Last of Fall

I think we are almost there - to winter.  We've already had a few snow flurries and woken up to everything dusted white a couple of mornings.  The wind has been blowing the last of the leaves off the trees, so let's look back to the last moments of fall, shall we? (Funny aside: I said "shall we?" to Owen the other day, and he said, "who's Shalwee?")

We enjoyed one sunny evening in our front yard. Hadley was ushering in the change of the seasons as our "fall fairy" by pulling leaves off of the burning bush.  It made her very happy.

Earlier that day, we ventured to a local corn maze where Owen led us through both the longer and shorter mazes.  Hadley sat this one out and snoozed most of the way.

The best part were the inflatables they had.  Owen ran, bounced, climbed, and slid like a maniac for about half an hour until it was time to go home for lunch and a nap!

We still enjoy family walks, but Owen does walking now instead of biking. The older neighborhoods in town just have to rake their yards into the street, and the city comes by periodically to vacuum up the leaves.  This makes for some epic leaf piles to crunch through!

It seems their tolerance for each other is growing.  Hallelujah!  Owen is learning how to have his own time/place for things, and Hadley is able to do more with him.  He still loves to get her to chase him, and this morning I caught him playing "fetch" with her!  Ha!

Owen has known his letters for a while, so I got him a wipe-off book where he could practice writing.  He seems to enjoy it and does an okay job when he can trace.  Top picture is tracing little letters next to the big ones.  Bottom picture is free-hand filling in the blanks.  Can you believe we are nearly ready for reading/writing?

Halloween-ers

Happy Halloween!  We had a pretty low-key Halloween this year, which was fine since the weather has been chilly and damp.  Now to the pictures!  We decorated cookies at a local bakery.  Yum!  Both cookies barely lasted long enough to be documented.

Costumes!   A talented friend let us borrow the dragon costume she made for her son last year.  I was impressed that Owen stuck with the same thing all month instead of vacillating every week.  He was very good at breathing fire, and the warm fleece was a blessing on the chilly night!

Since she didn't have an opinion, Hadley reused Owen's monkey costume!  I stuck a bow on the ear and called it good.  :)  Another warm costume that would have been perfect, if she wasn't sick on Halloween.  She did have a few other opportunities to wear it though, and even won a costume contest at the gym for a free smoothie.

What a pair!  Side note, there is a banana sewn into the pocket of the monkey.  Hadley has picked up that word this month ("na-na"), so it was perfect.  She also know that you are supposed to say "cheese" when having your picture taken, but she can't say that yet, so it just sounds (and looks) like yelling. :)

Now you can see the bow.  This was post-contest when she fell asleep in the car.  It's tough being that cute!  Also, the beginning of a cold makes you tired...

Trick-or-treating: Owen told me that was his favorite part of Halloween.  Like there's any other part!  Though he was super excited and ran with the big kids from door to door, he seemed to get stage fright once the door was open.  I only heard a couple of "Trick or treat!"s and "thank you"s despite discussing it during most of the walk...  But he had a great time!

Oh, and here are our pumpkin designs for the year.  I traced the one on the left and Owen designed the one on the right, complete with one pirate eye!

Pumpkin Patch

It's that time of year again.  Pumpkin month.  Here are the latest pictures from our trip to the local pumpkin patch with the kids' best buddies.

And, here's a sweet one where Owen was reading to his little sister.  He has his moments.  :)

Happy fall everyone!

Soccer, Gymnastics, and School... oh my!

As the weather has been getting colder, we've been looking indoors for entertainment. First, Owen has been attending pre-school at the church just outside our neighborhood 3 mornings a week and loving it!  They are learning letters, doing show-and-tell, and cutting with scissors, which is apparently a crucial skill for kindergarten that a lot of kids are lacking.

Pee-wee t-ball was so fun that we signed up Owen for 6 weeks of pee-wee soccer.  It's also highly amusing!  Picture a herd of 3-5 year olds chasing the ball around in a big circle wherever it goes.  There are goalposts marked on the wall, but there is no goalie and no one is keeping score.  Basically, it's 10 minutes of running, 5-minute half time, and 10 more minutes of running.  This makes for tired kids!  The poor coach (a friend) has to spend a lot of the game separating a wrestling Owen and Carson, but I did see Owen score a goal once!  (Owen is in orange or red shorts.)  Still gotta work on his picture smile!

At a friend's request, we also tried out a pre-school gymnastics class.  Owen loved it!  So, now we do that on Mondays, too.  It's exposure to all parts of the gym (rings, trampoline, tumbling, beam, etc.), good exercise, and learning to follow directions.  (Owen is in orange in all the pictures.)

Lastly, Owen got a pedal bike and has been learning to ride it!  It's a little frustrating for him because the brakes are activated if you pedal backwards, which occasionally he'll do on accident.  Hopefully, in the spring he'll be more motivated to really conquer the start/stop on his own.

15 months for Hadley

This week Hadley passed the 15-month mark and had her check-up and more shots.  Her measurements were 31.25" long (74.5%), 19 lbs, 11 oz (27%), and head circumference of 18.75" (92%), which are roughly in line with previous measurements.  I had them check her iron levels again to ensure that the vitamins, adult food, and milk consumption monitoring were working - they are!

Speaking of eating, she seems to enjoy meat much more than Owen ever did or even currently does.  I'm talking roast, hot dogs, sausage, and all forms of chicken.  I think that's been helping with her iron, too.  She also loves a good corn on the cob!

Hadley is a climber, and has been trying to follow Owen up onto playgrounds since August. She is my little busybody, never still more than a minute!  Let's look back on sunnier times, shall we...? (This week we had our first hard freeze, a couple of freezing rains, and some wind advisories!)

They both love the swings!  I had to show the pic of Owen crammed into the baby swing with his buddy, Carson.  The boys did not look comfortable, but neither wanted to get out and leave their pal hanging, so to speak.

Hadley is currently in the stage of fascination going up/down stairs and opening/closing doors. Climbing on top of the coffee table apparently makes for a great stage with the Grover microphone!  She and Owen also like to pull all the pillows off the couches and clamber over everything, up and down and over.  All...day...long...

She thinks Owen is the coolest guy around and just wants to be near him always, much to his chagrin.  Here they are both watching Owen's morning shows.  Or at least, he's watching, and she is enjoying being next to him on the couch.  :)  Her attention doesn't last more than two minutes on anything.  

Both kids' ears perk up when they hear shuffling sounds in the mud room around dinner time.  Daddy's home!!!  Hadley stops what she's doing and runs to greet him.  She has the sweetest cooing, repetitive "Da-da" that is almost dreamlike in its affection.

Any parent knows to get nervous when the house is too quiet, and you can't see the kids anymore.  Hadley has taken to toddling to her room, climbing up in the rocking chair, and "reading" her books quietly to herself.  Whew!  That's a relief...  Ironically, you don't get to read more than 3 page-turns when you read a book to her.  :)

On a more personal note, she continues to entertain us with her funny laughs and sounds. Her newest is a 'haw-haw' laugh that sounds like a triumphant "in your face" statement from a gravelly-voiced smoker.  Where does she get this stuff?  I'll have to get that on video, but in the meantime, here's one of her older sounds - a low, zombie-like murmur.