Halloween Festivities, Part 1

We had our 3rd annual visit to Hidden Valley Fruit Farm last weekend to find a pumpkin! We met up with Uncles Paul and Brett, Aunt Dianah, and Neenee and had a really nice time. Jude got to come along in the Baby Bjorn. I think he really liked being able to see all the action.

Mmm...forget apple cider. This Baby Bjorn is DELICIOUS.

Had lots of fun with Uncle Brett

Sam loved the hayride. He thought the tractor was really cool. Only sad thing was the lack of color because of the draught. It was a lot of brown trees and grass.

With Neenee on the hayride!

Sam made a little buddy while looking for a pumpkin. He had noticed a couple of pumpkins that had broken open, so he kept pointing at pumpkins and shouting "broken!" over and over. Even at the pumpkins that were perfectly fine. Madeline chimed in, too, and then they ran off. Sam's probably telling her that these pumpkins are "broken!" here.

Sam got to do something new this year - ride a pony! He was so excited, and not scared at all, which really surprised Ben and me. This is one of the pictures I got of him trying to smile. I think it's hilarious because you can tell he really was a little nervous.

More halloween pictures will be coming soon!

Transitions

We've hit another one. The transition from the miraculous Miracle Blanket (and it's counterpart, the wonderful Woombie) to just plain old wearable blanket. This straight-jacket-like product has a large role in ensuring blissful sleep-filled nights for my boys when they are newborns.

But there comes a time when binding babies like little caterpillars no longer works.

FREEDOM!!!!

A friend who used a Miracle Blanket after I used one with Sam asked me how I knew when it was time to not use it anymore. Well, it's when you go into your baby's room in the morning, and he or she looks like the above picture. For his morning nap today, I put on Sam's old Cloud b blanket. Check out the arms. I remember with Sam, we had a couple bad days/nights while he got used to it, so here goes! Wish us luck.

It's FINISHED!!!

I FINALLY finished Sam's photobook that I've been working on for so long I can't even remember when I started. It feels so good to have actually finished a project! It's part of the reason I haven't put much on this blog lately....naptime has meant Photoshop Scrapping Time lately. Now, I've started Jude's and have vowed to keep up with his so that I'm actually scrapping whatever month he's in. We'll see if it lasts, but I'm totally committing to it. At least for now. We'll see what happens when I go back to work.......

Anyway, you can click on the link in the lower post to see the book. I can't wait till it comes in the mail!

Sam's First Year Photobook

Click here to view this photo book larger

I Am In Love With This Baby!

The Dude is fantastic. 10 weeks now and we just really love him to death. Like a lot of moms probably do, I really could not fathom loving another baby as much as I love Sam. Those worries went out the window as soon as Jude was born, of course. He is such a sweet little guy and is as much of a cuddle bug as Sam was. And he's even a better sleeper - the best part of all! (Now that we survived a little rough patch a couple weeks ago, anyway.) My favorite time with Jude is when it's just him and me after his morning meal. If Sam's at school, I just feed him in our bed and afterward, he just lays there and smiles at me. Take it from me, it's adorable. I didn't catch a smile this time, but it's still pretty cute:

"Geez - stop taking pictures of me, lady!"

Here's a scene from right before bathtime in our house....

Caught one!

So far, Jude still has blue eyes. I checked some old pictures and Sam's had changed to brown by this time. We'll see if they stay!

Last Days of Summer

Maternity Leave makes me feel like doing this:

Sam's thinking - "Mom's lost it."

I'm on Week 9 of 16 of my maternity leave. Now, I really do feel so lucky to have a job I love 98% of the time and get about 9-10 weeks of vacation time and get paid a decent amount to do. AND I have a husband who also has that time off with me. But I'm definitely enjoying my time off with the boys. We've done a lot of fun stuff over the last month. A lot of going to the park, library, and so on, and it's been really nice.

Last week, my friend Emmy set up a little visit to the Norwood Fire Station to visit a firefighter we know there. Doug showed Sam around and was so sweet to him, but Sam was still pretty terrified. He would rarely let go of my hand. Of course, after the day was over, he talked non-stop about it like he had the time of his life. The other day he picked up a little toy fireman and told my sister "This looks kind of like Fireman Doug." He's his hero (after Ben, of course)!

A couple days ago, Sam decided to pretend his Smurf was baby Jude. He carried him over his shoulder, burped him, and fed him:

Sam thinks that Jude gets milk out of my belly.

We had a special visitor on one of our recent trips to the park - Nana! We had a picnic, played on the playground, and walked around the gardens. Our favorite part was the butterfly garden. Mom and I had a blast with her super duper camera (I'm dreaming of owning one myself)! She even caught a hummingbird mid-flight with it. Here they are in the butterfly garden.

Took some on the playground, too....

Mom caught Sam giving me a kiss. These are hard to come by now because he's such a busy little guy. :(

On Saturday, we traveled down to Louisville for Jackson's 5th birthday party at a soccer club. Jackson had a lot of fun with his friends and Sam had a great time, too, even though he was younger than most of the kids. Ben helped Sam join in.

Jackson doesn't look like he's having fun at all here.

Had a great time and it was fun staying at Rachel and Gammon's lovely new house. Sam had so much fun at the soccer club, he didn't want to leave. When we were heading out, he had ventured back into one of the darkened soccer fields. Ben went in and told him we were leaving. He looked at Ben and excitedly said, "I just want to run SO fast!" and took off down the field. I'm thinking track may be in this kid's future!

Up and Away

Last weekend, we took the boys to the Air Force Museum in Dayton. Sam really liked it. He told us this was his favorite plane:

Okay, not really, but he did really like this one:

He was scared of going through the inside of this plane when he went through with me, but manned up and went through again with Daddy.

He was really into this rescue helicopter from the Korean War. Kept telling us all about the rotors. I know more now about helicopters than I ever needed to know thanks to Sam's library books on the subject. Today, while he was talking to me about his helicopter book, I guess I was staring at the TV instead of listening to him. He looked at me and said, "Mom, stop watching that. Just watch me." Whoops.

But his favorite part of the entire experience was getting to sit in a cockpit, or "where the pilots sit," as Sam calls it. He was so excited - he's still talking about it almost a week later!

After the museum, we had a delicious dinner at Sue's with Brett and Dianah. Jude got some Uncle Brett and Neenee time in!