Christmas

One of my memories from my childhood is going to look at lights. It usually happened when we went to visit my grandparents out in Iowa. Everyone would pile into one car and we would drive around the small town of Boone Iowa looking at all the lights. There were some nice houses but after awhile it got too warm and our little drive got too long and I would become bored and ready to go back to Grandma and Grandpa's house. I have thought about taking drives with Davy to go look at lights, but in the previous years he hasn't been all that interested.

This year however things are changing. Wednesday night we went over to visit my parents, they were setting up their tree and wanted us to come over to help. After helping and then socializing for a bit we got ready to go home. Nana took Davy outside and walked down the sidewalk with him a bit to look at the neighbor's lights, Nana hasn't had a chance to get her lights up yet. Once we got everyone in the car and took off all Davy could talk about was the lights and the colors and how it was all "so pretty". So I decided to drive us around a bit before going home. We drove through my parent's subdivision and there were some pretty houses. Then I started on home. Davy was happy as long as there were lights to look at, but as we drove through town the houses got sparse and the businesses became more frequent. He was a bit upset by this by the time we got to our street. So I decided to explore our neighborhood a bit before going home. I drove down a few streets and then down one I saw a house that was flashing and bright. So I drove down the street and discovered it was a house with dancing lights. Dancing lights (as I like to call them) is where the homeowner has set up the lights on their house to flash or dance to songs. They usually have everything set to broadcast the songs to a radio station, so you pull up in front of their house, tune your radio to the station they have posted in their front yard and then watch the lights dance to the music. I don't remember how long we sat and watched and listened but Davy LOVED it! I foresee more light viewing drives in our future.

On Thursday we set up the tree. Davy helped us to decorate it, and now keeps trying to take ornaments off the tree. We have tried to erect a barrier around the tree, but it doesn't deter him much. He is excited by it all though. I have made a few paper ornaments this year, which are currently on the tree but may end up hanging from the ceiling. We will see.

Valentines and growing babies

Today is Valentines day, and for the first time Davy is old enough for it to be fun. So yesterday I made a few heart shaped cards and supervised Davy while he colored them. He decorated them with scribbles, quite a few letters and numbers as well as some smilie faces. After he went to bed I finished the decorations by making a snowflake heart to stick on the front and also wrote a little message to the person/people the card was for. We made two cards, one for Daddy and one for Nana and Grandpapa (my mom and dad). Today we delivered the cards to them. Davy gave Daddy his card, and then later in the day we visited Nana and Grandpapa and Davy was able to give them their card. He even signed each card, granted the letters weren't all in a line or even necessarily close to each other but the letters DAVY were all on the card in some place. For a Valentines present from Nana and Grandpapa, Davy got some magnetic numbers, which he loved. All in all it has been a fun day. Kevin got me flowers and some chocolates which I shared with Davy and Kevin, they were Lindt petite desserts which are chocolates designed to taste like popular desserts. The other part of his present to me will come later this year, I asked him to take me to the Japanese gardens up in Rockford at some point later this year.

For his present I am going to take him out to eat up in Rockford on Monday, it will be our first date since we had the baby. And our first date so far this year. Needless to say we are looking forward to it. I have saved up some frozen milk for my parents in preparation for babysitting.

In other news Evangeline has been spitting up a lot lately. So I took her to the doctor, he suggested that I eat less dairy for a week and see how things went. So I stopped eating dairy and she began to throw up more. So I said "to heck with it all" and went back to eating dairy and she is not throwing up as much anymore. Crazy. While at the doctor I found out her weight, she is now 7 lbs 5 oz, which is less than what Davy was when he was born. She will be two months old next Tuesday. It seems pretty crazy that she is still so tiny. She is just beginning to grow out of her Newborn clothes.  

Halloween

Today was Halloween! And Davy had a full day. It started around noon, we went over to Nana and Grandpa's house where we met up with Davy's cousin's Sydney and Payton. We had a Halloween themed lunch with bat wings and goblin snot (tortilla chips and guac), sloppy joes (I can't remember what my parent's called them) and lots of cute treats. Then Nana played some Halloween games with Davy and Sydney, Payton watched but was too young to participate yet (next year), she told them a story where they had to feel things in buckets during parts of the story, and had them play pumpkin buckets (like bozo buckets but with pumpkins). Then we all went down town and trick or treated at the local businesses and at the nursing home. After that we went back to Nana and Grandpa's and had a Halloween themed dinner, with Ogre toes (fingerling potatos), Witches Brew (punch), Zombie fingers (cocktail sausages in sauce), and Halloweenies (hot dogs rolled up into croissants to look like mummies). After dinner we all went trick or treating around the neighborhood. Davy ran with Daddy from door to door and was able to hit quite a few houses that way. Halfway through he ran out of gas, and thankfully Mommy brought a stroller so he relaxed in the stroller while Mommy and Daddy took him to the remaining houses on our route. We put him to bed an hour early and he pretty much fell right to sleep without a peep. Below are some pictures of him in his fox costume, and a picture of me in the pregnant skeleton costume I made for myself.

Costume time!

So this year I have been wracking my brain as to what to make for Davy's Halloween costume. Last year as some may remember he was a Viking, complete with horned hat and beard. This year I was really trying to figure out what to make him. At first I thought maybe a jaguar, since he likes Diego, but my plan was to make it out of a sweat suit, but I couldn't find any sweat suits in his size that were the color I needed. So I thought that maybe I could make him a dinosaur costume out of a sweat suit, because surely I could find a green sweat suit. Nope, that was a no go too. As I was looking around the internet for some ideas, I came across a cute pattern for making a fox costume. Though I am an amateur sewer at best, having just started sewing last year I thought that this might be a hefty undertaking for me. But I was able to get it done, in just three days and less than what it would have cost to buy a pre-made costume for him. Here are some pictures of the cuteness that is a Davy fox.