A Day in the Life

Just a few random, yet still cute, photos of Bergen.

Apparently this is the best way to eat a package of crackers. Or at least a few now, and save the rest for later.

FINALLY! I think he gets it now that there is in fact a reason to do something SLOW. After this he has been very hesitant to have the mixer going fast. When I tell him I need it to go fast he tells me, "no slow mommy" and pushes the lever to slow.

Some things never change. Boxes are still one of the best possible toys!

Painting is a new activity Bergen frequently asks to do. He likes to do paint, water, paper. We're still working on reversing that order to water, then paint, paper for more vibrant paintings :) I'm very thankful he's willing to wear his apron!

Cutest Mowers I Know

When I looked outside at my boys working in the yard, this little sight made me smile! And run for the camera! I guess Bergen helped mow most of the yard. I'm glad daddy had him wear "safety" sun glasses, which I think actually only added to the cuteness of the whole thing. Bergen sure loves being outside with his daddy!

Closets Make Good Beds

Bergen's closet has kind of been a storage place. I'm usually trying to keep Bergen out of it and from pulling messes from it. We decided to clean out the "no longer use items" from the linen closet and put the linens from Bergen's closet into the actual linen closet. What a concept, right?! We also put some of the infant items into boxes and put those in the attic. That made for empty shelves to put toys on and the most exciting part, an empty floor! The closet quickly became a little fort of sorts and Bergen thinks it's awesome to sit it there. So awesome Travis read Bergen stories in there the first day and Bergen stayed laying down there to take his nap. For about a week straight he took just about every nap and spent every night sleeping there. So funny! He's back to sleeping in his bed, but I'm sure he wouldn't refuse the offer to go back to the closet if we offered.

He was so cute I took my chances with the light just so I could get a picture. And notice the no shirt? That's VERY common, probably a little too common :) He frequently doesn't want to wear a shirt. I finally stopped worrying about it because I could put one on him after he was asleep. Except he kept taking it off in his sleep! I guess he's a super hot sleeper. I keep putting it back on because I don't want him to get cold, but only sometimes is it still on by morning. What can a momma do?

Such a sweet sleeping face.

Spiced Apple Cider Doughnuts

I thought it would be fun to make doughnuts all together. Turns out, making doughnuts while listening to Christmas music, plus a little "ha-bee do you", is in fact pretty fun. Bergen helped mix the dough, and was helping to cut them out...until he noticed the candle. Then for a little while it was all happy birthday business.

Blow it out!

Hooray! I did it! More candle? Yes!

These apple cider doughnuts were each rolled with love in sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Very yummy!..and a little messy :)

We gobbled up every doughnut and every doughnut hole. It's very rare that we actually eat every last morsel of baked good, but these were even better the day after and even several days after that. (I'm sorry to say most things don't end up getting finished before they are rock hard or moldy and the last bit gets thrown away. Unless we make half batches...or maybe I should be giving more away to someone having a bad day!)

I really want to try and make this holiday season feel like a real holiday season. This career path can be tricky which makes it easy to just skip things because daddy is away. This was a very good start to a season of holiday fun together.

Trunk or Treat

Last year at the trunk or treat Bergen could care less about collecting candy, he just liked running up and down the parking lot. His year he was much better about collecting candy, but don't think he didn't run in between each car. All 5 feet in between each car!

Bergen and mommy.

Collecting candy.

After he'd made the rounds, he was quite content to park it. I thought his park it spot was kind of funny. Once I took a picture I moved him to a safer location :)

Uncle Tyler was visiting us and got to help carry all Bergen's candy.

I was a pilot, Travis was a soccer player, Bergen an elephant, and Uncle Tyler a super "Y" hero of sorts. He was pretty confident about the costume...until we got there. Then not so much :) He didn't want to get out of the car, but kids kept tapping on the window asking if he had candy or not. They were confused. So he finally got out and joined the festivities!

Captain Gina and First Officer Cynthia.

The Egyptian dressed women is a Zumba teacher and normally just has lots of energy. After dinner she got all the kids dancing while the adults were cleaning up. It was pretty cute!

Go Bergen! Go Bergen! Go Bergen!

Great Wolf Lodge Mini Vacation

We had high hopes of taking a family vacation during Travis's week off work this year, but didn't plan as far in advance as we should've (surprise surprise), so we ended up with a fun little mini vacation to The Great Wolf Lodge. We stayed there two nights. Since it's only about 20 minutes from home, it almost didn't feel like a real vacation because we didn't have all the stress and time that usually happen during the traveling part of vacations. When I talked to Travis about this he said, "yeah, kind of nice huh?!" And actually, yes it was :)

Bergen and I after the first afternoon of swimming, ready for dinner.

I always forget just how incredibly hard it is to get Bergen to go to sleep in a hotel room! He's cute once he finally crosses over into dreamland :) I took my chance of turning the light on just so I could get a picture.

Bergen climbed in here him self. Fits pretty well! Hmm, maybe next time we could zip him up in here to sleep. Joking! Obviously. Kind of. But it does sound kind of nice :)

At night there was a story time for the kids. We got to color these huge pictures while we waited for it to start.

After stories everyone got a turn to take a picture with this cute little, or should I say huge, wolf. This was about as close as Bergen wanted to get.

We were there just before Halloween so Bergen got to do some trick or treating at the shops and restaurants inside the lodge. The Banhans joined us for the second day, and they too got dressed up for candy.

The best part...eating the candy...of course!

Bergen wouldn't wear his trunk that day so I wore it for him. Didn't want it to go to waste!

The biggest part of this place is the indoor water park, and that it's a comfortable 80 something degrees year round. But having just survived a scorching Texas summer, all three of us found it to be a little chilly. Despite the cool temps, we had lots of fun. With the Banhams there with us the second and third days, we got to take lots of turns riding the big slides while others played with the kids.

Bergen liked to squirt water from these jet skis, but he did NOT like the little slides. There were two of them and we sent him down each one once. He refused to do any more than that. The second slide twisted some and by the bottom he had slid around to going head first. I was at the bottom to catch him before falling into the water, but he was still pretty scared. Looking back we should've prepped him a little better before shoving him down the slide. It's not like he doesn't know how to ride a slide, but these are slippery! We probably should've had him lay on his back, feet first to begin with. Note to self for next time!

Bergen was pretty mellow most of the time. I was a little surprised he didn't want to play on the toys more than he did, but then again maybe he was just too cold.

What he did want to do most was sit with us on a tube in the wave pool, or sometimes in the lazy river. It was kind of fun to just relax and float with him. It isn't often we get many moments of him being still!

View from the top of the slides:

Wave pool

Lazy River

Log crossing, snake, beaver, and basketball. Bergen did enjoy throwing balls at the basketball hoops, but would not sit on the snake.

I should've gotten this sooner, because by this time Bergen was pretty much done swimming and not so interested.

One of Travis's slide rides.

It was so much fun to be our little family, and spend some time with friends too. Sometimes it's nice to just get away from all our "have to's" and focus on each other!

Fall Festival

Some friends told us about a Fall Festival that was going on at the elementary school. I decided to take Bergen, not knowing if this sort of thing would be fun or crazy for me trying to keep things under control. Once we got there I splurged and bought $4 worth of tickets, hoping Bergen would catch on to what was going on. It was good standing in line practice for him, but I tried to pick ones with no or really short lines. I also picked games that involved throwing something. Of course! Why did I ever doubt? Bergen thought it was a blast to try and knock things over, AND to get a piece of candy afterwards, it was a blast! So what did $4 worth of tickets get us? 6 carnival games and cotton candy as big as your head. I don't know how many more years $4 would satisfy a child, but for this year it was a lot of fun!

Playing a game.

Waiting in line.

Sampling his rewards.

Trying out the cotton candy.

Took a little getting used to, but he did eventually finish it so I think it's safe to say he liked it :)

Bergen kept saying he wanted to be a monkey for Halloween. I didn't realize this was a dress up activity until the day of the festival and I hadn't made the monkey costume yet. I crossed my fingers and was happy that Bergen put the elephant costume on from last year and was good to go. That being the case for this activity I didn't stress over making a new costume for the rest of our Halloween activities. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a little bit bursting with joy as we got so many compliments about how cute the little elephant was. Thank you people for boosting my creative crafting ego! Oh and thinking my son is cute too! :)