Happy Halloween!

We have been enjoying our weekend so far and are looking forward to some more Halloween fun this evening.

Yesterday we enjoyed an awesome football game. Our defense showed up and it was wonderful to see them again :)

OSU campus is just gorgeous in the fall so on the walk back to our car Brian and I had fun taking pictures.

I realize none of these pictures show the beauty of the campus as much as us being goofy.
This morning Bria slept in (I LOVE SLEEP IN DAYS!) and then Aunt Heather & Amy came over to play with Bria and help us move our two tiny storage units into one larger one. So glad that is done.

Then we all went to Panera Bread for lunch-their food is amazing-and now we are back home for a nap before we go trick or treating at Heather's.
I love weekends, why do they have to end?

Indoor fun

We've had a really good day so far despite the fact that it started before 7 am. I don't know what it is about the 6 o'clock hour but I don't like to see it, even if it's 6:58 am, I don't like it. I attempted to put Bria back to sleep at 6:45 am when she woke, but obviously that didn't work. Although she did lay quietly for 10 minutes so that was nice.

After breakfast and getting ready for the day we went to a Recreation Center close by for indoor playtime. They had lots of fun things to climb on, little houses, cars, all that good stuff. Bria had a ton of fun running around for an hour and a half and it felt nice to be able to let her run around and play. The weather is horrible outside so it's not really an option to go to the park right now, that's why Oregon is crawling with indoor parks ;)

Bria's favorite thing right now is to read all of her books. And I mean all of them. It's cute to see her sitting at her little table reading out loud, music to my ears.
Bria saw her first movie a couple days ago. We didn't get all the way through it, but she is now obsessed with Tinkerbell. I'm wishing I would've gotten her a Tinkerbell costume, but there is always next year.

For this Halloween she is going as a flower. Tonight Brian's work is having a little something for the kids so we get to dress her up and take her there which should be fun. Any chance for me to take pictures of her in her costume is fabulous.

I have 2 videos I wanted to share, mainly for the grandparents and aunts and uncles that read the blog because I know for others out there these videos may not be as entertaining.

The first one is her singing the Intsy Wintsy Spider all by herself:

*Turn up the volume so you can hear her little voice!

The second one is her singing a song my Grandma Armstrong always sang to us growing up:

Rock-a-bye,

don't you cry,

we will go to Grammies,

up the hill,

by the mill,

to see the little lambies

If you listen carefully you can hear her sing it to her baby doll :) Then she does patty cake with the baby and says:

Roll it

Pull it

Mark it

Funny girl :)

Crazy busy goodness

Our weekend was jam packed with so much fun that I'm still tired thinking of all the cool things we did.

Here's a summary:

1. Another trip to Roloff farms, this time with Brian

2. The Woods' come to visit (Jimmy, Erin, and Gabe) and we had a date night at the Melting Pot

3. We went to another pumpkin patch: Lee's Farm with our friends Troy, Sarah, and Jack

This means there is going to be a great deal of pictures in this post so if you don't like pictures, well then, you're weird and you probably shouldn't read my blog anymore ;)

Let's get right to it shall we?

1. Roloff Farms...again

Shortly after Bria woke up from her awesome nap on Friday (no sarcasm, it was a 3 hour nap!), Brian suggested we go to Roloff farms. We had attempted to go the day before with Sara, Jon, and Heather but unfortunately they were not open on Thursdays. We were bummed.

Anyway, we hopped in the car and drove over.

Bria's adorable outfit is courtesy of many people:

1. Her precious sweater: Grammy (Marna)

2. Her stylin' headband: Ya-ya (My mom)

3. Her rockin' boots: Aunt Jaime

We grabbed some dinner first and Bria thought it smelled delicious:

But she ate too much:

"Just a sec Mom, I think I'm gonna be sick."

Ok so I am totally making that up. She didn't get sick, she didn't even eat a hamburger, but those pictures told a story and I went with it.

Then we dove right into pumpkin fun. Bria wanted to try and pick up all the pumpkins.

And then, Brian captured my absolute most favorite picture of all times. I am IN LOVE with this picture. Her smile is absolutely priceless and I just can't stop looking at this picture.

Love it, pure and simple.

Brian scared us at the end of this little haunted house, which is why we have the deer in headlights look.

Bria had so much fun exploring and we had fun chasing her :)

Big chair pictures

She is getting so big that it's nice to see her look so teeny :)

Little Miss Independent carrying her pumpkin

So that was our Friday. We all crashed that night and slept well, in anticipation for our guests coming the next morning.

2. Woods' visit

Saturday Jimmy, Erin, and Gabe came up and we all hung out, went to lunch, put the kids down for a nap, and enjoyed each other's company.

Then we took the kids to their babysitters (Bria went to Heather and Amy's house for the night and Gabe went to Erin's sister's house) and us adults went to the Melting Pot. We had such a fun evening and laughed 'til our abs hurt. Seriously, it was so much fun. We didn't even talk about the kids the whole time, just like 75% of the time.

Sunday morning we made a fabulous breakfast and had a nice lazy morning in our pj's.

The kids table (and also where MJ scrounged for breakfast)

The adorable princess table is courtesy of Grandpa and Grandma Holcomb. It is perfect and Bria loves it.

The Woods' left shortly before lunch and we were sad it was already time for them to go, it went too fast!

3. Lee's Farm

Our friends drove down from Washington to meet up and enjoy some delicious apple cider donuts. Unfortunately the weather was not ideal, but we did get a few breaks between the torrential down pours. We did the same thing last year and it was so neat to see how big Jack and Bria have gotten.

They were ADORABLE together and held hands while walking around:

It's hard to believe just a year ago they were this little:

Oh my, the time goes fast:

All bundled up in the crazy Oregon weather.

Even though it was cold Bria was in good spirits. Her and Jack had a lot of fun together and were so cute to watch.

I nearly had a heart attack when Bria decided puddle jumping was fun. But then I decided that's why I put boots on her and I have to let her get dirty and have fun.

But I'm not gonna say I was happy about it, I just realize I can't let my OCD affect my daughter's thirst for life.

Taking Dad for a ride on the tractor

I laughed so hard when I saw this picture, Brian's face is hilarious to me.

This weekend was so busy and tiring but it was full of pure family fun and I just loved it all. It made me even more excited for the Holidays and getting together with family and friends. I love all the crazy busy goodness!

She's Yes then she's No

One minute I have the cutest toddler on the planet. We'll be in the living room and she'll get up and say, "Buh bye mommy, love you, see ya later," come give me a kiss and then run to her room to bring out more books. That's when I think to myself, wow I have the most precious angel in all the world.

The next minute I tell her we need to change her diaper and she screams, "NOOOOO!" and starts crying and screaming and flailing. I'm shocked our neighbors haven't called social services on us.

Seriously, I believe I'm getting a glimpse of the terrible twos and let me tell you, this is wayyyy scarier than anything Halloween can throw at me. I look at this screaming child and wonder where in the heck my adorable, obedient child went.

Then we finish up the diaper change and I give her a stern look for being naughty and she sweetly says, "I sowwy mommy." And smiles this angelic smile.

Oh she's good, she's real good. Did she learn this stuff from her father? That's what they do when I'm away.

(Taken with my cell phone in the grocery store...getting ingredients for one of my awesome dinners ;)

"Come on, Mom. We gotta hit all the stores before it gets dark, I don't wanna miss bath time with Dad."

Goofing around in Daddies sweatshirt

Inspecting the blue hippo quite carefully

Then I look at these pictures and know that no matter what tantrum she throws, I love this girl so much my heart nearly explodes. She's just my life and I love her to pieces.

Here's a little video of her playing ring around the roses with her baby doll. Towards the end she sings the whole thing:

Roloff Farms

I attended my first "Good Times Mom" group event. It's a moms group I found on meetup.com and I was excited to finally attend a playgroup since we are all settled now. The other moms were really nice and there was one Mom in particular I hit it off with. That sounds hilarious, like we chose each other on some reality group dating show. But seriously, she was really nice and her little girl and Bria hit it off so then we got to talking. It was her first event as well.

It was so nice to have some place to for a change. Bria and I got all ready:

I love that she is finally starting to give the camera a smile...although she chooses when she wants to.

Last year Bria was terrified of pumpkins. Like every time we put her near one she would start whaling like we were setting her in a tank of sharks or something.

I'm happy to report that this year she happily marched over to pumpkins and gave them kisses. I guess reading and talking about pumpkins worked, she was prepared.

Contemplating which pumpkin to kiss next.

Of course the farm had animals and we had to go visit the goats and llama's about 12 times. She would squeal and laugh and make crazy noises, which made everyone around us die laughing. She loved the baby goats and attempted to give them kisses. Pumpkins, fine, goats, no. I have to draw the line somewhere.

"Kisses for all the pumpkins!"

"Stay. Good Pumpkin."

For those that have watched or heard of the show Little People, Big World, Roloff farms is their farm. I didn't really expect that I would see anyone from the show (I've only watched it once or twice at other peoples' houses since we don't get that channel), but the mom came out about half way through and was taking pictures and talking with everyone.

So we got a picture with her!

She really was so nice, totally genuine and loved the kids. I thought it was nice of her to take the time to thank everyone for coming and let us snap pictures.

So that was the first pumpkin patch visit of the season, but we have at least 1 more planned. They are fun this year now that Bria isn't scared of pumpkins :)

Wedding part 1

Brian's twin sister, Sara, tied the knot this last Saturday! It was in Marna's backyard and it was so beautiful. It was a small, intimate wedding and I thought it was incredibly romantic. It was very apparent that Jon and Sara are crazy about each other, they are adorable together. We are so excited to have Jon apart of the family. And come next February they'll be another little one! They are pregnant with a bouncing baby boy and we can't wait to meet him, so exciting.

The weather was perfect for a wedding. Bria was the flower girl and did exactly what I thought she was going to do. Dumped all the petals at once. It was funny :)

Family photo

I had like 3 inch heels on and I still barely come to his chin, sheesh!

The happy and gorgeous bride.

Socializing with the girls and showing off her huge diamond :)

The bride and me

I'm pretty sure we were looking at Bria.

Me pushing my way in the picture :)

The Holcomb sisters

Bria loved Sara's necklace

The twins

I love how the wind made this shot extra pretty. You can see Sara's adorable belly and her hair is blowing in the breeze perfectly :)

The proud parents

The nice wedding shot...

The real shot.

(Heather, Sara, Jon, and Brian)

Holcomb siblings

So cute.

It is quite obvious how in love these two and how perfect they are for each other. We are so incredibly happy for them and can't wait to meet their baby boy in February!

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Wilson!