Halloween 2012

My mother-in-law kept all of the Halloween costumes she had made for Shawn when he was that little and this year Oliver was supposed to be a mouse. I had tried getting Oliver into it to accustom him to wearing a costume but really only ever got the ears on him without him pulling it off or throwing a tantrum. So, Tuesday night, the night before Halloween, I fought him to put him in the mouse costume only to find that it didn't fit him. Now Shawn and Oliver's birthdays are only 7 days apart so I thought they'd be the same size for the 2 year costume but nope- Oliver is longer from shoulder to butt. Thank goodness she has all the costumes because Oliver then had to be the skunk, Shawn's 3 year old costume.    

So the night before I still needed something for him to wear to the daycare Halloween party so I scrounged around the house looking for things and even went to my parents house and got the pumpkin outfit my sister and I had worn and tried it on him. He again wanted nothing to do with a putting it on. Mom and I then made a toddler tool belt I had found on Pinterest http://pinterest.com/pin/103934703870441482/ thinking he could be a construction worker. He wouldn't put that on either. We also had an apron at home that he refused to put on too. I was thinking that my son was just going trick or treating as a toddler by the way things were going. It was PJ day at Daycare anyway so we through on some Mickey Mouse PJ's yesterday morning and sent the Mickey hands that I knew he didn't mind wearing and told Julie to see if she could get him into something.

Well it took Grandma Shirley last night to put him in it but he was an adorable little skunk.

He kept looking behind him to make sure his tail was following him and I really do think that this tail is the only reason he put the costume on. Oh and the fact that he could go outside by wearing it.  

It fit Oliver perfectly. He went door to door telling everyone "Halloween" (he'd forget the happy part) and "thank you." He caught on fast about how this goes and that he can just reach into the bowl and grab a handful of candy. He came home with a lot of goodies- fruit snacks, crackers and cheese, animal crackers and of course some chocolate!

All of the loot 

I had soup in the crockpot to eat when we came home which warmed us right up and of course candy for dessert. 

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkins

We carved our pumpkin on Sunday that we had gotten from my parents.This is what it started out looking like- sort of lopsided on the bottom so it didn't sit very flat.

 Shawn cut the top off for us with the saw

Oliver and I scooped the "guts" out of it. 

After that Oliver went off and played with his shovel in the garage flinging gravel/dirt all over himself and Shawn and I. This is the pumpkin after I had cut the face out. 

Here is a blurry picture of our pumpkins. Oliver had carved the one on the left about a week ago at Chuck and Shirley's house. It is blurry because right after I snapped this picture, the pumpkin we had just carved on the right side fell and broke into pieces on the porch. Let's hope pumpkin comes out of the carpet. 

Here are the other pumpkins Oliver carved with his Grandparents 

Never fear, my parents had more pumpkins to carve. This time I did it alone though. FYI, there wasn't a candle in the one that fell either, just a LED light thank-goodness. 

Mickey Hands

Oliver's case manager/coordinator came over last week for a visit to inform me on how he will transition out of Early Access and working with AEA to the next step. I update her about 1-2 times a month via email besides the home visits a couple times a year about how he is doing developmentally and physically along with what he's up to now so she knows that he LOVES Mickey Mouse. 

So she brought Oliver these! 

I don't think he understood that they were Mickey's hands, I think he didn't know what to think they were. They were a big hit though and he loved giving high 5's even though they would fall off everytime we would give him 5. 

Leaves

 We saw Papa out raking leaves so we thought we'd go make more of a mess for him and let Oliver experience a favorite childhood pastime of jumping into them. Well, Oliver didn't so much enjoy the jumping into them. I sat him down into the leaves and he started crying and wouldn't touch them. 

He did a little better with walking through them after Mommy showed him how to do it but he was still hesitant. 

Notice the band-aid on his finger, I had just put Neosporin on it and and a band-aid so we had to distract him by outside playing. He kept guarding it though and wouldn't even use his left hand he just held that little finger out. All was better with it once the band-aid was taken off.  

He still didn't like sitting in them. Guess it is just like grass and snow was for him the first time he played in those too. 

Apples

Today Oliver and I went with my parents to Gays Mills, Wisconsin. I hadn't been there for 6 years since the day Shawn and I got engaged but it used to be a yearly tradition with my parents when I was a child. 

After the scenic drive of beautiful SW Wisconsin and the changing colors of the leaves, and all the cows and tractors Oliver pointed out to us we arrived at Sunrise Orchard. It was truly a Fall day for the first day of Fall with temps in the low 40's. I should have dressed him in a winter jacket but it is too early for this bitter cold and I am resisting the cold setting in already.

Hello!

 He was more excited about the crab apples on the ground than standing in front of the ruler.

When we walked in, Oliver's eyes lit up with all the apples. He had to go touch them, thankfully he didn't throw them like he does at home. 

His favorite part at the Orchards was tasting the apple cider or "juice" as he called it.  

We stopped at a few more Orchards looking for some delicious apple cider donuts that I remember when I was a child but things have really gone up in price since even 6 years ago. We did find some yummy donuts at the last stop. Besides apples we got some apple cider, onions, squash, and a caramel apple for Shawn. 

It was a fun morning and hopefully will be a tradition for Oliver too. 

Goodbye night night

We are officially finished with "night nights!!!" I should clarify that "night night" is what Oliver called his pacifier. We had planned on getting rid of it before his 2nd birthday and we were just a little late but I needed a few days off work to accomplish this. 

The first day was nap time and he screamed for 25 minutes straight without it and was so worked up he vomited. So, I gave in and gave it back to him. It took about another 30 minutes to get him calmed down after that before he fell asleep with his pacifier. I took that time to research on the internet what other parents had done to get rid of it. A lot of the mom's took it to Build A Bear and stuffed it into a bear. Well, we don't live close to one of those so the other popular answer was to cut the tip of the pacifier off. So that is what I did. That night for bedtime he put it in his mouth and took it out handing it to me and said "it break." To that we said "oh yes it did break we better throw it away." Well we didn't throw it away in case he forgot that it was broken.  That night was about 10 minutes of screaming that it was broken until he fell asleep with it laying right beside him in bed. 

He's had 3 nights and naps now without it and hopefully I can say it is gone forever! He just needs a little reminding that it is broken when he asks for it but doesn't scream anymore. We've gotten rid of all of them even the "broken" one now. I'd say that this method was successful for us. 

Strawberry Yogurt Popsicles

Since the weather turned hot again, or maybe I should just say that we were spoiled by cooler temps for a few days, it was time to make popsicles. Strawberry yogurt popsicles that is. 

You may know that I am Cara Lea but I am no Sara Lee so cooking/baking isn't my thing.  This is a simple recipe, and easy for me to follow. These are the ingredients: frozen strawberries, strawberry yogurt, and popsicle containers with lids.  

First take your strawberries with a splash of water and cook over low heat and mash them up a bit. The recipe said to use a immersion blender but I don't have one of those but I do have a potato masher and that worked fine. 

Next with your adorable helper mix the yogurt and strawberries together 

Fill the popsicle containers, apply lids, and freeze. See, not very hard to follow. No special measuring or anything just whatever you think will fill up all 4 areas. The left overs aren't too bad either after a bit of refrigeration. The hardest part was waiting for them to freeze. 

But it was worth the wait!