Wednesday Weekly Recap - Beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

We've been really enjoying the holiday season this year! Dylan has really been interested in all thing Christmas! He loves Christmas lights (especially the multicolored ones) and tells me every day how close we are to Christmas. He loves our Christmas tree and insists that the lights are always on.

Decorating the Christmas tree!

Ella, Dylan and Maggie all stayed at my parent's house Saturday night!! The Lichtenberger siblings went bowling for my birthday! The bad news is I was horrible at bowling...the good news is, we had a lot of fun :)

Morning hugs :)

Making me birthday pancakes!

I've talked to a number of parents who have all told me that age 3 has been much harder than 2. In fact, last week at music class the teacher told me that her son started getting difficult around 2 years and 9 months (for those of you keeping track, D's age right now!). So, Dylan had still been sleeping in his crib, but had definitely been pushing the limits in terms of asking me to come back into the room. He figured out that if he asked for another hug or told me he had to go to the bathroom that I would respond. So, last week, I decided to let him "cry it out"...well he decided that was not a good idea and climbed out of his crib! Once he figured that out, there was no keeping him in his crib. On Sunday, I took the front off of D's crib and converted it into a "big boy bed". Unfortunately, Dylan decided on Sunday night that he did NOT want a big boy bed and wanted the crib back. So, he very quickly figured out that he could get out of bed and come find me. So, after many of these "parenting opportunities", on Tuesday we made Dylan a sticker chart. If he does a good job getting ready for bed and going to sleep he gets a sticker. After 5 stickers he gets a prize from the prize bin (supplied by the $1 store at Target). After 10 stickers, D gets a date with me to his choice destination (indoor pool, bounce house, etc). The reward didn't work the first few nights, but D went down perfectly tonight! So, hopefully we'll figure out this sleeping in a big boy bed quickly!!!

Very excited about his sticker chart!!

Last night, we headed to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa with the Morris family. We also got to see Stump, Jody and Kylie which was awesome!! The line was super long (I know, shocking that 5 days before Christmas, the line would be long for Santa!) so we actually didn't get to talk to Santa. We decided to go back today so we could see Santa. Of course, once we got to the front of the line, the kiddos decided they wanted NOTHING to do with sitting on Santa's lap. Here's a pic from last night...where we just got to hang out in Santa's play land. I will post those pics when I get them from Andrea.

Checking out the elves with Aunt Andrea!