Halloween Fun

We sure had a happy Halloween this year. The kids had a ton of fun trick-or-treating, and of course, they looked adorable doing it! Nora ended up having two costumes because it was just too cold to wear her pumpkin tutu outfit trick-or-treating, so she just wore it to church. She ended up wearing Joel's old lobster outfit on Halloween night instead. We had a lot of fun and got way too many treats!

 Little Pumpkin Girl

 Scary shark! Actually, he just had Tootsie Roll stuck in his teeth! 

 My little aquatic friends. 

Nora as a lobster. 

And Joel as a lobster two years earlier. See the resemblance?

The Big Apple

In mid-October, Jack and I took a trip to NYC with Wes and Jen, our friends from college. Though it was extremely difficult to leave Joel and Nora behind for 5 days, the trip was such fun, and it was nice to leave behind responsibilities for a few days (not to mention to eat a meal without cutting food or wiping faces!). We had a blast, but we were so happy to return home to our babies!

 At Rockefeller Center, a few blocks from our hotel. 

Dinner in Little Italy.

 Jen and I on our way to a Broadway show.

Harvest Time

Joel's wildest dreams came true a couple of weeks ago when our friend Jeff Bottcher, a.k.a. "Farmer Jeff," called and wanted to know if Joel would like to come run the combine with him during harvest. Oh my, was Joel excited! He has talked for weeks about harvesting with Farmer Jeff, and we even had to "call" Farmer Jeff one night to convince Joel to eat his dinner. After all, Farmer Jeff eats HIS chicken! haha. Joel definitely has a new hero. Here are some shots of Joel harvesting. What an adventure for this little man! And yes, his hat does say "Keeping it Rural." :)

My Little Chatterbox

Nora has been very busy these days. Not only is she just days away from taking her first independent steps, she is also talking up a storm! She will repeat many words if you say them to her, such as "thank you," and "off." She also knows and says the words "mama," "dada," "Jack" (yes, you heard right), "truck," "block," "ball" and "hello!" She's just such a cheerful little sweetie, and we laugh and laugh at her determined personality and happy disposition. Although she hears the word "no" often, she is not very obedient as of yet, and she doesn't really care if she gets in a bit of trouble. I hope this is not a sign of things to come....
A prime example, if she is crawling toward something she's not supposed to play with and I tell her no, she doesn't even look up, she just crawls faster! Yikes!

And despite all my best efforts, this girl just loves tractors and trucks. She would rather play with big brother's tractors than anything else in the world, and she even makes the appropriate truck noises when she's playing. Maybe someday she'll become a girly girl!?!

Look What Came in the Mail Today...

A Trip to the Pumpkin "Farm"

At the end of September, Jack and I took the kids to the Liberty pumpkin patch for a little outing. They both had a ton of fun, especially Joel because we were able to see lots of tractors and even take a hayride into the field to pick out pumpkins! Joel was just way too excited to see the "pumpkin farm." He asked us repeatedly if the farmer was going to "harvest the pumpkins with his combine." However, Joel was not a fan of the green pumpkins because "they're too yucky!" It was a fun and very memorable day for all of us. Hopefully we'll be able to make time to do this every fall.

Fall Flashbacks

I was digging back through some photos of Joel in October 2008, so I decided to re-create them with Nora. It's so crazy to think that two whole years have gone by and now we have a new little member of the family! I just don't think these two look a whole lot alike anymore....not to mention the fact that Joel is twice the size of Nora (and two months younger in these pictures!). Happy Halloween everyone!