Thanks-a-ween!

Gosh, I feel like I'm so busy lately... must be that time of year. Well here's a catch up post about Halloween, Thanksgiving, and some other fall activities!

We went to a pumpkin patch as a family and picked out some pretty pumpkins (which we never ended up carving).  Molly loved playing with the pumpkins, running through the kiddy corn maze, and being pulled around in a wagon.

Matt and I were able to get out on a triple date with some friends to Anderson Farms to play zombie paintball.  That was such a fun night out and we've agreed we need to do group dates more often!

Halloween was fun this year with a walking baby to dress up. We dressed Molly in this pillow of a zebra costume and she loved it. She kept patting her padded tummy with first time I put it on here which was for the library's treat-or-treat.  She didn't really understand the whole idea and would put the last piece of candy she got into the next person's bucket.  But she had a great time!

We also dressed up for the ward part and for the actually holiday. Molly got to try some smarties, but the rest of the candy was for Mommy and Daddy! Yum.

Grandma and Grandpa Kleinlein were able to come visit in early November which was a blast. We drove up to Estes Park and walked around and it was cold!

Thanksgiving was fun this year, except for the fact that our oven broke a week before! We already had a crack in the stove top so it was time to get a new one. Our new one has a meat roast setting so our turkey turned out delicious! We had Matt's sisters visit, and ate lots of yummy food. Molly's favorite was Jello, Matt's was the pumpkin pie I made, and my favorite is always the stuffing! It was a white Thanksgiving so we got to play in the snow too! Molly loved the snow, but hated her snowsuit.

 

Black Friday at Home Depot

Longmont Tree Lighting

Playing at the mall playground

Other mentionable things that happened this fall:

• Molly got really sick for the first time. It was sooo sad! She wanted to do nothing but cuddle, which is so not like her. 

• We got a new car. We have no pictures of it, but we love our Ford Escape!

• Molly has been learning like crazy, and I am so excited for her to start talking more and more!

I love rewards programs!

I am such a sucker for fun rewards/points programs, and have tried a lot of them. There's something enjoyable to me about racking up points for doing little things, and trading them in for gift cards. The value probably isn't worth the time on a lot of them so here are some of my favorites and a little about them.

1. ibotta

This is a couponing app that gives you cash back for buying things at the store. The best part is that there's usually lots of stuff that I like or buy already so it's extra $$. (I also use Checkout 51, and Snap but they have a lot less options)


2. Receipt Hog

This is an app where you take pictures of ANY receipt and it give you points. It's easy, and it took me about a month to get $5 on Amazon.


3. MyView

This is a survey website, and is the fastest way to earn gift cards if you spend about 15 minutes a day doing surveys.  I have gotten Target, Walmart, and Home depot gift cards from them.


4.  Product Rewards

I also do product rewards with Pampers, Huggies, Coke, and Kelloggs.  These don't accumulate super fast, but a usually use the points to get free photo prints for my scrapbooks and walls.


5. Shopkick

Shopkick gives you points when you have the app open and you walk into popular stores. I like this one, but don't use it as much since going shopping with a toddler is hard enough that I rarely remember to have it open when I walk into the store, but it's easy and fun if you remember.


Anyone else do things like this? And what are your favorites?

One Year Old

Molly is now a one year old.  I can't believe how fast the past year has flown by.  I love being her mommy and love watching her learn and grow.  Her are some of her adorable birthday pictures:

 

For Molly's birthday we decided to try out the Denver Zoo.  We weren't sure how much she would get out of it, but it ended up being really fun.  She would only look at big animals that were moving, and she called all of those animals "dog" which sounds like "deeg deeg".  The weather was AMAZING and she was pretty happy most of the time. Afterwards we went to KFC for lunch and she had some yummy mac & cheese, and then we came home to open presents and eat another piece of that cute little cake.  She ate an adult size piece in about 10 seconds, and then cried for more! Looks like we got a dessert lover just like her momma.

Spoiled baby!

Playing with her new toys

 

Well here's what else Molly has been up to this month:

• Wears 12 and 18 months clothes and size 4 diapers
• Weighs about 22 pounds
• Walks like a expert, and is getting faster by the minute
• Is now completely done with bottles and just has her formula/water/juice out of a sippy cup
• Understands A LOT more words (and probably a lot more than I think she does) including shoes, kick, clothes, banana, head, hair, and book
• Loves shoes.  She carries around her shoes all day long and will search for shoes if you say the word.  She also likes to admire herself in the shoes she's wearing
• Is starting to "read"  books to herself.  She will sit and play and babble with a book for about 5 minutes
• Likes to hold one thing in each hand constantly.  And most of the time is has to be the same thing in each hand
• Went to her first wedding of her Aunt Carissa and new uncle Justin
• Loves to play peek-a-boo.  She plays with the people begin her at church, and plays with me when there is any clothes or blankets on the ground
• Loves to eat and her favorites are string cheese, cauliflower, and crackers
• Likes going to story time at the library and is very social... she mostly likes to go say hi to all the other parents in the room and especially the story teller
• Destroys everything! Haha.. OK maybe not destroys, but these days it's impossible to do laundry, or tidy up any room because Molly loves to follow me around and undo everything. 
• Loves pushing buttons and thinks every small round dot is a button. She also like to turn of the lights using the light-switch
• Takes one 2 hour nap during the day, and still sleeps so great at night
• Has 4 meals a day of finger food, baby food and milk, juice or water
• Loves to open drawers and door and take out all the contents.  Her pajama drawer is her favorite
• Is growing up way too fast and is such a joy in our lives!

Here's some more picture from this month:

We never know where the remote is

I can't ever get a non blurry picture!