Halloween in Chi-town

This Halloween, my grandma and grandpa went to Chicago for a visit and we went down to see them. We were only down there for a day, but, in the Cawley tradition, we packed in as much as we could. Prepare for a lengthy blog post with plenty of pictures and even some video footage.

When we first arrived, we pulled out the trick or treat cupcakes I made. We had to display them before anyone could even think about eating one.

They were filled with all sorts of treats (peanut butter, frosting, marshmallow) and they were also filled with some tricks (jellybeans) and there were two pranks (toothpaste).

My sister Ashley and Mike found the pranks!

The next day we woke up bright and early to head to…

THE AQUARIUM!!!

Tennyson loved looking at the fish. If you listen closely, you can even hear him say “hi, fishes!” You really have to listen close though, because the aquarium was pretty loud.

We spent some time looking at the dock and Lake Michigan too.

Tennyson spent so much time talking to and playing with the fishes that he exhausted himself (which pleased his mom and dad).

And for all those trying to figure it out, the t-shirt Tennyson is wearing says “I chew on everything.” We found it very fitting.

Then we had to rush back. We turned on the MSU/Iowa game for about a minute, but when we saw the score very much not in our favor, we turned it off. We had to get ready for trunk or treat anyway.

Mike and Tennyson looked super in their costumes! (I forgot the most important half of mine at my parent’s house, so I looked rather pathetic.)

Although he may look cute, the truth is he didn’t really like this costume much. He much preferred his second outfit of the evening.

As if we hadn’t already done enough that day, we topped it all off with pumpkin carving!

We also spent some time at home playing around on the Harley…

and being tickled by grandpa.

What a trip!!

Six Months!

Our little baby is half a year old today! I don’t know where all the time has flown. Here is what he’s been up to lately:

-Shrieking and screaming when he’s happy

-Learning all sorts of new sounds to make with his mouth

-Entertaining himself for longer periods of time

-Eating and loving feeding himself; he can feed himself rice rusks and bananas, we are still working on puffs

-Loving bath time (he has learned how to splash water out of the tub)

-Working on standing while holding things

-Using a new big kid car seat

And here are some more pictures we’ve taken of his activities this month (sorry some of them are poor quality, I take a lot on my phone):

Cider Mill, Take 3

So we visited our third cider mill of the season. This time we went to Uncle John’s cider mill with the J. Reuben Clark Law Society.

First, Tennyson got all dressed up.

Then we went to meet everyone at the cider mill. It was a little cold there, so we had to dress warm.

We played on the fire truck and rode some tractors.

Then we went inside to warm up and drink some cider.

The donuts weren’t quite as good as what we had at the country mill, but it was cool because we got to see them making the cider.

I don’t know what we’ll do when winter hits and we don’t have all these cider mills to visit. Our Saturdays will be empty!

Playing at the Park

I decided today that Tennyson and I spend too much time cooped up in our condo, so after Tennyson’s nap, I thought a trip to the neighborhood park would be nice. I pulled out the stroller, grabbed the diaper bag and camera, and we were out the door. When we got there, I saw that they have some of those baby swings so I put Tennyson in and started pushing him. He was a bit skeptical at first, but it didn’t take him long to start really having fun with it. He learned that if he held his legs straight out, he could kick me. This was hilarious to him and he would laugh every time he got me! He thought it was the greatest thing ever! We also spent some time playing with all the fall leaves. He loved the park so much that he talked about it the whole way home. I can’t believe my baby is big enough to do stuff like this. It still seems like just yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital… but he’ll be 6 months old next week. How time flies!

 

Cupcake Adventures

So we watched the Biggest Loser this week and Curtis Stone made these raspberry cupcakes that were low-calorie and looked pretty tasty so we thought we’d try them. We got the recipe online and all the ingredients and we made them.

They were disgusting. Mike and I took one bite and threw them away. The frosting was pretty much straight cream cheese and the cake was the blandest thing ever. So…
We decided to heck with the low-calorie cupcakes. We’ll just make regular ones. We did go to the store and buy a mini cupcake tin and some mini liners so that they’d be smaller and therefore better for us (that is how it works, right?). We looked through all sorts of recipes and decided on a vanilla, vanilla base with strawberry frosting.

They taste AWESOME. They look a lot better than the first batch and they taste about 100 times better.
So if Mike and I look like we are fat enough to roll next time you see us, you’ll know why.

Sitting is soo last week…

This week I’m moving on to standing!

A Weekend With Grammy!

This weekend Mike’s mom came into town to spend Columbus Day weekend with us. The weather was absolutely fantastic and the leaves were all colorful.

We went to Grand Ledge, MI for the Color Island Festival. It was fun. They had people dressed up in pioneer clothes and giving demonstrations. It was on a beautiful island and the colors were awesome! It is great being somewhere that has an actual autumn and being so close to the country and farmland.

 

We also went to the cider mill where we got some delicious donuts and apple cider. We also picked our pumpkins for this fall. We got a big daddy one, a medium mommy one, and a small baby one.

 

We wanted to really see the fall colors, so we went to the Fenner Nature Center to walk around their maple grove.

 

Of course Grammy spent a lot of time playing with Tennyson.

 

It was a perfect fall weekend and we loved having Mike’s mom here! We’ll be sad to see her go.