Falling into fall

I love fall.  I love fall in California.  I think it's funny how we'll wear pants and a jacket/sweater and yet still wear our flip-flops too.  It's too much effort to put on those dang shoes and socks.  It's even more effort to put those dang shoes and socks on a two-year old.  A couple of times I've let Zoe leave the house barefoot and have just brought her shoes and socks in the car because 95% of the time she'll just take them off in the car anyway.  It is still a challenge leaving the house.  Zoe is showing her independence so much now too.  She gets into the car and her car seat by herself and also tries to buckle her own buckles.  When we don't have to be anywhere in a hurry that's ok, but when we need to get going I don't have the patience for it.  Sometimes I can bribe her out of it with the promise of jelly beans (I keep some generic jelly bellys in the glove box and they have come in handy more than once, plus I snack on them myself) or a beloved toy.  I constantly remind myself: it could be worse.  I've stopped carrying Benson in from the car in his car seat.  It started straining my shoulder.  That boy is 6 months and almost 18 lbs.  Zoe didn't hit 18 lbs. until she was almost a year old.  It's so funny how different those two are.  Benson can almost sit up by himself too and as soon as he can, he'll be sitting in the grocery cart.  Until then, he usually will ride in the moby wrap.

 Benson at 5 months.

 Zoe and our carved pumpkins.

 All lit up and looking good.

 So our stake really REALLY gets into the trunk-or-treat.  There are people there decorating their cars hours before the event begins.  I signed up to decorate our car this year.  I'd never done it before and I don't think I'll be doing it again for awhile.  I think it's best left to those that don't have little ones who would rather walk around.  We did have a great evening, but I would have liked to walk around with my cute little family.  This trunk-or-treat was held the Saturday before Halloween so we got 2 opportunities to get candy this year.  Yeah!

 Zoe's Me-Maw bought her this bee costume way back in April.  It was perfect!

 Zoe ate candy.

I passed out candy.

Benson passed out.

 Zoe and her cousin Kira on Halloween night.  

 Devil baby!

 Arf's cool glowing glasses and a dangerous pizza cutter.

 Don't mess with us!

 Real genuine smiles from both the girls.  Zoe can say "cheese" until the sun goes down, but trying to get her to say it AND look at the camera AND actually smile is a much harder task.

 There's that moby wrap I love!

 We took the girls trick-or-treating in my aunts' neighborhood.  It's a nice place and we figured it'd be a good way to break Zoe into trick-or-treating.  We soon learned she didn't need any breaking in!  At the first door we knocked, the lady, who was my aunts' neighbor, opened the door and without hesitation, Zoe just walked right in!  She wanted to stop and eat the candy after each house but we taught her that to maximize her candy stash, we'd have to do all the walking and then eat the candy later.

 Happy Halloween from the Nickels!

 It's cute now.  I hope it's still cute in 5 years.

 I think she was in heaven.

 Cousin playtime.

 Happy boy with big beautiful eyes!

 Mommy and her favorite little girl.

 Papa and lil' Benson.

This boy is so ready to crawl.  Either that or he's working on his 6-pack.

Who dunnit?

For our anniversary, Ryan had a surprise evening planned for us.  We are celebrating our 3rd anniversary this year.  We were married on Halloween and we knew by planning it thus, that we'd rarely get to celebrate our anniversary on our actual anniversary.  Hey, I'm ok with that.  For months Ryan has been wanting to take me to this dinner murder mystery aboard the Delta King in Sacramento.  However, it's not something you can just walk on to the ship and do as a last minute activity.  You have to make reservations, weeks in advance.  A couple weeks ago we decided that we'd celebrate our anniversary on the 21st and that was the perfect opportunity for Ryan to go ahead with the plans.  We were both excited for the evening.  He knew what we were doing - I didn't.  I was a little apprehensive because we had to leave the kids at home (Zoe was actually at Grandma's and that's no problem), and Benson can be a little tricky to get down to sleep.  My brother Jared was willing to watch him.  Benson also doesn't take a bottle real well so I was a little worried about how things were going to go at home.  Jared assured me all would be just fine.  Let's just say that when we got home at 10:30 that night, Benson was in bed and asleep.  How much crying/screaming/wailing he did, I'll never know.  Anyway, Ryan and I had a great time at the Suspects dinner murder mystery.  

 I don't have a wall-eye in real life.  I just like to pretend sometimes.

Neither one of us had ever been to anything like this and had no clue what to expect.  Our hostess was a little fireball of a girl (you'll see her in one of the pictures below).  She was funny and helped everyone have a good time.  I was expecting the lights to turn down low and that there would be a stage for the performers.  But, ah, part of the act was that some of the performers were acting as regular guests and sitting at the dinner table so there was no stage.  Everything happened all over the place.  So they set this whole thing up telling you that we would witness 3 murders and that through clues we could try to figure out whom killed whom and why.  Everyone was a suspect.  Ryan did get picked on a little by the hostess, but like almost everyone else there, he was a great sport about it.  As far as trying to figure out the murder mystery, I was lost.  Ryan took really good notes and had some good ideas about who dunnit, but he didn't get it either.  However, not all was lost.  We did leave that evening with an award.  And they only handed out 3 awards.  The other 2 were for people that figured out the murder.

Lemme explain what our award was about.  Each person got a list of the names of everyone in that room.  There had to be at least 150 people there.  On this list it was noted if someone was there celebrating a birthday or an anniversary.  As the evening was wrapping up, the hostess, Dottie, was reading over the names of those who were celebrating birthdays or anniversaries.  Ryan and I decided that when she read our names, we'd stand up, clink our root beer bottles together, and start madly making out.  Hey, according to many, we're still newlyweds.  Why not act like it?  So, our names are called out and here we are making out in front of over a hundred strangers.  Lots of hoots and hollers, let me tell you.  The award we won that night was called the Dalton Award.  It was named after the ship owners son and was for the person/couple who were really good sports.  In the beginning of the evening, like i said above, Dottie picked on a lot of people and they were all good sports.  However, we won that Dalton Award for being good sports and for finally stopping making out.  Ladies and gents, I give you the Dalton Award:

 Yep, just a little 5 inch trophy that now adorns our mantle.

Here we are with our lovely hostess Dottie and our Dalton.  Dottie and I are making kissy faces.  I don't know what Ryan's doing.  He's trying.  We had such a good time that evening.  The food was good, the entertainment was great, but being there with my best friend and building new memories was the best part of all.  I love you Ryan!

Nursing strikes, 3 kids, and Zoe's first anatomy lesson.

A week ago, I discovered what it will be like to have 3 kids.  My sister and her husband, who are avid Baltimore Ravens fans, took a trip out to Baltimore to watch a football game.  Yes, they are that die hard.  They traveled across the country for a football game.  A game.  Not a game and a wedding or a game and traveling to other cities - a game.  Now, they did live in Baltimore for a number of years so they have friends there, friends who are also Ravens fans.  Fuel for their fire.  Regardless of their football fanatic status, they were gone for 5 days.  Their daughter, Kira, is a sweet girl and she and Zoe love to play together.  Due to my job title (awesome-stay-at-home-mom), and because I love my family and want to help out how I can, we offered to watch Kira during those days.  She got dropped off on a Wednesday night, stayed with us Thursday and some of Friday.  On Friday, her aunts Kris and Bonnie took both of our girls for their first sleepover and on Saturday my mom picked up both the girls for a night at Grandma's house.  Share the wealth, right?  Grandma brought the girls back to us on Sunday evening and then Kira's mom and dad came and got her Monday evening.  It was quite a challenge getting 3 kids out of the door in the morning.  During the time Kira was here with us, Benson had a well-baby checkup.  Thanks to my friend Alicia for hanging out with us, that ordeal was a lot easier.  While Zoe and Kira do play well, there are moments when one girl wants the other to play (or not to play) with a certain toy and vice versa.  Right now, Zoe doesn't share real well.  Everything is hers.  And since Kira was on Zoe's turf, the possessiveness was even more evident.  For the most part, the girls got along great, but there were moments where I think Zoe was on Kira overload.  The first night the girls were up until 10:00 pulling on their Woody and Jessie doll strings.  The next night, they went to bed without the dolls. Nap times had to happen in separate rooms or else no sleeping/resting would have happened.  We went to the park and to the store and other things to get us out of the house.  Overall, it was a good time and a learning time for me.  However, I believe that having such a change in our home environment influenced a very painful couple of days for me.  Story continued below.

 Kira and Zoe

 Do you see how cute that boy is?  Well, for a couple days, that boy was causing me lots of pain and even more frustration and worry.  Grandma had the girls on Saturday and Sunday.  Ryan and I were looking forward to a quiet weekend with Benson and the opportunity to watch our church's semi-annual General Conference.  Oh, but things weren't quiet at all.  Benson refused to eat.  Each time I tried to nurse him, he would turn his head away and flail his arms all around.  This wasn't totally out of the norm because there have been days when he'll go for 6-8 hours w/o eating and then pick back up where he/we left off.  Not so this weekend.  He ate at 8:30 on Friday night and then not again until 10:30 the following morning.  I don't know how/why, but he nursed that morning, and I'm grateful he did.  But each subsequent feeding was refused.  There was nothing else I could do with my backed up milk supply than pump.  We tried to give him bottles and those were often met with refusal as well.  Ryan, bless his heart, was able to get Pe-pe (his nickname) to drink from the bottle.  So for the most part, my worries of him starving and/or dehydrated were quelled.  I still couldn't figure out why he wouldn't nurse though.  I hadn't changed/used perfumes or lotions or eaten anything that I hadn't eaten before.  I even took him to a chiropractor to see if he was out of alignment which could potentially cause him pain and therefore lead to his not wanting to eat.  After the adjustment, he still wouldn't eat.  Darn it!  I called my lactation consultant (whom I am SO grateful for!) and she asked if Benson had had any big scares or accidents lately.  Nope.  Was he sick or did he have a fever?  Nope.  No diarrhea, no vomiting, nothing.  The confusing thing was that Benson was still just his normal happy self!  The only time he was upset was when I was trying to force him to nurse.  Oh, he's just a baby, but man can he make noise and be strong when he needs to.  My LC was perplexed also.  She encouraged me to look on a couple websites for something called a "nursing strike."  Bing!  From what I read, a nursing strike can last from 2-4 days and things that can bring it on are a change in the home environment and stress in the home.  Bing again!  We'd had an extra person (Kira) in our home for a number of days and while I didn't personally feel stressed, I'm sure I was.  Somehow that caused his nursing strike.  On Sunday night I decided to have some quiet skin-to-skin time with Benson.  I didn't try to nurse him, just wanted to be close to him.  Well, guess what that little boy ended up doing?  Nursing!  Yay!  I was so grateful.  He woke up that night and nursed again and things have been pretty normal since then.  Whew!  I NEVER want to go through that again.

 Zoe reading to Benson.

 Guess who loves Toy Story?

 Lead me, guide me, walk beside me.  Help me find the way.  Teach me all that I must do.

I think he wants to be Elton John for Halloween.  We're working on the costume, but seem to be running low on sequins.

So I was going to go in to the whole story of how Zoe learned today that boys have a penis and girls have a vagina, but decided against it.  It just didn't feel right.  It's totally innocent, but I just didn't want to have our blog flagged for inappropriate material.  Suffice it to say, Zoe had her first anatomy lesson today.

Zoe's 2nd Birthday

I did my best at documenting Zoe's special day.  We celebrated her twice - once on her actual birthday and then again on the following Saturday for her party.

 Morning cookies for breakfast!

 A little tummy time with her brother.

 Opening her gift from great Grandma & Grandpa Nickel.

 I couldn't resist.

 Playing with the packaging.

 Great Grandma & Grandpa got her a doll that comes with its own potty.

 Here she is trying to sit on the doll's potty.

 Oops!  How did he get in here!

 My silly little girl.

 We had a Toy Story themed party for Zoe.  She loves that movie!

 Opening presents!  Lots and lots of Toy Story goodness.

 That is some fun wrapping paper!

 Hmmm.... what to wish for on her 2nd birthday?

 I think it's going to come true.

Yep, it came true.