Puddles and Leaves

Our next door neighbor has this gorgeous tree in their front yard:

It is truly a beautiful sight this time of year and we love it, except for:

As you can see, we get left with a little work. But it's nothing that Henry can't handle! He loves, and let me emphasize LOVES, helping pick up the leaves. Here are some pics from the other day after we waited for hours for the rain to stop, so we could go out and "collect" leaves.

So they were sopping wet...whattayagonna do?

I'm wet. But I'm cute.

Me: Henry, smile!

Henry: Leaves!

Me: Henry, say cheese!

Henry: Leaves!

Practicing his "stance" for the future.

I would not describe myself as the "go ahead and get dirty - live it up!" kind of mom. At all. But sometimes, you just have to let them have these kinds of childhood experiences. And I'm getting better! So I said, let's put on your rainboots and play in the puddles! Yay me!

The Punkamin Patch

That's what Henry calls it. Henry is in love with pumpkins, so it was without huge surprise that he had tons of fun at the Lee Farms Pumpkin Patch on Saturday. Plus, if you say Carson and Ethan will be there, it's like telling me my house is made of chocolate! Here are some pics to tell the story of our day:

SO many pumpkins! How to choose?

Well, this one's kind of lumpy...

Finding treasures

Smile!

Whatever you do, dad, don't put me down.

Sweet baby cows (no, I am not examining his eye)

The Three Stooges

Beautiful mama and her blue-eyed babe!

Sweet! We can pick these ones up!

He's found the PERFECT one.

Piggies!

Another sweet baby cow!

The BunchBunch

The MarrMarr...wait...

Someone had too much fun!

Fun in the (cold) sun

After several days of rain, we had a morning of sun yesterday so Henry and I headed to a park to run off some pent up energy. Jenna, Nathan and Isaac joined us later, but the camera was put away by that time! Trust me, it was a miracle I remembered to take pictures at all. It is the last thing on my mind anymore. I remember when all I did was take pictures all day...

We were the first ones there so I was thinking, "Bonus!" Until. I saw that everything was super-wet. Well, duh, Steph. I wiped up the slides as best I could with an extra t-shirt from Henry's diaper bag, but as you can see, he still got pretty wet!! I was worried because it was really chilly outside, but he didn't seem to mind, so I let it go.

Mom. I. Am. Wet.



Okay. I'll kind of smile for you. Once.

(Water) slides rock!

Poser.

What we've been up to...

One: Trying to find a Halloween costume. We thought we hit the jackpot when we found this adorable elephant costume at Costco for $9.99. Henry was so excited and we put it on first thing. Ahem. It is labeled 2T-4T. Right. People, it was so small (height wise) that I could barely pull it over his shoulders, which we did for the sole purpose of taking a picture. Jim and I were laughing so hard, my tummy hurt. I mean really, 4T?? Look at his highwaters!

Can you say "wedgie?"

Two: So we got a Wii. I'm a little embarrassed to say a main selling point was getting to battle Mike and Becky at Mario Kart over wifi. (by the way, Becky is really good - she practices against 8 year olds) Anyhow, after dinner, Henry always asks Jim for "play cars?" And people, this is what you get:

Three: Henry is finally singing! After a long time of just staring at us while we sing, he just started singing along out of nowhere, like he's known the words all along. His favorite is Twinkle, Twinkle, but he has shown his skills with the ABC's and Jesus Loves Me. Here is a sample, except you can hear me a lot more than Henry. I wonder when kids understand "pitch." Hmm.