holiday weekend

Happy Thanksgiving from the Hess Family to yours. We had a great weekend and wanted to share a couple pictures. Before all of our family arrived for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday we were able to snap a few pictures of the kids. Melissa made both kids shirts again. Charlotte is very much into letters these days (thanks preschool) so Melissa made an "o" shirt for Oliver and a "c" shirt for Charlotte. Pictures like those prove that even though they fight like cats and dogs sometimes, deep down they are best friends.

My parents took the kids home with them after Thanksgiving so Melissa and I got to spend the rest of the evening playing games around the table with family and sleep in (7:30am). Well I slept in, but for some reason Melissa woke up around 6am and cleaned up the house from the night before. We headed out to do some black friday shopping and picked up the last few things on our list for the kids. We had a nice breakfast together and had fun poking around a few stores.

My parents brought the kids back, they napped and when naps were over we headed out to the Christmas tree farm to pick out this year's tree. It was in the 30's so we bundled up and made our way out to the farm.

Had to get a picture on the sleigh. You can compare to last year here.

Here is the tree we landed on. It was cold and the kids still can't walk too far, so we found a tree pretty quickly and cut that sucker down.

Now it was time to drag the tree up to be tied up tightly for the car ride home.

Charlotte has been naming a lot of things lately and she picks pretty peculiar names. This year she has decided to name our tree....wait for it....Plant. How clever of her. Here she is giving Plant a nice big hug.

This is Ollie saying cheese for pictures. He never smiles when we ask him to and smiles when we don't. I guess that what an almost 2 year old does though.

No trip is complete without a treat, so they both picked out candy canes while we paid for the tree and warmed up inside for a bit.

We hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend. We've been back in Ohio for over a year now and it's fun to make these new traditions and memories and get to look back and see how the kids have grown over the past year. Blessings!

ollie is 21 months today

We have now lived in our house for one year and this past year has gone by so fast. Pretty soon we will be the proud owners of a 4 year old and a 2 year old...but before all of that happens, here is Ollie's 21 month shoot. He face planted on the wooden corner of our banister. You'll see his war wound, but as you can see he is a happy little boy. Enjoy!

October was here and quickly gone...

Although the month of October is one of my favorite months of the year, it is the busiest month for our family and so it goes very quickly!  So quickly that we do not have time to put up regular blog posts.  So here was our October.  In between crazy schedules we enjoyed some fall fun. Charlotte really enjoys decorating and this years decorating day was lead by Charlotte herself.  She did a great job helping me inside and she did the outside of the house with a little help.

A couple of weekends ago we went to Shaw Farms to pick pumpkins.  We met Grandpa and Gibby and got to ride a hay ride (best deal in town), saw some animals, played at the farm and Charlotte got to take a farm train ride.  She was thrilled as you can see.

Later that evening we went to Grandpa and Gibby’s house for dinner to carve pumpkins.

On Halloween night Grandpa, Gibby and Tiki came over to partake in our block party with neighbors.  Charlotte and Oliver were Elsa and Olaf and not to be out-shined, Gibby and Tiki were scarecrows!  We had a delicious dinner and then all the kids took off for trick or treating adventures.  Charlotte knew exactly what she was doing as she had already trick or treated at preschool that morning.  Oliver just thought we were taking a walk with the whole neighborhood.  As soon as we walked up to the first house and he saw that he was getting “treaaaaaats!” he was off and didn’t slow down.

We had a very busy month and got to do some really fun things as a family.  Now it is November first, it is snowing and we have banana bread in the oven!  We welcome November and some lazier schedules!

-melissa

Charlotte's first field trip

Today was Charlotte's first field trip...ever. I didn't know that field trips in preschool were even a thing, but they are and Charlotte and I had a blast. Melissa had to be at work today, so we got Melissa's mom to watch Ollie so Charlotte and I could have a special day together. If you live in the Cincinnati area, I'd highly recommend Burger Farms over in the Newtown area. We met all of Charlotte's school mates this morning and had a great time hanging out together. First we tried out the hay maze. It was tall enough that the kids couldn't tell where they were going, but short enough that parent's could cheat and navigate their way out after so many dead ends led to by 3 and 4 year olds. This is Charlotte after encountering her first dead end.

Obligatory face in hole picture.

There was a large play set that at times had a few too many kids on it, but no one fell or got hurt....amazingly.

Hot off the slide pic!

On our way up the hill on a hayride to pick out a pumpkin.

Charlotte's choice after reading a book called The Littlest Pumpkin a few times in the past week or two.

Some of Charlotte's friends from church and school. As you can see she really wanted to be a part of this particular picture.

Quick selfie shot before the puppet show began. Every kid got a cup of popcorn and a little hug juice drink. Charlotte was in heaven.

Waiting for the show to begin...

That's Mr. Burger of Burger Farms up on statge. It was a cute little show for the kids with singing, dancing and of course the snacks.

Luckily they had ponies, Charlotte's new favorite animal. She keeps on asking when she's gonna get one of these of her own.

And we couldn't leave the farm without getting a shot of the cutest little farmer on her tractor.