It's Halloween

Holiday is really excited about trick-or-treating this year.  We'll see if the rain lessens enough to go door to door, but the Northgate Mall is our plan B just in case.  Holiday is going to be Ladybug Girl (from the children's book) and Johnny will be a teddy bear.  The teddy bear outfit is like a bunting outfit so he'll be really warm, but it'll be good for any weekend outdoor activities through the cold weather so we'll get a lot of use out of it.  We'll be trick-or-treating with the Prestons this year so Holly will be happy to have her Anna back.  Then everyone else passes Johnny around, which is good because he's getting heavy and that can be hard on one's back.  I should probably weigh him just for curiosity's sake.  He's doing this thing now that he won't poop for three days and then has an absolute blowout, which usually happens at daycare for some reason.  He farts all the time so it's not like he's not trying, and let me tell you, those are a doozey of a cheesy puff kind of farts.  Johnny's been eating like crazy and he does feel really heavy when I first get him out of the crib in the mornings.  He likes getting changed.  He puts his toes in his mouth when he's on his changing table so I got to get him to put his legs down so I can get him dressed.  Oh, the flexibility of babies.  Johnny's also starting to like his saucer more so he spends more time in there.  I'm starting to see tooth buds for his upper front teeth, he's been working on those for a while now.  Holiday is growing up fast too.  We carved jack-o-lanterns the other night so Holly was really excited about that.  We had her draw the faces and we carved them out.  Let's just say 'Asymetric' is the theme.  Now she has a jack-o-lantern (a word she knows really well by the way) trick-or-treat basket and has to have it with her at all times.  Holly's is really comprehending quite a bit now and asks lots of questions.  David and I are hard at work to keep her interested and challenged.

Another usual weekend

We pretty much had ourselves a standard Anderson family weekend, which is great.  Holiday's dance class started tap this last lesson and the teacher specifically told us that Holly did really well and she was really pleased with her.  While Holly was having her lesson, Mommy was getting a driving lesson from Daddy.  He said I did well, I'm sure I need tons of practice still, but I felt far less freaked out.  So hopefully I'll start feeling comfortable with it soon.  Our van is new enough that everything is able to adjust to my size which helps a lot.  Johnny is spitting up a lot lately but I pretty much attribute that to teething.  It seems like he wants to move around more, like he's just going to get up and walk, so maybe he'll start crawling soon.  He does this thing where he stiffens his body if he doesn't want to sit on your lap.  He's much more grabby lately, so watch your hairs including facial ones.  Oh and earrings too.  Johnny is very interested in his environment so if he hears a noise coming from somewhere he contorts himself so he can try to see what it is making the noise.  If he's on my lap and I'm talking he stretches his head back to look at me.  If he's in his cradle in the living room he'll stretch around to see cartoons or football or whatever on tv, the same thing if anyone is playing behind him too.  Or even coming in the front door, it's pretty funny to see.  He also laughs really hard if anyone says, "Beep! Beep!"  David and I got yardwork done like we usually do.  My pumpkins are still really green, so I cut them off the vines and put them in my greenhouse.  They were orange on the bottom where they were against the ground so they probably need to get warmed up. 

Remlinger Farms Pictures

 

Silly Mommy

 

 

Silly Daddy...I admit Daddy was way funnier than Mommy.  This one got giggles from Holly.

 

 

Holly on the train after eating a donut.

 

 

Some of the grounds from our seats in the train.

 

 

There were scarecrows everywhere.

 

 

Here's a shot of the locomotive.

 

 

Mommy on the train!

 

 

Johnny was really enjoying chewing on his jacket.

 

 

Looks like he already chewed out the zipper pull.

 

 

Some horses while we're on the train.

 

 

I never seen so many scarecrows in my life.

 

 

You don't understand...so many scarecrows.

 

 

More grounds.

 

 

There was a lot to see from the train.

 

 

Even alpacas.

 

 

Now we're in the barn.

 

 

Little goat.

 

 

Holiday loved that merry-go-round.

 

 

Did that three times.

 

 

This is the canoe ride.

 

 

She had a lot of fun with that one too.

 

 

Holiday on Coconut.

 

 

She really liked the pony ride.



More pretty pictures

 

Little pudgy owl Johnny in front of the owl exhibit at NW Trek with Ellie.  There's an owl in the window at the peak of the structure.

 

 

Little girl owl Holiday

 

 

Mommy, Ellie and Johnny on the tram.  Holiday and Anna behind us.  Toni and Drew behind them.

 

 

Picnic time!

 

 

Johnny's playing with Uncle Drew.

 

 

Ellie and Anna with Holiday in the middle.

 

 

Thar's a bear! Whar? Thar.

 

 

Coyote?  Wolves are bigger right?  Man it's been a long time since 5th grade.

 

 

More critter close ups...they really do blend in on the wider shots, it's like 'Where's Waldo?' sometimes.

 

 

Mountain lion? Cougar?  Seriously, it's been awhile.

 

 

That badger looked so bored.

 

 

The raccoons were slightly more lively.

 

 

Very impressive were the eagles.

 

 

This is fun little step structure, I remembered that from when I was a kid.  Here I'm pointing out a baby squirrel to Holly.

 

 

Anna took very good care of Holly that day.

 

Just a note to our public...I was getting some spam comments on the blog so now I'm moderating the comments.  So don't worry, you may comment away.  Basically the way it works is now I'll get an email expressing that someone wants to post a comment and I have to check yes or no.  So it's just a matter of when I check my personal email and then it will get posted.  That means if either of kids are awake or I'm working it could be a good while, so don't panic, I'll get to it eventually.

More pictures and Remlinger Farms

 

Daddy and Johnny hanging out.

 

 

Johnny's happy place...on Mommy's tummy.

 

 

OH YES!

 

 

YES!YES!YES! Holly loves to paint.

 

 

First ballet class.  This is what a fake 'fall down' looks like.

 

 

This is a confidence builder exercise.  The teacher has the girls take turns standing up, saying their name, hold old they are and to sing a song.

 

 

First position.

 

 

It's a pretty impressive space for a small operation.

 

 

Releve'

 

 

Mommy and the kids.

 

 

Johnny in the saucer.

 

 

Close up...you can see the extent of the drool.

 

 

Gotta have more...it's just too cute.

 

I've almost caught up on the pictures. I still got a bunch so I'll continue to post them in doses.  This was the first week that Holly and her classmates did their dance lesson without parents watching.  I think they did okay once the door was closed and they realized they had to pay attention.  I was waiting for her when her class was over and suddenly I heard a stampede heading towards the door.  The door flies open to about 7 little 3 year old girls bursting through all going, "Mommy! Mommy!" with big smiles on their faces.  I was cracking up.  We went to Remlinger Farms right after that.  It was described as the disneyland of pumpkin patches and I quite agree.  I recommend it for kids ages 1-6, maybe even a little older depending on the kid.  What I liked about it was there was a gate charge of $15 and you do as much or as little as you wanted without getting nickel and dimed.  So Holly rode the merry-go-round a couple times and the canoe ride saw a lot of action.  The whole family rode the small train, the four of us fit easily in one of the train cars, and it was a real steam engine, just little.  It's on a figure eight track and you can see all the animals and a lot of the grounds and even go through a tunnel.  We did that twice.  There was a car ride that the whole family did together, they were the kind of cars back in the day of model-A although I don't think I'm entirely accurate on that.  I had Holly ride in front since she normally doesn't get to view the world from the front seat yet.  But the course it was on was beautifully landscaped, being an amateur gardener myself I was very impressed.  There was lots of other stuff like the animal barn, feeding the chickens, riding ponies with food names (Holly's was named Coconut), playing in the sandbox with diggers, the haymaze.  We had lunch at the burger shack and checked out the store and the market.  Maybe next year we can do more...we didn't even glance at their cornmaze and there's few things that Holly isn't tall enough for yet.