CHRISTMAS PICTURES

It is time again for family pictures. I know I am obsessed but I wanted to have some family pictures for Christmas cards. Brian wasn't thrilled that he had to have his picture taken again but he was a really good sport about it (as always). So we went with Chad, Amanda, and Paislee to Wheeler Farm to take them. Bauer was so good. He is usually horrible for pictures but this time he would look at the camera and smile almost every time we asked him to. It was so much less stressful for all of us. He is such a good little boy. Anyways, here are some of our pictures. Thanks Amanda for taking these for us. You're the best!

NOT A BABY

Brian and I have been talking about if/when to get Bauer a toddler bed for a while now. He has done really well in his crib and hasn't complained about it at all. He hasn't ever climbed out of it or anything so we haven't had to worry about him hurting himself. But then he is getting old enough that he can have a "big boy" bed and maybe that would even help with the potty training. (Just a little update: In the last three weeks he has done awesome. He has been going everywhere in his underwear and even sleeping in them. He has only had 2 accidents. So we thought that maybe it would help to give him his big bed and tell him that it means no more accidents.) Anyways, long story short...we gave it to him last night. He was so stinking cute! He was jumping around and so excited. When we finally got it put in his room with his bedding on it he said "I need to take a picture of it" and went into his toy room to get his camera. I took some pictures with my camera too and then we let him just play around in his new room for a little while. When it was bedtime, he was actually excited to go to bed and he laid down and we took some more pictures. Just before we went to bed I said "goodnight Baby" like I always do. He said "Mom, I'm not a baby." He is right. My sweet little boy is not a baby any more. He is all grown up. And even though it is sad that my little baby isn't a baby anymore, it is so fun to see what a cute little boy he is becoming. So, it is with mixed emotions that I announce that my little Bauer is no longer a baby. Congratulations sweet boy!

DINO TOWNE

Okay, so I guess there used to be a place in SouthTowne mall called Dig It or something like that where kids could go and dig up dinosaur bones. Well, Amanda and I wanted to take the kids there. So we went to Olive Garden for lunch and then headed over to the mall only to find out that Dig It was no longer there. But there was a little playground called Dino Towne so we let the kids play. We had a couple of breakdowns but the kids had lots of fun. After playing for a little while we went upstairs and rode the Merry-Go-Round. They both absolutely loved it! They were so cute.

HALLOWEEN FUN

I love Halloween! It's my favorite holiday. We got to do a ton of fun stuff this year so I thought it would be easiest to just put it all in one post. So here it goes...
Oct. 18 - Wee Witches Night: While Brian and I were on the deer hunt Bauer stayed with his grandparents. Grandpa and Grandma Williams took him to the Witches Festival at Gardner Village with Jared, Marty, Aspen, Heidi, Suzzi, Morgan, and Marki and he had a blast! They got to decorate pumpkins and had their picture taken in Suzzi's photobooth (check her out at http://www.smilenowphotobooths.com/) They went to Tepanyaki afterwards for dinner and then had birthday cake for Aspen.

Oct. 25 - Pumpkin Carving and Thriller: Every year the Anderson side of the family has a pumpkin carving party. Bauer and Brian got to go this year and had a great time carving pumpkins. They left with 2 pumpkins and came home with 4. Score!

Every year my family also goes to Thriller. Usually it is just the girls that go but we convinced my dad to go with us this time. He felt a little out of place with all the girls but he still liked the show and we all had a great time.

Oct. 26 - Bliss Party: The annual Bliss Halloween party includes a spooky dinner - worms with blood sauce and eyeballs (spaghetti with meatballs), bones (breadsticks), spooky punch (a green mixture), and worms in dirt (chocolate pudding topped with crushed oreos and gummy worms); and pictures with all of the kids in their costumes. Kai and Grandpa also gave all of the kids pumpkin basket full of treats, a coloring book, a shirt, and some gloves.

Oct. 28 - Playgroup Party: Bauer's playgroup had a Halloween party where all of the kids dressed up in their costumes and they learned how to trick-or-treat.

Oct. 30 - Dinner with the Bawdens: We love to celebrate with our best friends, the Bawdens. Tonight we had a spooky dinner with a jack o'lantern pizza, bone breadsticks, and salad. Bauer and Paislee also got vampire teeth (corn) and bloody applesauce (applesauce with jam in it). Then Bauer and Paislee gave each other gifts.

Oct. 31 - Trick-or-Treating: Halloween day is always packed for us. First, Bauer gets to come to my work and trick-or-treat. Then we went home to the ward Halloween party where we had lots of fun games, activities, and food. Next we did a little trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. We usually go to visit the grandparents after trick-or-treating but this year Bauer was having a really rough night and was hurting so we just stayed home and hung out as a family. Bauer loved giving candy to the trick-or-treaters that came by.

BAUER & MOM DAY

I am lucky enough to have a wonderful work arrangement where I get to stay home Mondays and Tuesdays with Bauer. The poor kid though, it seems like every time I am home there is something that needs to be done. There is always laundry that needs to be washed, rooms that need to be cleaned, pictures that need to be sorted, shopping that needs to be done, etc. so I spend my whole day doing "chores" and no time with my sweet Bauer. Today I decided that I was going to make the day about him. We got up and had some breakfast and watched Nightmare Before Christmas. He has been obsessed with that movie lately. I got all of my Halloween movies out to watch in October but Nightmare is the only one he wants to watch. We watch it a couple of times a day at least. Playgroup was at 10:00 and Bauer got to wear his Halloween costume and have a party. I picked him up at 11:30 and we went to McDonald's for lunch (ps - please excuse the picture. It was taken from my cell phone). This is the first time that just Bauer and I have gone to any fast food place to play on the toys. He loved going down the slide and playing basketball. Then I wanted to run to Big Lots to look for something but when we got done there, I told him that he could decide what we would do next. He said "I want to go to one more store." Yeah - weird. So I figured we would just go to Walgreen's since it was the closest store to us and he couldn't really want to go to a store, right? So we went and looked around Walgreen's and bought him some Halloween stickers and on the way out I said "okay, what do you want to do now? Should we go home and play with your toys?" He said "no. I want to go to one more store." What? So we did. We went to one more store. By the time we were done at Target, Brian had called to tell us that he was on his way home from work so I was able to convince Bauer to come home. Once we got home we watched Nightmare again and snuggled on the couch until Brian got home. Shopping is not how I had imagined our fun Mom & Bauer day but I sure did have a great time playing with him. He is such a cute little stinker.

JARED'S WORK

Jared is a salesman for H&E and he sells all kinds of heavy equipment. Yesterday we met him at his work to see all of the fun equipment. He brought his girlfriend Marty and her two kids, Aspen & Bodey. The kids loved seeing all of the equipment and Jared even took them for a ride in a skid steer. Here are some pictures of the kids. They were really cute.

PLAYGROUP

I just wanted to post this cute picture of playgroup today. We had white day at our house and we got to wear white halloween masks and decorate them with stickers.
We also said goodbye to PT today. He has been staying at our house and we have done a lot of fun things with him but now it is Paislee's turn to take him. So Goodbye PT!