Trip to meet baby Abigail

My best friend Sabrina had her 3rd baby on October 29th so I packed up my kiddos and we headed over to meet baby Abigail.  Amelia was just in love- she wanted to hold baby Abigail all the time!  She also loved playing with Leah (4yrs old) and Andrew (2yrs old).  Amelia and Leah both love princesses so we had lots of little princess outfits and crowns all over the house! Baby Abigail is so sweet- she is already sleeping great and eating good too!  We also got in a fun photo shoot of Abigail- she did great sleeping through the whole thing!  There was only one position she didn't like so we just moved after a couple of attempts.  I wish I knew more about photography so I could of gotten better pictures but I think we got some really cute ones considering we are not professionals!

Amelia held Abigail for long periods of time (I'm talking like 10 minutes). I kept asking if she was all done and she would so "no, I not all done". 

Leah and Amelia kissing baby Abigail

Since Sabrina lives close to my parents we stopped by and spent a day with them. My brother also made a trip to see us and meet Luke for the first time.

Uncle Will with the kids

Grandma and Grandpa with the kids

Grandpa taught Luke how to stick out his tongue

Back to Sabrina's- we took the kids to the park;  Sabrina's husband got stuck, I mean had fun pushing the girls on the swings for awhile

Amelia would seriously swing all day if someone would stand there and push her

The kids did great on the trip- Leah and Andrew now share a room so we tried it out with Amelia and Luke sleeping all in the same room.  It worked out great!  They all would wake up at the same time but that wasn't too bad.  Amelia had a rough first night trying to get to sleep- she was not staying in her bed. So the next nights we just put them all to bed extra early to make up for the time we knew they would talk and play a little. 

jumping in the leaves- well not jumping so much

yup- he's teething. . . top two teeth are coming in :(

2 1/2 yrs old

We update a lot about Luke and what he is doing so I wanted to just document some of the awesome accomplishments and funny little things I always want to remember about Amelia at this age.

Can say the alphabet; knows the sounds of all the letters
Can recognize most of the capital letters
Can count up to 13

Very independent- likes to pick out her own clothes and do things by herself

Starting to figure out days of the week-like what we do on certain days (Sunday-church, Wednesday- Cubbies and Puggles, Friday-lunch with Daddy) as well as the order of the days (like Friday then Saturday).

Can get dressed and undressed completely by herself (most of the time- struggles some with socks and long sleeve shirts)
Is completely potty trained- (she still wears night time pull-up)

LOVES:
-singing
-princess anything
-playing dress-up in princess dresses AND shoes
-playing with baby dolls and accessories (strollers, blankets, etc)
-books
-playing outside in her playhouse- with baby dolls
-Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
-her movies: Cedarmont Kids- Silly Songs, Toddler Tunes, and Bible Songs; and Leap Frog Letter Factory
-dancing with Daddy (in her princess dress of course, standing on Daddy's feet)

Very stubborn- the terrible part of Two reared it's ugly head around August where everything was "NO" and "I DON'T WANT"; Bed time became an issue and then once that was under control again nap time became an issue;  sometimes eating dinner is still an issue- she typically takes about 1 hour to eat dinner!

Sweet and Funny Amelia-isms (funny sayings):
automatic toilets in bathrooms are: auto-magic
elevator- alligator
flashlights- shoe flies
she will say "Say Mommy, I all done sweeping" which means "Mommy, I'm all done sleeping."

Fall Festival and Trick-Or-Treat

Our church puts on a huge Fall Festival every year and this year we volunteered with our small group to work a booth.  We ended up getting to the Fall Festival right when it was our time to serve but it worked out great.  That gave Amelia time to take everything in and when we started going around to all the games she was ready!

the cutest little Minnie Mouse and most adorable Mickey Mouse Ever!

it was so cold that night I went out and bought some girls thermal underwear for Amelia to wear- the smallest I could find was big on her but at least she stayed nice and warm and we didn't have to cover up her costume :)

Luke was well layered up under his costume

on Halloween night- we meet up with some friends of ours and went trick-or-treating in a nice neighborhood near their house.  This wagon came in very handy as the kids got tired of walking and carrying their buckets.

oh my goodness- this is just the most adorable little Mickey Mouse ever! (9 months old)

Luke kept sliding down in the wagon so we just let him sorta lay in the bottom- he loves watching the kids run by and was happy as can be for quite a while

our trick-or-treat gang

Mickey and Minnie Mouse- Halloween 2012

Pumpkin Carving

I had such a fun picture in my head of how we would do our pumpkin carving this year.  You know . . the kids would be helping pull out all the guts. We would make Amelia's favorite pumpkin sugar cookies and then take fun pictures with our pumpkins.  Well . . . it didn't work out that way.  The terrible part of being two reared it's ugly head at nap-time!  So no nap just fueled the terrible two and dinner was a complete disaster.  We were supposed to carve pumpkins right after- I'm trying to use my best cheery voice to make things happy happy and it was just rough.  I'm not going to lie- we have pictures . . . and Luke had fun . . . but poor Amelia. It was just a rough night for her.  Luckily by the end of it she had cheered up a bit.  As the Thomas family motto seems to go- we made a memory.

sweet Luke- happy as can be

ready to carve pumpkins

just a few feet away- at the table with a plate full of food almost an hour after we started dinner

she is NOT a happy girl

Daddy calmed her down and talked her into helping him scoop out the guts

"hold me"- he was tired and wanted to snuggle- how can you deny this sweet face?!

ohh not again . . . can't remember what the drama was about this time

while Mommy cleaned up Daddy got the kids ready for bed- Amelia came back down in a much better mood

Amelia liked the Minnie Mouse pumpkin I made for her

Luke with the silly face pumpkin that Daddy carved

Amelia and Mommy with our Minnie mouse pumpkin (and yes- Mommy has a new hair-do)

Old McDonald's Farm

The last weekend in October our small group from church went as a group to Old McDonald's Farm.  This place has lots of fun fall activities: hayride, pumpkin patch, corn crib, corn maze, animals, and a huge slide out of a barn!  We enjoyed getting to spend time with other families from our small group.

They were both unsure about the corn crib at first . . . took them several minutes to warm up to the idea and then Amelia didn't want to get out!

lounging in the corn

Amelia's first trip down the slide was a bit scary

so the next time Daddy went with her- after that she wanted to do it by  herself . . and she did . . like 100 times!

Luke wasn't too sure at first- look at his little hands stuck out

Amelia kept saying "I swide (slide) again!"

this time Luke went with Daddy and he wasn't soo scared

in addition to hayride out to pumpkin patch they had a ride where the kids got to sit in saddles

would of been a nice picture except guy taking it didn't tell me I was half hidden behind Amelia- oh well

little cowgirl

little cowboy

we also took some time to play in the leaves- I tried showing Amelia how to jump in them but she didn't seem to get it- she just wanted to run around

They had these awesome inflatable horses- Dan and Amelia had a blast

Luke even took a turn with Daddy

Amelia wanted to jump on this little on by herself but she just wasn't quite big enough grab the handle and understand how to make it jump with her legs

so Daddy took her out again and showed her how to get some air

then we took the hayride out to the pumpkin patch- at this place each person could get one small pumpkin for free

we had to walk quite a ways down the pumpkin patch to find any small ones left . . . but we found some

Amelia picked out her own pumpkin

she tried carrying it back to the hayride but it was pretty long way

so Daddy carried the pumpkins- pretty neat to be picking pumpkins out of the patch right in the mountains

Luke fell fast asleep

Daddy loves getting pictures on the tractors

my favorite :)

more playing in the leaves

Amelia was so wiped out that she cried all the way out to the car as we were leaving.  So we gave her a snack and headed for home.  She barely finished her snack and I turned around to find her completely passed out!

We will definitely be visiting Old McDonald's Farm again next year!