Thanksgiving!

We have a lot to be thankful for this year, especially now with this one off and running!

Let's go!

We started our Thanksgiving off with what we hope will be a new family tradition, participating in the annual Run Through the Woods!  Little Buddy and Daddy ran the kids' race, followed by doing the 3 mile walk with Aunt S, while I ran the five mile run with Uncle M, Ms. A, and Mr. A.

     

Someone is ready to run his first race!

"Can we start yet, Daddy?"

     

And there he goes!

His first medal!  We are so proud of him!

Proudly strolling with Ms. B and Ms. P during the walk!

Great time as a family!

Little Sweetie can't wait to join in on the running fun!

We spent the rest of Thanksgiving enjoying food, friends, and family.  We were so busy enjoying ourselves, I didn't have time to get a picture!  We spent the rest of the weekend getting into the Christmas spirit, seeing a movie (Big Hero 6--Little Buddy loved it!) and even got some bonus Uncle C and A time!

     

Time to decorate for Christmas!

     

Bike riding time with Uncle C and A.  Safety first, get your helmets!

     

Lots of fun in the leaves!

It was a great long weekend, and especially fun being together as a family because, as of tomorrow, Little Buddy will be a full-time student!  I am going to miss him so much, but I know he's going to love it.  And I am looking forward to some special momma-daughter time with Little Sweetie. So thankful for so many things, one of which is that Little Buddy gets the opportunity to go to school and get his needs met.  Great things are coming!

Good night,

LBM

Litte Buddy's Momma

November 11

Another busy month with our crew!  Since our last post, we've been excited to share that Ms. S and Mr. M had their baby!  Little Buddy was so excited to meet Baby L.

The baby is coming!!!

   

Little Buddy sent our friends super strength as they waited for Baby L to make his debut, and even refused to go to sleep that night because he was scared he would miss the baby!

The next day, he was here!  Little Buddy and Little Sister were so excited to meet their new friend!

In other news, Little Buddy has started a new activity:  running club!  Since soccer and tee ball are a little too organized for him, we were excited to find a sport we can enjoy together as a family.  So far he really likes running laps and collecting his marks.  If he finishes 26.2 miles by the time of the local marathon, he'll earn a kids' marathon medal!

    

Showing off his marks and his new running clothes!

Celebrating less than 20 miles to go after knocking off another mile at run club!

I know that everyone month I report that Little Buddy still loves his Little Sister, but I don't care if it is redundant.  These two playing together and enjoying each other's company makes me so happy.  I do hope that they can be good friends as they grow!

Enjoying living room picnics, for real and for pretend.

    

Excited to give sister her birthday card last month!  One year old already!

Sister loves hugging her brother!

      

The skeleton twins as we waited for Daddy to finish up at a Doctor's appointment.  It was a doubly fun day because Little Buddy also got a special Starbucks breakfast while we waited!

These two love going on stroller rides together, and always laugh and talk to each other.  This month they got to go check out the "Orange Man" statue at Market Street (one of Little Buddies favorites) and accompany Momma to go vote (even if it was a bit rainy on our walk to the polling station).

Stroller adventures!  Love my double!

Another family favorite day is Veterans Day.  Because both Papaw and Uncle J were/are in the military, we hold veterans and active service personnel close to our hearts.  We celebrated the day by donating items to care packages for the troops (Little Buddy specifically picked out oatmeal to send), making cards for our veterans friends and for veterans organizations, and hanging Papaw and Uncle J's pictures up on the Veterans Wall at Daddy's work.

   

Thank you for your service, Papaw and Uncle J!  We love you and are proud of you!

We've also been enjoying our Terrific Tuesdays with our friend, C.  This was one of our last ones together because Little Buddy will hopefully be starting the special education program later this month.  We took a special adventure on the trolley since the library was closed for Veterans Day.

    

    

Love our friends!

Height and Weight

We measured him as 45.25 in., which means he's grown a quarter of an inch since last month!  And he's gone up another pound, weighing in at 57.  His torso is just too long, even the new pants we got him are not working.  We are ordering some extended sizes now.  I think he'll be a big and tall shopper for life!

Personality

Still very sweet and happy, though still having trouble with transitions.  He's also starting to get concerned about "privacy" and has begun to tell us to shut the bathroom door when he is on the potty because "I need my privacy please."  Maybe now he'll start giving me some privacy?  Maybe?  Ha!

Developmental Milestones

Again, happy to report that we continue to see improvements!  He's really interested in counting now and is constantly asking, when he sees something, "Let's count them!"  In terms of speech, still putting more and more words together, using "where" questions more often (and even one "why", which is huge), and starting to add in the "ing" ending for present progressive more often.  Still working on fine motor skills for writing and coloring, but he seems to enjoy the lessons even is the progress isn't as fast as we would like.  

 

He has been officially accepted into the PPCD program, although the time frame that it is held during through us for a loop.  He'll be picked up by bus and then be in school from 11 AM - 3 PM.  Although I know that this will be a huge step for him (and one he is ridiculously excited about), it also means we have to wean him from naps (naps that he asks for and takes daily) and that I have to quit Baby Boot Camp as we'll have to be home at that time to get him on the bus.  This changes, and the fact that I have to forgo putting Little Sister in any morning programs, have been hard to accept.  But you do what you have to do.  I'm just hoping that his routine isn't thrown so off balance that he regresses.  And that I don't lose my mind without the stress relieving therapy boot camp has become for me.  Also, once we get his school schedule established, we'll be able to set up his occupational and speech therapy visits as well.

 

Fun Tidbits

We had a great trip to Grapevine, Texas this month (look for the full post on that) and we've been playing a lot of cooking games, especially now that Momma found Little Buddy his own apron and chef's hat.  I think he likes it, don't you?

 

On his way to Top Chef!

Have a great night, 

LBM

Little Buddy's Momma

A Great Time in Grapevine!

Last month, we had planned on taking a trip to Grapevine, Texas, which is right outside of the Dallas area.  Our plan had been to knock another ballpark off of our list with a Rangers game, go to Legoland Discovery Center, and ride the Grapevine Vintage Railroad.  Unfortunately, Daddy had to work, so we rescheduled our trip to this month.  We didn't get to do the baseball game, but I have to say that the weekend ended up being pretty fun.

The first amazing part of our trip was the fact that we found a rest stop...with. a. playground.  For real!  I think Little Buddy and Little Sweetie were so enamored with that, they could have been happy just stayed at the rest stop instead of taking the rest of the trip!  Especially once Little Buddy found the statue of the buffalo!

    

Playgrounds at rest stops should be mandatory.

He literally told us to go on without him.  He was just going to live with the buffalo statue on the white rocks.  

Our hotel was the next big adventure.  Someone should really start offering hotels with kid-friendly room options.  You know, like rooms WITHOUT working fireplaces or ways to keep your kids from coming out of their room and walking out in the middle of the night (Little Buddy is totally tall enough to unlock everything).  Luckily, we like to make creative solutions.

Thank God neither kid showed interest in the fireplace.  And seriously, a fireplace in a hotel room in Texas?  Necessary?  I think not.

    

 

Some of our creative room arrangements.  Little Buddy's bed is pushed against the closet in his room (with a desk and dresser pushed up on the other side to keep him from rolling out in the middle of the night), the couch is pushed in front of his door to prevent late night escapes while leaving the door open so we could hear him if he needed us, and a chair blocking the door out of the room just in case he made it over the couch.  Stuff you don't think about until you have kids!

Also, the kids' favorite thing about the hotel?  The corded phones.  We just unplugged all the phones and let them have at it.  Why do we even bother to travel?  We could just stay in a local hotel and let the kids play with the phones for a few days and they would be thrilled! 

We started our real Grapevine Adventure the next day by going for the fun run on the vintage railroad!  After a quick walk through the town (which was so cute and full of lovely shops...I'm already planning more trips back to explore the town some more) we came to the train!  The fun run is only an hour long, which I have to say was just about right for the kids' attention spans. 

Headed to the train!

Choo-choo!

    

Little Sister was excited for her first train ride (and for the flags they handed out for Veterans Day)!

Attempting a group shot with Daddy!

Thankfully, the train photographer got a better family picture!

 

"I'm the conductor!"

After the train ride, we walked around town a bit more to look for some food and Little Buddy found his new favorite statues:  roller skaters!  He was quite intrigued.

          

After attempting to help the fallen skater, we had lunch at local deli (again, loving the small town feel.  We found several small town restaurants that we liked a lot and were kid friendly.  I'm going to the miss the pizza place we ate at..twice!) before heading back to the hotel for naps.  The kids needed to rest up before we headed out to...

Legoland!

This was pretty much a dream destination for Little Buddy, and Little Sweetie ended up having a blast too!

    

   

Playing with blocks while waiting to enter, rocking our Emmett jacket and Wyldstyle hat.

   

    

Little Sweetie jamming out in the Duplo area!

"Let me get this straight...I can play with all these blocks?  For real?"

    

Great time on the pirate-themed spray ground turned playground for the fall season.

    

Entranced by the mini-city replica of Dallas/Grapevine area...

...and of the Star Wars special exhibit!

Little Buddy was ready to move in and live there!

Happy Lego Store visitors!

We can vouch for it...everything was awesome! 

After breakfast the next morning, we began our drive home (we hit that rest stop with the playground again too!).  It was a very quick trip, but a lot of fun.  I really want to go back and find more fun stuff to do!

Have a good night,

LBM

Little Buddy's Momma