2 Day Christmas Whirlwind

This year, our Christmas was a little less than traditional. The biggest tradition broken was that Santa came the day after Christmas because daddy had to work on Christmas. However, with a one and a half and a two and a half year old who would really know the difference.

 

Saddest Carousel Ride EVER

I was thinking about not blogging about this experience, but decided that Ryenn looks too sad but cute to not share. After visiting Santa on Friday, Nolan wanted to do nothing more than to ride the carousel.

Visiting Santa: Take 2

When we went to Robinettes two weeks ago, I blamed the lack of a nap for the uncooperative kids we had that day. Both were a bit uneasy to sit with Santa. Well,we went to Rivertown to try again. And it got worse!

Pumpkin Patch with My Pumpkins

Sometimes the best things in life are watching your children explore new things. This is exactly what happened when the kids went to the pumpkin patch.

The Tigers and the World Series

For anyone who doesn't know, our family are avid Tigers fans. My husband is literally obsessed with baseball, especially Tigers Baseball. So much so that we are planning a vow renewal ceremony for our 5 year anniversary that will have a heavy Tigers influence and our kids' names are Nolan and Ryenn (I was tricked with Nolan's name after I said no professional athletes, but then couldn't get the name Ryenn out of my head for our little miss). But right now, we are only concerned with the Tigers winning the World Series.

Randoms of Minnesota

Although the two main places we went were the Minnesota State Fair and the Mall of America, we also visited other places. We had two girls night; Wednesday when we first arrived and the following night. Martha, our amazing and gracious hostess, took us out to Salut Bar Americain on Wednesday night. It was a french style bar. We sat on the patio because it was amazing outside. Martha and Susan, my mother-in-law, got Smokin' Cosmos. They were so neat! Allyson got, what she calls, an old man's drink (something with whiskey). I got what was called a Pool Boy. Of course this ended up as the joke of the night.

Mall of America

On our second full day in Minnesota, we did some shopping. We started the day with a feast at IKEA for under $10 for 6 people (that's including 2 babies)! Where can you go for that little of an amount?!


IKEA Feast

After eating we shopped for a bit in IKEA. We got some things for the house (Tupperware, knives, cutting board, etc. ) and a play rug for the kids. It's a road rug where the kids can drive their cars on the fake roads (already a huge hit). We also found a few dressers we really loved for our bedroom. We were unsure of what size would be best, so we decided to wait.

Sunny Sunday

Family fun days are the best. We went to the park today and the babies loved every second of it (Nolan actually threw a fit when we had to leave). My mother-in-law and Allyson called earlier in the morning to see what our plan was. They then asked if we all wanted to meet at the park for Nolan and Ryenn to play. So after nap time, we all headed to the park. Ryenn kept trying to dig in the wood chips and eat them. Nolan kept hiding in the bushes. They went on the swings, the slides, and just ran around. It was so nice to get out of the house on such a great day!

 

Birthday Shirt

When I was putting together Nolan's birthday party, I was very particular on the theme. Everything, and I mean everything, had to be cars related. I decided that instead of spending a ton of money for someone else to make him his birthday shirt, I would enlist some help from my mother-in-law. She is great with a sewing machine and knew she could accomplish what I wanted.

Hard at work!

Summer is not the right time to knit blankets!

The past few weeks have been insanely busy. I have had to plan a baptism/luncheon, Nolan's 2nd birthday party, homework, babysitting, household chores, a new product for a store in Texas, and Ryenn's birthday party this coming Saturday. With all of that on my plate, it feels so nice to finish up some of my outstanding projects.

This blanket was quite a test of my patience. My goal was to have it done by Christmas. Not this coming Chirstmas. Yes, this past Christmas. I missed the mark by just a little bit.

My mother-in-law is a very wonderful woman. She was patient and very forgiving on the fact that she only got half of her gift this past Christmas (I'm just happy I had SOMETHING finished). She kept telling me that a great gift thats late is better than a mediocre gift on time. This made me feel better. I was also getting bored with the concept of this blanket, seeing as it was the 3rd of its kind that I have knit.

Nonetheless, I trucked through it. It just happened to be during the hottest part of the summer this far. I am lucky to have air conditioning, otherwise this blanket would be taking up a ton of room in my overflowing knitting bag.

I knit this blanket square by square in my mother-in-law's choice of colors. She told me she liked greens and browns. I did take this into consideration and choose somepretty great colors. I chose a really deep forest green as the stand out color. This did exactly what I wanted it to. I finished the border this week using a blue that was the same as the blue that was in the varigated yarn and the deep forest green. It turned out fantastic, much better than I ever imagined. I am glad to say that she will be receiveing her Christmas gift this week!

Nolan is 2!

At times it feels like just yesterday I was pregnant and counting down the days to Nolan's birth. And at others, I can't imagine my life before I became a mother. It's unbelievable that 2 years ago, on June 15th, I was rushing into the hospital to deliver my first child. I was anxious, nervous, scared, yet prepared. I know that everyone who has been pregnant wishes they could fast forward through the last few weeks of pregnancy (that's when I REALLY popped). I wasn't due for another week, so I felt lucky that I could be meeting my son that day. I was also unsure if I was actually in labor. Nonetheless, I was admitted into labor and delivery. This was the real thing! I felt like this was no big deal and that I could handle this. Then it got painful! I experienced the most excruciating pain for a short hour, before I got my epidural, but it felt like an eternity. My labor was 8 hours in total, with only an hour of pushing. Nolan Myles was born on June 16, 2012 at 4:11am weighing 7lbs 14oz. He was absolutely perfect.

It's amazing to think that my bouncing baby boy is now a rambunctious busy toddler. It's hard to process this information. I have been a mom for two years! We celebrated this past weekend the 2nd birthday of our baby boy! We invited his friends, our friends, and family and celebrated his birthday at our house. We celebrated his 2nd birthday in style. He is obsessed with Cars 2, particularly Mater. We have a dozen Mater cars kicking around our house. Even one he can ride on. As you can probably guess, we chose a Cars themed birthday! He was geeked! Everything was racing, Cars, and red/black/white. It was so fun. He had so many people come and help celebrate and got so many great things!Just a warning, this blog post is a picture frenzy (thanks to the help of Allyson, Adam, and Angie)!

I made this yard sign!

Also made the bunting and sign here (bunting was cut by Allyson and my mother-in-law)

Garage set-up

bunting and gifts

Stoplight rice krispies

Racing trifle

Oil dipsticks and spare tires

Tableware

Nolan in his car

Handmade shirt by my mother-in-law

Allyson and Khloe

Scarlet

Noland and I opening his gifts

Kali drawing

Ryenn and Uncle Matthew

Mom, Jessi, Lily, Blake, and Tiffany

Rebecca and my mother-in-law, Susan

Ryenn in the skirt I made her

Khloe

Cake made by my mother-in-law

Nolan's smash cake!

Khloe blowing bubbles

Eating cake off of his cars

Loving his cake cars

Everyone watching Nolan open his gifts! Thanks daddy for the panaorama picture -love, Nolan!