The Harvey Family: October {2016}

Here are a few things about Ohio:

amazing weather so far. I think we got here at exactly the right time of year. We've had mostly perfect weather although some days have even been quite warm. Just having less humidity has made it much more enjoyable. We get to be outside almost every day and I'm not sure the boys know what to do with themselves.
traffic has been great. Mason has a lot fewer people than Pinellas county like we were used to so it is much less stressful to drive and there are just less people on the roads. Nothing is that far away so we don't spend tons of time getting places which is another really nice thing.
no fire ants! It is amazing to be able to go out on our front or back porch and just sit on the ground and not worry about getting bitten by ants. Heck we can even sit in the grass and not worry about them. I'm super excited about this one and so glad the boys will be able to grow up in a place like this!
fall leaves are overwhelmingly gorgeous. I totally forgot what it meant for the leaves to change color in the fall. If we had this in Florida it wasn't memorable. I'm sure the boys are tired of me pointing out every yellow, orange, and red tree that I think is beautiful. I've been a bit obsessed with trying to take pictures to remember them by since I know in a month they'll all be gone.
walk to the mailbox nightly. We have about a 10 minute walk to the mailbox/trash compactor area and it has been so nice to finish up dinner and then take our evening walk up to check the mail. A few nights we even got to see hot air balloons and a blimp!
produce is super cheap. I guess we're closer to agriculture or something, but organic produce here is almost cheaper than conventional produce was down in Florida. It makes it much easier to want to make the switch to organic (which we have for a lot of things now). One thing that was crazy to me was the price of grapes; I had never seen them cheaper than $1.99/lb in Florida and they were on sale for $0.99/lb here!! It seriously blew my mind. I still hope to start a garden once we move into our forever home but it is wonderful that we can eat produce so much cheaper up here.
we miss Publix still. Yes the produce is cheaper here but man do I miss all the specialty foods and Greenwise things from Publix. We had such a good routine going on our grocery trips, and sadly I doube they'll ever build a store up here because we are smack dab in the middle of Kroger country.
I'm able to shave my legs again! This is a weird one I know, but pretty much the first time I shaved my legs in Florida I got these red itch bumps that were terribly uncomfortable. Every time I tried to shave this happened. It started in our apartment and continued once we moved into our house, even with the water softener. I don't know what was in the water down there, but I had to shave "with" the grain to not get the itchy bumps (which meant I didn't have a close shave for about 12 years). I'm so excited to report that every time I've shaved here, things have been totally normal! No itch bumps! It sounds trivial, but I'm super excited. =)
I got hives. I still don't know what caused them. I ended up going to a Little Clinic inside the Kroger because I don't have an official doctor here yet and of course the first question is "has anything changed?" Well, everything in my life has changed: new state, all different food (I've started eating organic everything, haha), new water, new allergies, new everything. Luckily, since this happened to me 2 years ago I was able to figure out what was happening quickly and got to the doctor to get started on steriods quickly before it got too out of hand. I actually was hoping I could take benedryl and keep it under control without going on steriods, but it just didn't seem to be helping and I was just a dizzy mess with 50mg of benedry in my system at any given time. I was prescribed a 6 day treatment of Prednisone starting with 60mg the first day, 50mg the second, and so on. It was wonderful that the hives cleared up in about 5 hours after taking my first dose, but the downside was that by day 3 I was so dizzy and my vision was so blurry (not to mention I couldn't sleep) that I couldn't safely drive. I ended up not taking my last dose because I was afraid to prolong anymore of the symptoms. It ended up taking over a week from my last dose before my side effects of blurred vision, anxiety, rage, and not being able to sleep went away fully. I'll never take that high of a dose again.
tons of water towers. There are SO many water towers around here. The boys have been asking how they work so I guess I'll have to find something online that explains it because I don't know but I'd like to!

This month Brett:

loves baked beans. He asks for them for breakfast everyday.
is very afraid of bugs. There are a lot of house flies up here and I think he was worried that they might sting him like a bee (not that he's ever been stung by a bee) but we got one in the car a couple different times and he had a panic attack and started crying. It worked for a little while as a good way to make him behave when I told him I was going to put him in the laundry room with a fly.
has conversations and says phrases. He can pretty much explain anything he needs to to communicate effectively and he has such a great sense of humor.
has some standard phrases that are adorable: "oh that's cool", "like to eat is..." (when he wants something to eat), and he has good manners for now "yes please" and "no thank you"
repeats words that you say and adds a question mark. I guess this is his way of trying to have a conversation with you. Like he'll ask me what I'm going to eat for breakfast and I'll tell him oatmeal, and then he'll say oatmeeeallll??? And this goes on and on with different words. Or when he's over that game instead of repeating you, he'll just say "oh that's cool" and move on. He has also gotten into the "why" game and will ask it over and over.
can't stop throwing things. He doesn't want to just set things down. He'll either drop them on the ground wherever he is or he'll swing his arm underhand back and forth a few times and just toss it wherever. Everything from socks and soft clothing to toys and drink cups can go flying at any moment. Timeout doesn't seem to be helping either. I'm not sure how to make him stop. Hopefully it's a phase because he knows that it's not ok. It's even worse that our townhouse is kinda small so there are just things like the tv and wall pictures and the kitchen table full of drinks and food that are all so close to where he is.
had his carseat turned around. It was getting hard to interact with him facing backward so we finally decided to turn him forward facing. I don't think he really cares, but he will answer yes if you ask him if he likes it better this way.

This month Blake:

is having a hard time with food adjustment still. Luckily we got the bread thing figured out but we're having trouble with ground beef which used to be a huge part of his dinner (he was eating burgers 3-4 nights a week as his main protein source) because he got spoiled with the super tasty Greenwise ground chuck from Publix. We've tried ground beef from 3 different places and he'll chew his bite for a little while then go and spit out some of it in the trash before finishing it, and he'll do this with each bite. I'm sure we'll get it figured out eventually, and honestly I wish he'd just eat what the rest of us eat for dinner so I could get past this short-order cook thing. I guess I just don't have enough energy to fight him on it at the moment.
has a few quotes of his own that he says all the time lately. "how are you today?", "I have one question" (Brett has started saying this too), "what time is it?"
wants to cook and do dishes constantly. I've been letting him help me a little more with making dinner and now he pretty much can make noodles on his own. He'll get out the pot and put it on the right burner, then after I fill up the water in the pot, he'll turn on the burner and let me know when it's boiling. I measure out some noodles in a measuring cup and he'll pour them in, turn down the heat, and set the timer for me. I think he enjoys making food more than actually eating it, but I hope one day he'll want to make dinner for me all the time haha. He also is still obsessed with the dishwasher and loves to start it. He loves starting the washing machine and dryer too and uses his power of annoyance to wear me down until I find something that we can wash.
has been doing a lot of punching. He claims he's trying to be a superhero but he will just run straight at you, fist first and say "blast off". He also likes to do the "Frank the Tank" punch where you have your elbows by your sides and just alternate punching hands. It becomes even more stressful when Brett joins in because Brett's face is right at Blake's "punching hand" height. Then Brett will try and punch him back and when that has no effect, Brett will get Blake on the ground and donkey kick instead. There has been a lot of physical fighting going on which is just all around stressful to say the least.
wanted to watch all the Toy Story movies finally. He actually sat through all 3 at separate times but he seems to like the second one the best. That's fine with me because I actually like it the best too. I love that he actually laughs at some of the humor that I thought was beyond his years!
went on a couple fall scavenger hunts. I was trying to think of something different for him to do and we decided on a scavenger hunt. The weather has been just incredible and I just crave being outside since I know it is only going to get colder. We printed off a couple different scavenger hunt pages that we found online and each took a crayon and went out exploring. The first one we just did in our apartment complex and the boys had a great time trying to find different colored leaves and pinecones, etc. The second time we did one we went to the park and we were able to find some different things that weren't in our neighborhood.
loves Mentos. Before Halloween this year, the boys had rarely tried candy. The one candy that I would typically keep around is Mentos because they don't have the food dyes. I keep them in my purse in case my blood sugar dips and it gives me enough energy to get home to get food. Now the boys ask for them every time we get in the car. Blake likes the strawberry flavor (but only from the all strawberry pack) and Brett's favorites are the yellow and orange from the multi-fruit pack. Neither of them are into the mint flavored ones, so I get to keep those for myself.
asks what time it is constantly and is learning to tell time. He is getting good at telling me the time on a digital clock and he's actually starting to be able to tell me if it is past a certain time or if it is coming soon. He has a time telling app on his Kindle so he's also starting to get more familiar with where the hands go on an analog clock. He asks if it's AM or PM a lot too so I think he's starting to grasp that concept as well.
is into the Magic Treehouse books. We signed up for a library card at the Mason Library and the children's librarian showed us a ton of stuff, including where these books were. We got a couple to try because I wasn't sure if Blake would be into book without as many pictures and he seems to enjoy having us read them to him before bed. He is getting a lot better with his reading but by bedtime he is ready to put his head down and just listen.
is getting better at reading than I even realized. We haven't been doing as much organized reading lessons, like sitting down and having him read a book. But when we're at the store or out in the car, he'll ask me if that says something and most of the time he can read things correctly. He's started reading road names and learning abbreviations like Dr for "drive" and Rd for "road".

Pics:

We went to a farm called Blooms and Berries to go do a Hayride, look for pumpkins, and do a few other fall festival type things and the boys (actually we all) had a great time!

This is what we rode on through the woods to get to the pumpkin patch. I'm so glad the boys get to experience all the wonderful things that we weren't able to do in Florida because of the terrible heat.

Yay for fall jackets!

Here are a few pictures of our apartment complex. This is the clubhouse at the main entrance.

The main road from the clubhouse.

Our cute little townhouse.

And our simple fall decorations, haha.

We got our "mudroom" all set up and ready for the cold weather. Now we have a quick place to hang up our jackets and put all our shoes just inside the front door.

And another angle.

These boys love to hug one minute and fight the next. Someone always has to be touching someone and normally it's not at the same time.

Brett does this and says "rolling pin" over and over, hahaha.

Blake was my lighting test subject and Brett said something funny. Blake has this new "silent" laugh and it looks like this.

Brett coming down the slide at this awesome playground near our house.

Being rock climbers.

On our fall scavenger hunt.

Brett loves watching the ducks. I'm not sure he could be any cuter! <3

Blake and Brett both wanted to try taking pics with the big camera. I'm not sure which one took this but here are the ducks.

More cute test subjects. This direction was much too sunny in the morning.

Th boy has so much Krouse in him.

Seriously, adorable.

Some pretty flowers next to the pond.

Brett was so excited to discover leaves. He wanted to walk back and forth through them.

We went to the park one morning to attempt to get family pictures with the fall foliage in the background. We didn't get any of the 4 of us that worked out but there were a couple of the boys that were super cute!

Just try to look at this picture and not smile.

My boys. <3

Blake wanted to take a few pictures with the remote shutter and wouldn't stop asking until he got his chance. Nice work Blake, nice work.

I love this one of Blake and Chris.

We went back that evening to try pictures in a different spot. Blake was such a cute test subject. So much for fall clothing, it was just way too hot!

Brett on the climbing wall at the park.

We carved our pumpkins out on the back porch and the weather was absolutely perfect!

Blake wanted nothing to do with the pumpkin goo.

Brett had no problem diving right in.

Brett wanted a digger pumpkin so he helped me pick out a couple ideas online that I combined into this drawing. It ended up being a little too intricate so I had to alter the bottom part a bit.