Taking the Jeep for a Walk

Jordan has been taking Ollie to the park around the corner to drive his Jeep.

Oliver drives it perfectly down the sidewalk. 

Then he goes around and around in a giant circle.

Beanie Baby Stash

We've been Spring Cleaning over here and I asked my dad to help me dig out my old collection of Ty Beanie Babies. We found them in a shed in the backyard, and thankfully no scorpions were hanging out with them. Oliver has had fun jumping on the piles of them ever since.

 I haven't counted them yet {it's difficult with Ollie around}, From what I remember, I think there are 300-400. Wow!

Nora wanted to come over one afternoon to play with Ollie and the babies and played for hours.

 It was great! They might not be worth thousands, like predicted, but they sure have brought lots of smiles so they are worth something, right?!



Peanuts Gang, But Mostly Linus

We had a fabulous Halloween.

The month before I asked Oliver what he wanted to be for Halloween and he quickly said, his best pal, Linus. I thought up how to make that happen, found the perfect red t-shirt at Target for $5 and got to work. The blue shirt was in Jordan's drawer and the yellow shirt I stripped off my dad who wore it one day and I saw it as the perfect color of yellow and took it.

As Halloween approached, however, Oliver changed his tune. He was over Linus and wanted to be Count Mickula {the Mickey Mouse version of Dracula}. In an attempt to change his mind I dug out last year's dinosaur costume and he quickly became obsessed with being a "dragon."

 

 I learned he was easily swayed and stuck with the original plan to be the Peanuts Gang. I knew once he saw Dad as Charlie Brown, Cadbury as Snoopy, and me as Lucy he would be excited to be Linus.

{For the record: He was pouting because of the pictures being taken, not because he was Linus.}

 Cadbury/Snoopy

When he was asked what he was going to be for Halloween he either said Count Mickula or a dragon.

BUT,

like I predicted once he saw all the details of his costume, and all of our costumes, he hopped on board.

He loved it and I loved that my many hours spent with a permanent marker, smelling the fumes, were not in vain.

We started October 31 with some pumpkin carving.

Ollie was into it and we baked up some pumpkin seeds for snacking. Jordan loves them and Ollie gobbled them down as well.

I wanted Ollie to get a good meal in before all the junk became available later that night so for lunch we went to Ollie's favorite Café Rio.

 He literally shovels the black beans and rice into his mouth.

After a large photo-shoot {as you can plainly see}

 

family started arriving for mom's homemade doughnuts and for trick-or-treating. This neighborhood is insane and this year we passed out 1,000 pieces of candy {only one per trick-or-treater}. The weather was 100% perfection and at 8:45 we shut off the lights, came inside and watched all the cousins gobble up their candy. Ollie went to bed at about 9:30 and I spent the rest of the night picking up candy wrappers and vacuuming glitter off the couch and floor. It was a great day and so much fun to see everyone's costumes and make memories with my little family.

The next morning looked like this...

 

Camp Snoopy

Ollie & I spent Thursday packing for our long-weekend trip to California. Aunt Elyce sent Oliver a present and he was excited it arrived that day.

 Ollie refers to this hat as his "broccoli hat." {Bronco - Broccoli, same difference. Right.}

He must like it because he refuses to wear any other hat now. Thanks, Elyce!

We finished up loading the car, picked Jordan up from work and took off for Temecula, CA.

 It was wonderful to see and visit with Steve, Jenni, and their family while we stayed there. We have missed them and Ollie & Daisy were good pals. Of course, I was having too much fun and never even took a picture of those two playing together. On Friday, we all went to the beach and again, had so much fun no pictures were taken. I did take a picture of us eating our fresh fish & chips lunch. So good.

Oliver took all of two minutes to fall asleep after a day of fun at the beach.

 {I made this blanket for Ollie the day before we left. He picked out the fabric, obviously.}

At the beach he enjoyed chasing the seagulls, playing in the waves with dad and digging with his shovel with mom.

On Saturday, we took Ollie to Knott's Berry Farm or Charlie Brown's house {Camp Snoopy}.

He was so excited to meet Linus and Schroeder, but wanted nothing to do with Lucy.

 This swing ride was probably his favorite...

and this bus ride was definitely his least favorite. Just ask him about the bus ride and he'll say, "I don't like that big bus ride."

I timed this picture just right, but it's weird because he loved the giant swings and I never saw him make this face, but my camera captured it.

 

The weather was pretty crummy that day {70% humidity} and we were thrilled with a late lunch at Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner {my family's tradition}. Ollie chowed down and was especially impressed by their raspberry Jell-O.

 The next day we drove home. Ollie is a great little traveler. He never had an accident and even was forced to hold it several times. He slept great and was in good spirits all around.

 We will definitely be going back.