Welcome back Fall!!

I love fall! I love when the weather starts to turn crisp and cool, which is such a welcome break after a hot and humid Texas summer. I love taking the boys to the park and having to wear sweatshirts, and I love watching for even the faintest change in colors in the trees (because in Texas you can't blink or you might miss it!) The one thing that I have not loved about the change in weather this year is the germs that seem to keep recycling their way through our community and subsequently, our home. Have you had it in your circle of family and friends? We have just been through our second round of a stomach virus. Steve is the lone survivor, as he was last time until he ended up with it about a week after the rest of us. So we are praying he is able to stay healthy this time!

Here are some of my pictures from the pumpkin patch. Unfortunately, I didn't take our nice camera...I didn't trust myself with both the boys and an expensive camera, so I just brought my little pocket digital with me. I always want the nice camera with me just in case the boys cooperate and I can get a nice picture of the two of them together. Looking in the general direction of the camera. Semi-smiling. It doesn't happen often, so when it does, I want to be ready! Well, when I couldn't even get a picture of Caleb smiling by himself with the pumpkins, I knew it wasn't going to happen with both boys together!

So here it is...the best picture of the two boys together from our pumpkin patch day. This pumpkin patch was WAY out in the country, and they had an elderly gentleman that was driving a tractor for a hayride. The boys loved it, and since they had to be sitting down, we tried getting Seth and Caleb together to smile. This was the best result...not exactly a framer :-)


Here are Nana and Seth feeding some goats. These animals were obviously very used to being hand fed and were a little on the aggressive side. We had to make sure that no fingers were being nibbled along with the feed!

Caleb wanted nothing to do with the goats, but they were plenty interested in him!

Here is Seth with his cousin Austin.


Caleb was really into sitting still, posing, and smiling while lazily admiring the pumpkins. OK, what really happened is my Mom would plop him down and the minute her hands were off of him, he would pop back up. So we sort of wedged him in there to try to get a good picture...does that sound cruel? It wasn't, I promise, and we only tried 3 times before we gave up. This is as good as it gets.

And Seth was intently covering the tops of each pumpkin with little piles of dirt. He stopped long enough for a brief "Cheese!" before returning to his important work.


I told Steve that the pumpkin patch pictures suffered a bit this year with his absence. Well, in my next post I will show you what Caleb looks like with a large bloody cut across the bridge of his nose. His first major facial wound. I will try to dig up the picture of Seth's first major wound, which was on the bridge of his nose as well. Won't that be fun? Bet you can't wait... :)

Don't run away...

Pumkin Patch photos coming soon!

It's been one of those months...

I haven't blogged in almost a month, so my apologies go out to my three faithful readers (you know who you are!) :~) I think about blogging a couple times a week, and then something always comes up to prevent me from setting aside some time to put together some thoughts and upload some pictures. Like Seth and I getting a stomach bug, Caleb sticking his hands into a quart of yogurt and finger painting his clothes and the kitchen with it, Seth getting into an ant bed in the yard and then having an allergic reaction to the bites, coughs and runny noses, kids who used to sleep through the night tag teaming and waking up 3 to 4 times per night, Steve getting the stomach bug, and I could go on and on but, alas, I will stop there.

On to more cheerful subjects!

The "Beast", also known as our new swing set, is up! Some of our wonderful friends from New Hope came to help us put it up, and my Dad supervised the project and kept everyone in line all day. Yes, I said all day because that is how long it took them. They started at around 9am and finished up in time to have pizza at about 6pm. Here are some pictures of the process:



Yes, that was Steve you saw sliding down the slide!


Seth calls it "the park" and is always asking to go "outside to the park". Steve and I both felt that all the hard work of tearing it down and putting it back up has been worth it because of how much Seth loves it! (Hopefully my Dad feels the same way after two very hard days of serious manual labor. Thanks Dad!)

Seth is loving preschool and loves his teacher Mrs. Carrero and his speech therapist Ms. Lerman. His teacher is so great, she leaves me messages like, "Seth just went pee-pee in the potty and we are so excited that we are having a party!" or sends notes home that say "I love your son, thank you for sharing him with us." I had to take him in late the other morning (it was the morning of the allergic reaction to the ant bites) and his class was out on the playground when we got there. I walked him out and when he saw his teacher, he let go of my hand and started running toward her with this huge smile on his face yelling, "Carrero! Carrero!" and jumped into her arms (he doesn't really have the "Mrs." down yet, but she doesn't seem to mind!) It is so nice that he loves to go to school and it is never a fight to get him ready to go.

He also LOVES to play in the sink with water and bubbles:



As Caleb has gotten older and is more mobile, he and Seth have been able to start playing more together. The other day, we had Seth's Thomas the Train tent up, and they were in there together playing. I went and grabbed the camera and stuck it through the opening to take a quick picture of them. I think they had just finished wrestling over the little green car in Caleb's hand and thought they were about to get in trouble!

And here they are jumping on Seth's bed together...

Here they are being tormented by the horrible vacuum. They both have a love/hate relationship with the thing. It's like they want to get close and touch it...but it is too unpredictable for them, and then they get scared and run and jump in the chair. So I was being a horrible Mommy and parking the vacuum by the chair while it was running so I could get a picture of them on safe ground.

And here is Caleb, after I had turned the vacuum off. Now he is really brave and has conquered the big bad vacuum!


I am officially a 30-something now. I turned 31 on October 14th, and Steve was great to arrange babysitting for both they boys from 3pm on Sunday until the next morning. So that was a nice break! Thanks to the Burgess's and Mom and Dad for watching Seth, and to Neal and Heather for watching Caleb. We went to see a great movie, click here if you want to know what it was. Then we caught the end of the Cowboys ONLY loss this season to the Patriots...sniff sniff. For dinner, we ate at a fabulous restaurant in Addison that has the best steaks I have ever eaten. So if you are ever in Dallas and need a great place for a steak or yummy seafood, you might want go here. It was a great birthday!!

Then we went to the State Fair of Texas. Steve and I have been one other time since we have been married, and it is definitely a different ball game when you take two small children. So instead of a full day of fun, we had about two and half hours and that was enough for everyone! But we packed lot's of fun into those short hours. Here are the boys on the way to the fair...


Seth loved the petting zoo. Here he is petting a buffalo...


Caleb doesn't seem too interested in the camel..


Seth loves all trains, big...


...and small!

Here is Big Tex in the background (because everything is bigger in Texas):

Seth enjoyed some carnival rides:




I can't believe it is almost November! We are taking the boys to a Pumpkin Patch tomorrow, so I will take lot's of pictures and then probably wait weeks to post any. Or maybe I will post some this week! You will just have to wait and see :~)