'Tis the season

'Tis the season for family, lights, peppermint, cozy fires, snow and giving to others. As much as I appreciate the Thanksgiving holiday, I'm one of those people who just can't wait to get out the Christmas decorations (and keep them up for as long as possible). There's something so inviting and cozy about a decorated tree and mantel. Just the sight brings about many wonderful memories of holiday seasons past, my childhood, my early adulthood, etc. While I am all about traditions and I love the many traditions we had growing up, 'tis the time for creating new traditions and memories with our own little family. Here is a peak at some of them :-)

Trimming the tree: As I mentioned, I'm one of the crazy people who like to put the tree up before Thanksgiving. I've hosted Thanksgiving (and not Christmas) the past two years so it was a way to share it with guests.  So what if it was the wrong holiday. This year was extra special as Lilly got to help hang some ornaments...the unbreakable one's which are conveniently all located on the bottom three feet of the tree.

Adopt a family: I forgot to take a picture of Lill helping pick out some toys on our shopping excursion and the finished wrapped products. But, this is a tradition that Corey and I started as soon as we were a family of two. Lill now participates in the shopping and wrapping and little man will join us next year!

Breakfast with Santa: Many of the schools and churches around here hold fundraisers with breakfast, pictures with Santa, crafts, etc. We joined Kyle and Meredith and her family of their annual tradition. Corey used to do this growing up and we plan to make this an annual thing.

Kisses

Breakfast with Santa meant no morning nap...

Our no-meat eater loved the sausage more than
the pancakes. Go figure

Checking out one of the ornaments she made

Zoo Lights: We always used to enjoy the Lincoln Park Zoo lights with my parents when we lived in Chicago. This year we decided to check out the St. Louis zoo's version. Lill enjoyed checking out all the beautiful lights and kept asking for "more"

And then there is the ever popular visit with Santa: Better luck next year, folks!

Food Wars

Anyone who has had a toddler knows what food wars are. The inevitable battle over food; either what they eat, how much they eat, or how they eat. Or, if you're really lucky, a wonderful combination of all of the above. I always said I'd do anything I could to ensure my kids weren't 'picky eaters'. HA. Easier said than done. Just one of the many parenting lessons I've learned and look back on my pre-parenting self and laugh. Supposedly the French know what they're doing.  They're kids come out of the womb eating caviar, fancy cheese and "whatever mom and dad are eating".

I will say that Lill is actually a pretty good eater in that she's not horribly picky and has eaten (and enjoyed) things I probably didn't eat until I was in my 20's. That being said, she would eat fruit ALL. DAY. LONG.  Yes, fruit is good for you but you can't live on fruit alone. You also don't want to be the one on the receiving end of the dirty diaper of a fruit eater. She also loves snack food or, NACK, as she so fondly likes to refer to anything that comes out of our pantry. 

When the food wars begin, you find yourself getting creative and sneaky, coming up with ways to get veggies and extra nutrients into your toddler with a mind of their own. And so, here are two of our tips:

1) "Ice Cream" - what adults would call green smoothies. Spinach, avocado, plain yogurt, chia seeds and whatever fruit you choose...blend it all up and you have an afternoon snack that Lill can't get enough of.  We call it "ice cream" and she looks forward to helping Mom make it when she wakes up from her afternoon nap.  We get out the blender, she helps carry all the ingredients over to the counter and helps put all the ingredients in the blender. We then pour it into a fun cup with a straw and sit down to watch some Minnie Mouse while enjoying our delicious (and secretly healthy) treat.  Genius.

2) "Cheers" - I can't take credit for this one.  This is all Corey. We recently taught Lilly how to 'cheers' with her drink.  She thinks it's the greatest thing and will do it over and over.  She'll even cheers the wall or her chair. Whatever floats her boat!  Anyways, Corey got creative one night during the usual battle to get Lill to eat her dinner. Pick up a piece of food and tell Lill to cheers.  She proceeds to pick up a piece of your choosing, 'cheers' your food and then throw it in her mouth. Works like a charm. So far, every time!  

Enjoying our 'ice cream'

Oh, another trick is hummus.  She'll basically eat anything, so long as it can be dipped in hummus.  Or guacamole.

 

Good ol' Chicago

A few weekends ago we booked a last minute trip to Chicago. Corey had a meeting in our Chicago office on Monday so we decided to drive up Saturday morning and spend the weekend. We figured it might be our last chance for a visit for awhile realizing that traveling with two under two might defer 'just because' trips for the foreseeable future. Luckily my parents weren't yet sick of their travel schedule and made the last minute decision to drive and meet us. This trip we really got the Chicago feel...staying in a high-rise condo in the heart of downtown (Streeterville to be exact). Luckily Lill had gotten over her slight fear of elevators and, instead, loved riding them, waiting to see the light 'ding' and pressing every and any button that we would let her :-) While the trips are always too quick, we managed to get in some quality time with dear friends, with some of their kiddos, and with Grandma and Grandpa.  Sunday included a visit to Macy's State Street, meeting Santa and lunch at the Walnut Room under the big Christmas tree (a bit of a Ferrier gals tradition). Yet another wonderful visit to our favorite city.

Lill checking out the view of downtown and Lake Michigan

My college friend, Shelley, and her adorable son Valentine. (Not pictured: Shelby and her daughter Ella)

Visiting Santa and lunch at the Walnut Room

The Halloween (costume) that almost wasn't

Leading up to Halloween, the big question was "what is Lilly going to be for Halloween!?" We had no idea.  She doesn't have an opinion yet, or at least she's not able to vocalize it. She doesn't necessarily LOVE anything so much that we know "that's it!" Well, except for maybe Minnie but her cousin was already being that lovable mouse. Not to mention, costumes are not cheap for something they might where one night and potentially only for an hour, or a few minutes if you're lucky. As we got closer, Lilly was learning her animal sounds and the lion was one of her first and our favorites.  Something about a little toddler roar that just melts mama and dada's hearts. "That's it, she'll be a lion.  How cute will that be?!" Corey took it upon himself to order a couple off of Amazon such that we could try on for size and comfort. We ended up with a very soft one that was ridiculously cute. The good news? Lilly loved the softness and wanted to snuggle with it.  The bad news? Snuggling was as far as she wanted to go with it.

You see, Miss Thang has started becoming a little person, with a little personality and a little opinion and she decided early on that she was NOT going to put that bodysuit on without a fight and a lot of tears.  While we might get her into the body, she'd keep the head on just long enough for her to be able to rip it off.

Corey was optimistic. Every day we'd talk about Halloween and she would go get her lion costume every time when we asked her what she was going to be.  Would she allow us to put it on, though? No way, Jose. As Halloween neared I basically accepted the fact that we would be lucky to get her in it long enough to get one photo and then she'd just wear a normal shirt (with Halloween decal, of course) the rest of the night. Until I realized, we just need to get her a costume she doesn't realize is a costume and just thinks are normal clothes.

Thursday, November 30th was operation: get creative.  Thanks to a little Pinterest search for DIY toddler costumes and my recollection of a lone black leotard in Lilly's size at the local children's resale shop and, wallah!  Lilly's 80s workout girl costume was born. We had all but the leotard and a plain colored tshirt to cut up so a couple quick errands and some handy dandy scissors (I'm not THAT creative. Anything beyond just needing to cut and you're probably outside my DIY abilities). I'm happy to report that the costume was a hit and Lilly wore it the entire night. The nearly costume-less Halloween was a success!!

We headed over to Corey's aunt and uncle's for the annual family Halloween party. We then came back here to catch a few trick-or-treaters (wave bye to them, in Lilly's case) and put Lill down for the night. As expected, she passed out as a result of all the fun and probably crashing from the sugar high.

Lill and cousin, Gracie

MawMaw and her kiddos

Taylor loves Uncle Cor Cor

Cousins and their kiddos

Mommy and Me

This past weekend Corey had a bachelor party for his buddy, Chris (a.k.a. Bass who was a groomsman in our wedding), down at Noah's Ark.  Ok, it's called Lake of the Ozarks but Carly and I have always preferred and enjoyed calling it Noah's Ark :-)  Anyways, I figured it was going to be just us gals at home for the weekend and that we might as well make an adventure out of it and head back to Michigan to see family and friends. Given that we won't be back in Michigan for the holidays and then won't be traveling anytime soon after Baby Boy is born, it seemed that a trip back 'home' was definitely in order. It also happened to be my cousin, Michael (Topper) and his wife, Gailin's, baby shower weekend.  An opportunity to see nearly all of my family (the females at least) under one roof? Couldn't pass that up!

In an effort to make the trip more financially reasonable, I took the route of a 'lap baby'.  For those that aren't aware, children under the age of 2 are able to travel for free. The catch? They share a seat with you and sit on your lap.  Unless of course you're lucky enough to be on an empty flight (do those exist anymore?!) or, in our case, happen to have a flight with one empty seat that magically falls next to you thanks to Southwest's approach to seating.  "Take an empty middle seat next to this lady and her small child or go back a few rows and take the middle seat that doesn't have a wiggly toddler adjacent to it?" We'd all be lying if we said we'd take the one next to the child. As the mother of said child, I'm happy that she scared them away. All in all, Lill was very good on the flight. Between some milk, snacks and a few new books, the hour and 15 minute flight went by much quicker than expected.

The 54 or so hours that we had at home were spent playing 'kitchen' with Grandma and Grandpa, visiting with family, including Great Grandma Lill,  meeting some of G&G's bowling friends, celebrating Baby Topper and going to the cider mill (yes, cider and donuts!!!!) with friends.  Mommy also enjoyed some girl time with friends and a little 'me' time getting a mani and pedi.

The trip was short but oh-so-sweet. It's hard to imagine that we won't be back for 5 months.  However, given all that will be happen between now and then, I have a feeling it'll be here before we know it!

The flight home went well too.  I ended up asking the flight attendants if we could move to the very last row which happened to be empty.  Lucky for me, Lill used her charm to woo said flight attendants which made for another quick and easy flight.

We survived our first flight just the two of us!

Great Grandma's first selfie!

Kinsley and Lill checking out Baby Topper's toys

Her first cupcake (s) and she LOVED them

Managed to find a spot waaaay back in the middle of all the gifts

Lill (16 mo), Ashliegh (23 mo), Cameron (4.5 years)

Baby Bruno and Baby Topper both due to arrive in January!

Mama's and Grandma's

Halloween goodies with Grandma

We survived the flight home thanks to empty back rows and baby-friendly flight attendants!

Mission Accomplished

Each fall since I moved from Michigan (yes, even back in Chicago), I've longed for an apple orchard experience like we knew back in Michigan. Apples, cider and cider donuts. For some reason, Chicagoans, Illinoisans (I may have made that word up) and St. Louisans didn't get the memo about the deliciousness that is a fresh cider donut dipped in a glass of apple cider on a crisp fall day. Thanks to my STL facebook mom's group for the insider info about a little family owned farm, a little further down the road from the bigger, well known, circus...I mean, 'farm' that everyone knows and goes to. The most important detail was that this farm had a little bakery with "the most amazing apple cider donuts". Count me IN! 

Corey thought I was a little crazy when we got in the car and his GPS said 40+ minutes. "Is this the closest one?" "No, but it's the only one with cider donuts" He knows how much these fall activities mean to me so he followed the directions, which led us right past the 'circus', down some dirt roads and to the cutest little farm. Friendly and helpful workers, hayrides out to pick pumpkins and apples, a little play area for the kiddos, animals (probably Lilly's favorite part), and...wait for it...the bakery! The hayrides weren't crowded, the lines were short and we had plenty of room to explore and pick apples without the company of others. Corey and I are sold. We know where we'll be frequenting each fall. It was a beautiful fall day and I especially loved experiencing one of my favorite fall activities with our little gal!

"How old are you, Lill?"