and 7am for the day.

~ It never fails that every. single. morning she wakes up at 5am because she needs her diaper changed. I change her real quick and she goes right back down to sleep for another hour-and-a-half or so.  (I've tried every "nighttime" diaper out there and so far I've found that Size 3 Target brand diapers seem to be the only ones so far that don't soak her jammies.)

~ Her morning nap used to be her longest and her afternoon nap used to be her shortest, but they've flip-flopped. She takes about an hour or hour-and-a-half nap in the morning and then a good two-hour nap in the afternoon. Her late afternoon nap is pretty much non-existent now, unless she didn't nap well that day, then she has to take one.

Schedule

I want to list her schedule for memory's sake...

7am: Wake up and bottle in bed with Papa while they watch the Baby Channel together

7:15am: Off to Miss Kara's house

8am: Baby food

8:30am: Nap time

10:30am: Bottle

12:30pm: Nap time

3pm: Bottle

4:15pm: Mama picks up Little Squirt from Miss Kara's house

4:30pm: We get home and Sweet P plays with Papa

5:30pm: Baby food

6:15 or 6:30pm: Bath time

6:45 or 7pm: Bottle and bed

New Experiences

~ She rolls all over the place. She rolls front to back; side to side; and she twists and turns on her belly. She's just started to twist and push up into a sitting position from her tummy.

~ No where near crawling yet!

~ We went to Grandma's house a lot this month.

~ We visited Grammy while Grampy was out of town to help cheer her up after Grammy’s brother passed away. :(

~ She helped celebrate Great Grandma's 90th birthday!

~ She posed for lots of photo shoots to document cute outfits she'll probably only get to wear once before she grows out of them. Ha!

~ We went to a pumpkin patch! (post to come soon)

~ She celebrated her first Halloween! (post to come soon)

~ She got to visit with Grammy and Grampy this month, too.

It's such a joy and blessing to get to witness our sweet baby girl grow into her own little person. We are so lucky to be her parents.