Ryan's first Halloween!

I'm a little out of order with my holiday postings...anyway. Way back in March, Dan got a wii for the family to play. Ever since Courtney laid eyes on Princess Peach from Mario Bros, that is all she wanted to be for Halloween! We have trunk or treat every year at our church so the whole family was going to be the whole Mario group! BUT...we got the stomach flu and couldn't dress up in all the homemade costumes I had planned.  

Pumpkin pizza!

Our little Mario Bros. family!

Halloween morning! Such a happy baby :)

Thankful for time at my parents!

I am so happy that Courtney can come to my parents house and run and be free!! She is an independent soul anyway so farm freedom is right up her alley! She was helping my mom decorate for Christmas outside and then got to run and jump on the big bales for the first time! My mom also kept all my Rainbow Brite and My Little Ponies for Courtney to play with!

Courtney's room addition

This weekend we put a desk in Courtney's room. She was so excited to be able to have a place to do all her drawing. Every night when we get home she asks if she can go up there first thing to work!

Courtney told me that she is drawing moons. A crescent moon, full moon and half moon.  Love my little smarty!

Puffs

Ryan started eating puffs tonight! It is so neat to see all these milestones! It seems like he is doing so many things so fast!!

Hallway challenge!

My school had a competition between grade levels to see who could come up with the best literacy idea to make the hallways better and brighter! My team was made up of first grade, fifth grade and title. We have quite a few Pinterest queens so of course ours was super cute! We copied and laminated tons of books to spell out the word read. Then we asked each staff member what their favorite children's book or chapter book was. We put the cover of their favorite book over their face so that kids can guess the reader!

Seven Months Old!

Ryan is 7 months old today! This was a very eventful month! It started out with our first fall retreat with Ryan at Camp Doniphan. Ryan was a champ, but was sick the whole time. Dan and I directed this year, so we had to stay, but he got conjunctivitis and his poor little eyes were so sad! But, after one dose of drops, he was perfect and happy again! He also started on rice cereal, carrots and peas! He LOVES his solids! I remember it taking Courtney many days of poking down rice cereal before she would open her mouth for it, but this little one opens his tiny bird mouth for every bite! He hasn't spit anything out so far! The most fun thing of all this month was seeing Ryan start to crawl! He has been getting up on all fours for a few weeks, but finally made some steps! We have had to quickly baby proof again now that he is everywhere! 

For some reason, 7 months seems very old! lt seems as if with all his growing and changing and new tricks lately that he is growing up too fast! I know he is still just a baby but that one year mark is coming up very fast (but don't worry, I've been planning and pinning things for his first birthday since before he was born). 

A pretty fun rainy day

On fall weekends I usually have an agenda of some pumpkin patch, trail, or outdoor place for us to go. I was bummed that today would be rainy, but it turned out just fine!

We started the day with a pumpkin pancake. Then, Courtney and I went to Brookside to the farmer's market and the Reading Reptile. It made me want to come home and paper mâché a ton of book characters for my classroom! Courtney loved it there. She loves the Strega Nona book series and we found several more to read that we've never seen before.

We came home and made a few fall crafts: bats and glitter pumpkins. I can't tell you how much I love she's a craft girl like me!

Also, the pictures are all out of order. I'm still getting used to the blogger app.