Aiden is 3!

Aiden Monkey turned 3 on Monday!  We celebrated his birthday over the course of two days - Saturday and Monday.  This year we just kept it simple and had our families join us and it was so nice. Saturday we went to the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale and it was so great.  We will definitely be going back! Admission is free and then you just purchase tickets if you want to go on one of the 3 rides - the antique carousel or two different trains.

Aiden decided he wanted to ride the carousel first and was adamant they sit in the hand cart instead of on the horses..haha.

Aiden spotted my mom and Amber entering the park :)

We got Miss Janie fed and then we all went on the bigger train ride.

The group - Mom was taking the picture and Kent seems to be hiding ;)

There was a little museum and then you could tour this train.  The car at the end (the Roald Amundsen Pullman Car) is best known for its presidential travel.  It was actually used by Presidents Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower!

I thought Aiden would be excited to tour the train, so we didn't spend too much time in the museum before we went out to the train.  But I was wrong!  We had made it about halfway through (there were just 3 or 4 train cars so it wasn't huge or anything) when Aiden had a little freak out and insisted we turn around!  I don't know what happened!  Nonetheless, he was happy when we made it back inside the museum ;)

We all suspected the little freak out may be hunger related so we decided to have some lunch next.

They have two awesome play areas at the park and Aiden was in heaven.  Seriously, we may just go back with a picnic sometime and play on the playgrounds!

Aiden's at the top of the slide here.

We still had some tickets, so Aiden went on the train again with Trent and Grandma and Grandpa Knuckles.

Here they come ;)

Back to the train station.

Miss Janie may have played with Aiden's Mater while he was on the train.  He spotted it right away and took it back right when he got back ;)

Then we headed over to check out the Model Railroad Building.

It was so neat to see all of the little model railroads and trains.  I love anything miniature and it was amazing to see all of the detail they put into everything!

Everything was Janie sized ;)

Some of the trains had characters riding on them.  This one had Spiderman :)

Lastly, I went on the kiddie train ride with Aiden.

I felt a little silly on it :)

As I said before, we had such a great time and will definitely be back. And the weather was perfect.  It was a great day!

Monday I tried to really spoil Aiden :)

He didn't wake up until 9 and then we went out for donuts.  I didn't even change him into clothes, we just went in his jammies ;)  We went to Bosa's Donuts just down the road and Aiden picked out this donut with chocolate frosting and sprinkles :)

Picture isn't great b/c I took it with my ancient phone.

Sunday night Trent and I were talking about meeting for lunch in Tempe.  One of the first things Aiden said when he woke up was how he wanted to go to slides and have chicken nuggets and fries, so I thought we could meet Trent at Chick-fil-a, but it turns out the one near him w/ the play place has closed down.  So it worked out that Grandma Knuckles texted wanting to take Aiden out to McDonald's for lunch :)

Later that afternoon I worked on Aiden's cake and we just hung out. That evening our families came over for cake and presents.

Our presents for Aiden before our families showed up.

The first present Aiden opened was the whole set of Cars from Grandma and Grandpa Knuckles and then he couldn't seem to move past them!  This happened last year too where he gets overwhelmed and opens a gift and wants to start playing with it immediately..haha. We had to keep reminding him that he still had other gifts to open!

I didn't get a picture of every gift.

I got this book (My First Airplane Ride) for Aiden from the library a while back and he loved it so much that he memorized the whole thing!  Then he kept mentioning how he wanted it for his "birday", so I was glad I could find it for him.

Janie was loving all of the wrapping paper :)

Then we sung and had cake.  I was pretty pleased with how the cake turned out (at least the top).  I did the 3 by simply placing a cookie cutter on there and filling it with sprinkles and then removing it (found the idea on Pinterest of course!).

I was cracking up because Aiden was singing along with us!

So as usual I was terrible about getting pictures of everyone else, so I quickly snapped these pictures as Kent and Tanis were getting ready to head out :/

Bummed I don't have any with Mom and Amber (Dad was stuck cleaning the church), but by that point Aiden was so done.

It was a nice day though and Aiden is still telling us how much he loves his birthday presents :)  We went to his 3-year check-up today so I'll post his stats next.  We love this boy to death, tantrums and all (more on that later!), and are so grateful for the joy he brings into our lives.

6 months

Our Janie is 6 months!  Her half birthday was last Tuesday the 28th. We went to her appt. that day and she weighed in at 15 pounds 13.5 ounces (45th percentile) and is measuring 27 inches long.  She is in the 90th percentile for length - she's tall!!  She got 4 vaccines - 1 oral and 3 shots in her thighs.

Little love got neon band-aids this time (she had just barely woken from her nap).

Here's what Janie's been up to in the last month:

• The biggest thing is that she is sitting up on her own.  She still occasionally topples over, but it's rare nowadays.

• We tried starting solids right about when she turned 5 months, but have kind of slowed down for now with that.  We started w/ oatmeal and she didn't seem to like that at all, so then we tried sweet potatoes and she didn't seem to like that either.  I was trying to figure out if it was a texture thing or if she's just picky, so over the course of the month we also tried carrots, squash, applesauce, and bananas and same reaction with all of them, so I definitely think it's a texture thing.  Our doctor is saying she may not be ready until more like 7 months, so we'll just take it slow.

• There were a few days when Janie would randomly start scratching her head.  I couldn't figure out if it was because it was itchy or if she just discovered she had hair up there and was feeling it..haha.  Nonetheless, it cracked me up :)

• We've started to put Janie in Aiden's old high chair while we eat and she loves sitting at the table with all of us :)  It's so cute!  

Now that we're in a house and have some more space, I'm thinking of getting a full-size high chair in the next few months.  Let me know if you have a favorite :)

• Janie really likes all of Aiden's stuff and maybe, just maybe, sometimes I purposefully give stuff to Janie just to get a reaction out of Aiden ;)  Guilty..haha.  I'll have to do another post on their brother-sister relationship ;)  Maybe these next two photos are some instances..ha.

This photo totally cracks me up!  Janie's bed head and lots of drool. These photos are obviously staged.  Janie can't get on by herself yet ;)

Hahaha.

• She loves loves the crinkle noise of paper and will grab any within her reach :)

• She is getting too long for the baby bath!  It may be time to start bathing the kids together.  It might be nice to just deal with one bath time.  Or it might just be really wet.

• She has been teething for a little while now.  Over the last week I could feel that one of the bottom ones had cut through her gums, but whenever we'd go to try to see it, Janie would stick her tongue way out..haha.  To my surprise, I went to look tonight and BOTH of the front bottom ones have cut through!  They are just barely visible, but I'm sure it'll only be a matter of days before we can get a good picture of them ;)

And as always, here's a whole bunch of random pictures ;)

The next 3 photos are from Conference weekend at the beginning of October.

She fell over ;)

Just love her gorgeous eyes.

Bumbo pics.

She was helping me make cookies for Activity Days ;)  She's holding the chocolate chips..ha.

I know she's closing her eyes in this one, but I thought it was kind of funny that you can see Aiden playing outside in the background :)

This is a daily occurrence.  I can't help it - her cheeks are divine!!  As you can see, she's totally used to it ;)

Don't worry, I don't bite hard.  I just chew a little ;)

Waking up big brother from his nap ;)  We still occasionally put a diaper on him for naps.

That face!

Notice anything out of place in this picture??  Aiden was using the top bar part as a bridge for his fire truck..haha.  Love him and his little imagination :)

Aiden often helps me wake up Miss Janie from her naps (we have her on a little schedule) :)

Aiden kind of just dumped all of these toys on Janie..haha.  And do you love that her chew ring is all the way up her arm?!

So stinking cute!

Janie found Daddy's baseball cap :)

Janie watching the boys play Candyland after Church.  Do you love that Aiden had taken his pants off, but still had his socks on?  Haha.

Too much cute.

Aiden loves to climb in with Janie :)

I posted this one to Instagram.  They don't look like siblings at all, do they?  They both have Daddy's squinty, smiley eyes :)

The week before Halloween we went to the Balloon Spooktacular (same that we went to last year - HERE) and we took a few pictures before we left (I don't think I'll get to posting about it).  Janie just really wanted Aiden's bucket ;)

Her first time in the umbrella stroller :)

Last Tuesday, before Halloween, was the coolest day of the week (at 85 degrees), so I thought I'd take the opportunity to dress Janie in her long-sleeve Halloween outfit.

I was cleaning the kid's bathroom the other day, so I stuck Janie in her doorway (the bathroom's right next to it) with her toy box :)

Just 2 sleeping ones this month ;)

Love her little hands :)