This Is Us: Adventures with the Wheelers

November is a very eventful month in our family. It starts off with Autumn's birthday; a few weeks later comes Collin's birthday and Thanksgiving. It's a wild ride from start to finish. Collin was born on the 20th of November. (Almost a Thanksgiving baby.) He took the day off on the day of his birthday to spend time as a family. It was also nice to get a chance to do a video chat with his family. He also received so many nice gifts from both sides of our families. I told Collin to just kick back and relax since it was his special day. I did all the chores and made him a cookies and cream cake. I got some baking experience while trying to make Autumn's birthday cake. This was my first time trying it solo. Everything was going great...until disaster struck. I was mixing the wet ingredients, and then I noticed Collin was giving me a funny look. He said, "Shouldn't you be folding in the cookies last?" That's when I realized I goofed up on the recipe. B...

Before we knew it, Autumn's birthday had arrived. Where did the time go?? My tiny baby suddenly transformed into a tall 1-year-old. They weren't kidding when they said the first year goes by so quickly. Autumn's birthday is very special, because Halloween will always be the eve of her birthday. Just when you think the fun is over after Halloween, we get to celebrate a sweet girl's birthday the next day! Between Halloween candy and birthday cake, this girl is going to get twice as much sugar each year. The day of Autumn's birthday was low key, but really good. Collin came home early from work to celebrate as a family. This year was her golden birthday since She turned 1 on the 1st. I got to take her one year pictures which was surprisingly easy. I know that sometimes getting pictures of kids is a struggle, but we ended up getting some cute pictures. Autumn is such a little model. To top it off, she got to eat her smash cake. She only ate the frosting on top, but ...

We were so excited for Autumn's first Halloween this year. We also knew that we were in for a busy week, because the day after Halloween is her birthday. Collin and I always loved dressing up for Halloween. Now that we have Autumn as a part of our family, she can join in on the fun.  When choosing family costumes, we went back and forth of what we wanted to be. We made the final decision to dress-up as something kind of silly. Collin and I dressed-up as babies and Autumn was a little old lady. When putting our costumes together, we found some adult onesies on Amazon that looked like baby onesies. For Autumn, I bought a baby dress with flowers on it to make it look like an old lady's dress. I also used a white baby hat and glued on some cotton balls as her hair. We found a scarf which worked perfectly for the look.  We went to our ward trunk or treat the Saturday before Halloween. There was a chili cook-off, pie-eating contest, costume contest, (we won for fu...