Fall and Holidays

When I blog every few months I always feel like I should start from now and go backwards, but then I guess that'd be confusing.... So to start where we left off-October

October was an eventful month. We continued to go to Home Depot and do fun crafts, and with October came the HALLOWEEN blow-ups, me and Benny's favorite. October also marks the beginning of fall holidays, and Benny and I (and Dean some) enjoyed every Halloweeny/holidayish event we could. We made a Halloween house (took insane amounts of black paint). We went for daily "Halloween walks" to see the blowups. We went apple picking, again, looked at pumpkins. Somehow pregnant me thought it would be fun to go to Halloween at the Zoo, by myself, quite pregnant, on the first COLD snowy evening with the boys, ALONE. They had a good time :) I made Halloween baked goods, we roasted smores, and we went for "leaf hikes" around the cities.  I bought a tacky pregnancy pumpkin shirt that I wore every occasion I could. We attended Halloween at the Zoo with the Biersacks, as has been our yearly tradition the last 4 years. We went to the Sandhals annual pumpkin carving party, and actually carved a pumpkin for the first year ever. We went to our two favorite supermarket trick-or-treat events. I volunteered at Dean's Halloween party in Kindergarten. And lastly, we went trick-or-treating for a record time of over 2 hours. The "warm" weather helped, and the crazy 3 spidermen raced from house to house, screaming and having the time of their lives. Do I overdo it at the holidays? Most definitely, but these are memories that I hope will last me and my boys a lifetime, long after they are too old to appreciate the things that mommy likes too.

In September my mother-in-law Nancy also celebrated her 70th birthday! So we had a birthday weekend extravaganza over our MEA October Fall Break. We had a girls retreat away in Stillwater where we got facials, massages, spent time in a salt cave, had a nice dinner, walked downtown, and stayed at a nice downtown hotel on the water. The next night we had a family party 50's style, with costumes and dancing to boot! Everyone had a great time!

November brought a lot of day-to-day normalcy before the holidays continued. Dean started to get used to Kindergarten. We learned about all his friends. He had his first play date. Hockey (his new love!) started. He got to watch every football game with daddy.

At first he wasn't super excited about the equipment

  

 I enjoyed mom's night out, cooking, baked goods, cooking for the holidays, and a growing belly. I also officially finished my principal licensure program, with exit interview and all! Boys and I celebrated with some sparkling cider.

New Chair for Nursery

 

Benny loved on loving his mama. He started his first swim lessons! We went on special mommy/Benny walks and got matching PJS. He got to come to a special event at K and continued idolizing his brother.



November ended with Thanksgiving at the Aronsons. The food was delicious, the boys had fun with their cousins, and the weather stayed mildly warm. The holiday weekend ended with us opting outside with the Dakota County parks system on a "Superhero hike", and holiday decorated. We also spent more money than we've ever spent on Black friday, mainly on gifts, but our favorite purchase was a Roomba Robotic Vacuum. GAME CHANGER!

That brings us o December. Benny continued to love and be obsessed with Christmas decorations. Dean was too but to a lesser extent. Benny and I would go on nightly walks to see the Christmas lights, "the minion" being his absolute favorite.

We went sledding, enjoyed lots of pies, and I started a holiday baking extravaganza. I made more cookies and treats than I have ever made. I was preparing for my brother and his families visit coming up and wanted to make sure we had PLENTY of treats to share.

We continued to enjoy holiday traditions: a book a day, a minion advent calendar, breakfast with Santa, visits to new friend's baby, and then my work through my a baby shower!

Then the holiday festivities commenced. Starting with Lisa's holiday party we got to see Benny (and Dean) perform all their Christmas songs. Unfortunately, it was also the start of a week long flu for Benny :(

That brings us to Christmas and the holiday break. Oh what a glorious thing 2 weeks off sounds like, and it was special. Unfortunately the week before break Mark and I were alternating staying home with a very sick/fluish Benny. Between disenfecting the house, keeping him alive and happy, and preparing for my brother's visit and lots of cooking/baking, it was a somewhat stressful time! Benny and I missed 2 family Christmas functions and a friend event. but luckily he recovered before break and NONE of the rest of us got it! (Thank you essential oils, natural disenfectants, vitamins, and quarentine!)

Nana Visiting because we couldn't visit them

Aronsons Christmas

Sadly waiting for his brother and dad to get home!

Once break started we were all healthy. We had a wonderful Christmas eve full of traditions: our last Christmas book and advent calendar, opening one special present, special dinner ham and cheesecake, drive to see the beautiful lights, and a Christmas movie. It was nice to get to continue traditions we have started the last year or two.

Then of course Christmas day. Thankfully the boys slept in until about 7am. They were calm in the frenzy of present opening, and we enjoyed a delicious breakfast of french toast casserole. We spent the day enjoying our gifts, listening to Christmas music, and preparing for our cousin arrival that evening. I cooked up a Thanksgiving feast and it was warm and ready for when they arrived!

Then the chaos of 5 kids 5 and under began. We had a blast and the weather stayed relatively warm for Minnesota. We explored the city lakes and parks, Minnehaha falls, enjoyed delicious food and lots of sweets, played games, stickers, made gingerbread and decorated houses, created "elves", painting snow and did lots of sledding. The boys were definitely sad when their cousins had to leave on New Years.

New Years eve they enjoyed a wild and silly party at Anne's, filled with dancing, food, lots of toys and of course nerf guns.

And since New Years we've just been prepping/getting ready for the new year, which mainly means new baby! I took down all the Christmas decorations/lights, set up the crib, put out the clothes, bought formula (because if we need to use it this time around I'm not going to stress! Breastfeeding is best, but if it helps him sleep...) I took some time off from cooking and baking because I'd done A LOT, and we just enjoyed each other's company as a family of 4. We are excited for this next chapter and adventure in our lives and look forward to welcoming sweet baby A in the next month or so!