A Very Toddler Christmas

We knew decorating for Christmas with a toddler would be a little different than usual, but you can just never be sure of what the problems will be!  Honestly, Cooper has not shown much interest in the ornaments on our tree-- we made sure the ones within his reach are all ones it's okay if he touches or gets, but he will touch them a little and then walk away.  Not sure how much that will change throughout the next month, but so far that has not been a temptation.  The bigger issue was trying to decorate with him around...

He just wants to climb all the things.

ALL THE THINGS.

Y'all.  All the things.  David hung up most of the lights during nap time, but we let Cooper come out while we finished up the outside decorations and he could not leave the ladder alone.  Part of me knew I should get him off of it immediately, the other part of me was curious how high he'd climb.  We were right behind the whole time, but he made it to the 4th step without any help.  All in the matter of about 30 seconds.  David only had a little bit of the house left to cover in lights, but Cooper and I had to go inside for "time out" about 5 times during that 30 minute stretch because he just could not leave the ladder alone.

Luckily now that we've put away all the ladders and boxes, things are pretty calm.  He gets all the books off the shelf and scatters the Little People nativity everywhere, but he also helps clean them up.

I also made him a felt tree that he could decorate.  And he thought it was the coolest.  He loved it...

... for about three minutes before he ripped it off the wall.  I had put it up with command strips (12 to be exact) and he took it off twice that morning.  Then I stapled it up and it lasted about a day before he ripped it off when he was mad that I went down the hall to go to the bathroom without him.  We'll put it back up eventually, but for now it's laying on the floor.

And I feel like that perfectly sums up life with a toddler-- he gets into the things you don't expect, leaves the things you're worried about alone, and destroys the things made just for him.  It all just makes me laugh.

Merry Christmas from toddler land!

What's Up Thursday

Well I had every intention of doing this yesterday, but ended up napping during Cooper's nap time and just never had the time.  So this week it's what's up Thursday.

What we're eating this week

Honestly?  Not a whole lot.  We were hit by a stomach bug this week (hence the nap instead of blogging yesterday), so we haven't really been eating much at all.  I made a whole chicken in the crockpot Monday and that is the only thing I've cooked.  Hopefully the bug has finally passed and we will be eating some yummy things soon!  I have all the stuff for taco pie, just waiting for our appetites to catch up.

What I'm reminiscing about

We put up our Christmas decorations over the weekend, and honestly I'm reminiscing just a little about our first Christmas in our home-- when we decorated however we wanted to without any thought of little hands getting things they weren't supposed to.  There's a lot of fun things about having a toddler at Christmas, but the decor definitely suffers a little ;)  Just looking at this picture makes me laugh thinking about all the things on this shelf he would destroy in a matter of minutes!

What I'm loving

The extra long Christmas season!  With Thanksgiving being so early, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is almost a week longer this year than it will be next year and I really am loving it.  I love all of the Christmas lights up everything and the decorations and the music.  It just makes things a little more fun for me.

What we've been up to

A whole lot of nothing this week.  Cooper got sick Monday as we were heading out to go to MOPS, so we quickly cancelled our Monday and Tuesday plans.  Then I got it Tuesday night which cancelled our Wednesday plans.  Today we finally got back out in the land of the living, but we've been pretty pathetic the rest of the week.  I took this picture Monday afternoon-- I was watching a movie and Cooper just laid on the floor in front of me... he was wide awake but just exhausted.

What I'm dreading

Nothing too much--maybe just sickness season.  It feels like we've already been hit hard this year with Hand Foot and Mouth, the flu and a stomach bug all before December.  Crossing my fingers we're just getting it all out of the way early, but seems like things might only get worse.

What I'm working on

I've been back at my sewing machine lately and I am loving it.  I made a few different gifts for people as well as some matching pajamas for us!

What I'm excited about

Along with the Christmas theme of the rest of this post, it is our first Christmas season at The Heights and I am excited to get to participate in their big Christmas outreach called Three Trees this year.  The very first Sunday we visited our current ABF was the Sunday before Three Trees last year and right after we went they were taking a 3 week break.  We left that day feeling pretty certain that God was leading us to plug in there and spent the rest of the month working through some of that.  It's crazy to see where He's brought us in the past year.  And I'm excited to get to be a part of Three Trees this year, especially since some of the families I work with through ESL and the Apartment Ministry will be there.

What I'm watching/reading

All the Hallmark Christmas Movies.  I usually just catch whatever's on, but this year I set our DVR to record most of the new Hallmark Christmas movies and have had them on in the background.  They're all really cheesy, but also fun.

What I'm listening to

Christmas music-- what else?  Also lots of podcasts, I feel like I have more podcasts than I can listen to!  Some current favorites are Risen Motherhood, That Sounds Fun with Annie Downs (Christmas Party editions!), Journeywomen, and The Lazy Genius.

What I'm wearing

I love that it's been cold enough to wear my Bearpaw boots some already!

What I'm doing this weekend

Our town's Christmas parade, celebrating my birthday with my family, and our ABF Christmas party!

What I'm looking forward to next month

All the Christmas things!  We love just driving around and looking at lights and listening to Christmas music.  I can't wait to see what he thinks of everything this year.

What else is new

That about sums it up!

Advent Song List

Last year I posted about our last-minute advent calendar.  We picked 25 Christmas songs and sang a different one each day.  I printed them out and put them on cards along with a free printable advent calendar that I found.  Then we hung them up in our living room at the end of each day.  So by Christmas it looked like this:

I thought I'd share our list in case anyone is interested in what we're doing.  As I went through it this year, I changed a couple of songs out so this is the newest list.  In the past year I've also stumbled across this Advent Devotional-- Sing of His Birth, I haven't looked too closely, but it has some questions to go with each song on her list, so I might use some of that this year to reflect on them.  We also are planning to read a story about the birth of Christ from the Storybook Bible every Sunday for our family devotional time and I'll probably throw in a few activities throughout the week with Cooper as inspiration strikes, so I'll be sure to share those as we do them.  But we don't have much planned for each day other than to sing the song and think about what it means!

1. O come, O Come Emmanuel

2. The First Noel

3. O Come All Ye Faithful

4. Away in a Manger

5. Go Tell it on the Mountain

6. O Little Town of Bethlehem

7. We Three Kings

8. Angels we have Heard on High

9. Mary did you Know?

10. Little Drummer Boy

11. Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

12. What Child is This?

13. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

14. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

15. Hark the Herald Angels Sing

16. Ring Christmas Bells

17. Good Christian Men Rejoice

18. Do You Hear What I Hear?

19. Angels from the Realms of Glory

20. He is Born

21. O Holy Night

22. Sing We Now of Christmas

23. I hear the Bells on Christmas Day

24. Silent Night

25. Joy to the World!

Since it was such a last-minute decision last year, there were a few things we didn't think through all the way and are changing this year.  First of all, we originally taped the songs onto the ribbon that was hanging and the tape didn't hold it super well (and also ruined the back of the cards), so we started using small clothes pins to hang them and that worked much better.  The other thing is that last year we had the cards in a basket on our island and pulled one out each day and then hung it up.  This year I hung them all up with the numbers facing out (so right now it looks like it did at the end of last Christmas season) and then we'll take it down and when the day is done I plan to hang them back up turned around so it's more of a countdown with the numbers showing which days are left.

  

We will start them next weekend on December 1, but while we were decorating for Christmas this weekend I went ahead and put them up.  Looking forward to trying this out again this year now that Cooper is even more into music and trying to sing along with us!

Also as one final note... because we ruined so many of the cards last year with tape, I retyped and formatted all the lyrics in one document this year-- if anyone wants it I'm happy to share, just let me know!

Thanksgiving 2018

We just got home this afternoon from a few days in Oklahoma celebrating Thanksgiving with family.

We made our traditional stop in Denton for breakfast tacos at Chiloso.  Denton just opened a Buc-ee's so we had to re-evaluate and see if we needed to change up our Denton stop.  We decided to stick with Chiloso on the way to Oklahoma and add Buc-ee's on the way back  for now :)

Cooper did well on the drive up.  Since we drove up in the morning he didn't nap at all, but he was mostly content listening to music and looking at books.  I also had this "turkey and feathers" activity where he had to pull the sticks out and then hopefully put them back in.  It took him a while to figure out putting them back in, but he did it and then he really enjoyed it.  This kept him occupied for over an hour which was awesome!

We got to David's Nanny's house around lunchtime.  So we ate and Cooper napped.  After naptime we went out to play in the backyard.  Cooper loved this ball-- throwing it and kicking it and chasing it around.  We visited with more family Wednesday afternoon before bedtime.  We all had kind of a rough night Wednesday, but we were up ready to go on Thursday.

We headed out to David's Uncle's ranch for the day.  As soon as we got out of the car Cooper started talking about the cows and ran to go see some of them.

Cooper talked a lot about the "real cows" since there was also a picture of cows inside the ranch house.  Between the cows...

.... the tractor...

... and the football Cooper was pretty entertained all day long.

And of course a little food helped too!  David's Aunt had a fruit appetizer that was so cute--I didn't get any pictures, but it was a turkey body made of a pear and skewers with different fruit to represent the feathers.  Cooper ate at least 5 skewers worth of fruit.  He didn't each much other Thanksgiving food, but the fruit was a big hit!

Love my little family!

After naptime we spent a little more time outside.  Seeing the real cows and playing football with the cousins.

And grabbing a few family pictures.

Cooper had no fear about the cows.  These cows got right up next to the cattle guard and Cooper took off running to see them (Pappaw and Daddy were right by him here, he wasn't going anywhere!).  After a day at the ranch we were all ready for an early bedtime Thursday night!

Friday we spent the morning playing at David's Nanny's house.  Cooper loved  the piano and would have stayed there all day.  We saw a few more family members for lunch before heading home.  We left right around naptime to head back home.  Cooper slept a little and then we listened to music for the rest of the drive.  We stopped at Buc-ee's for gas and snacks and Cooper got to run around some.

We had a great week with family and enjoyed a little time away. 

Fall Bucket List

I found this list of Fall activities for toddlers back in September and decided to save it so we could try out a few throughout the Fall season.  I had the picture as my lock screen for a while as a reminder of all the Fall fun we wanted to do and whenever we'd have a little down time or need something to do I'd pull out the list.  So here's a look back at some of the Fall fun we had!

Give a pumpkin a bath-- I posted about the pumpkin bath that allowed dinner to get cooked and a happy toddler after a long afternoon.

Glow stick bath--  This one was a big hit.  We did this on a Friday night and Cooper loved putting the glow sticks in his cup and then dumping them out. After bath we put on his glow in the dark skeleton pajamas and then he got to run around with his glow sticks a little more.  The glow sticks were from the Target Dollar spot, so it was perfect, cheap entertainment.

Go on a nature walk-- We actually went on a lot of these.  We got on walks a lot, usually with Cooper in the stroller.  But we've started doing more walks around our block where he can walk and he loves it.  One day I took along a paper sack so he could carry around all of the "balls" (acorns) he find.  He really still just wanted to hold them all and not put them in the bag, but it was a good try I guess.

Stay in pajamas all day-- So we didn't actually make it all day, but we did stay in pajamas until after nap time when we had to go run errands, so I'm counting it!  It was one of the first really cold and rainy days and we had no plans in the morning, so it was nice being in our cozy pajamas.

Go for a walk in the rain-- This started out as just a walk around our block, but it quickly started raining.  Cooper gave me a really funny look when I suggested we head back home, so we embraced the rain and went around the block before coming home and getting dry clothes on!

Practice gluing with fall leaves-- We went to a toddler/preschool art class with our friend AJ at the beginning of November and one of the activities was gluing leaves on these plates to make wreaths.  Cooper was more interested in walking around to find AJ than any of the crafts, but I'm still counting this since we did a little practice gluing leaves.

Visit a farm-- The pumpkin patch we went to was at a farm and Cooper loved the animals!

Make a fort on a rainy day-- This one lasted a whole 30 seconds.  I charged David with making the fort while I got lunch ready one Saturday.  Cooper just wanted to pull all the blankets down, but he had a grand time doing it!

Dissect an apple and then make stamp art with it-- We did this as part of Cooper's first painting project.

Visit the library-- Our library doesn't have drop in storytime, you have to register for the whole semester, so we aren't doing that this Fall.  But we did stop in one afternoon when the temperatures had dropped to play with legos and wander around after we returned a few books.

Make a fall tree art project--  We actually did this at our neighborhood elementary school.  They started hosting preschool nights once a month and the October one was with the art teacher who had these tree projects ready to paint along with dobbers and clothes pins with sponges to help paint the leaves.

Have an indoor picnic on a stormy day-- We had plenty of stormy days in October.  One Saturday we had a picnic snack while Cooper watched some football.

Jump in puddles-- There are definitely lots of stops to splash and jump in puddles on most of our walks.

Make a Halloween or Thanksgiving card to send to Grandparents-- We made a few of our apple art projects into cards to send out with a picture of Cooper's trip to the pumpkin patch and his Halloween costume.

Paint a pumpkin-- This one was definitely a hit!

And a few things not on the list that we enjoyed this Fall:

Baking pumpkin muffins-- We have loved Cooper's learning tower and he has been able to be by my side to make lots of muffins and smoothies this Fall

Dyeing rice for sensory play-- because a little color makes it more festive!

Sensory bins-- I posted about some of our Fall sensory bins.  It was a fun way to explore different materials.

Halloween Pajamas

A trip to the State Fair

A morning at the zoo

Playing at the mall's indoor playplace on a rainy day.

A college football game

Celebrate Halloween

Family walks and hikes in the beautiful weather

A trip to the Dallas Arboretum

Our Thankfulness Tree

It was a fun Fall with my little sidekick!  Looking forward to Thanksgiving this week and then starting the Christmas season.