Look what I found

while avoiding doing my house cleaning.

What a cool idea to help families.


http://www.smallcanbebig.org/

Spooky Season

I love Halloween so we spread out the joy all month long.

Remember when we got these beauties back in the beginning of October?

We we carved them at the end of October per Jack's specifications.
Addy's pumpkin is happy and Jack's is sad.


One of our favorite Halloween events is the ZooBoo at the Seneca Park Zoo. Where else can you go trick or treating with lions, polar bears and elephants.



Another favorite event is our church's "Trunk-or-Treat" and carnival.

Checkout Addy in the photo booth.

However, this race might be the highlight of the evening.
Kurt challenged Ryan, the Man and R1 to a race.

I am just glad no one was hurt. As you can see, Ryan learned his finish line lean from his son.

Addy enjoying the cake walk.

Jack had his first school Halloween party and came home with a large bag of candy eaten by yours truly.

We had our good friends Nora and Nicole join us for dinner on Halloween and then we hit our neighborhood streets. Addy walked almost the whole time while the older kids rode in the wagon. They loved climbing in and out of the wagon and even tried to make a dismount with the wagon still moving.

We met up with some more neighborhood friends, W1 and L1 (a knight and a dragon).

Then, to keep with tradition, we headed over to the Pulley's, when Ryan finished call, for chili and candy. Annabel took Jack and Addy trick or treating around their neighborhood. I don't know how Jack was able to carry his pumpkin at the end of the night.

Here's Jack's candy. He loves the suckers and nicely shares his chocolate with his mother and father. Annabel happily accepted Addy's candy as a gift for being so great with the kids that night.

Favorite Jack quote from the night:

Mom- "Ready to go Trick or treating?"
Jack- "At the Zoo?"
Mom- "No."
Jack- "At church?"
Mom- "No"
Jack- "School?
Mom- "No in our neighborhood."

Highlight of Addy trick or treating was her very enthusiastic "Dank Ooo
when she got her candy. Melted many a heart.

Can't wait until next year. I am already trying to think of costumes.

A little Adeline

Addy is a girly girl and I love it.
She loves fancy shoes, tights, sparkles, and hair bows.

But she's a girly girl who LOVES to get dirty.
Her favorite thing to do is run through the mud puddle in our driveway.
She gets filthy but is so happy.

Excuse the food smeared on her face and focus on her expressive eyebrows, big blue eyes and cute piggies. She tolerates me combing her hair and sometimes we get the pigtails in before she runs away.

Jack

Jack made this representation of himself at preschool. He was excited to show us his face when we went to the preschool open house. His face had the most blonde hair. It was hard to get a direct picture of his "face" as he wanted to be looking at it and not showing it to me.

These are Jack's friends. He would find a small worm and call it friend and then find that friend's mommy. So fun to listen to him talk to his friends.

He loves worms and loves to help me in the dirt. We planted 80 daffodil and tulip bulbs on Saturday and he was lucky to find many friends.

Walk along the Erie Canal

We live just a few blocks from the Erie Canal and the Canal Trail is a favorite of mine for running or taking a walk with the kids. A few Sundays ago, we had a sunny blue sky so we went to see what we could see.

The kids watched ducks swim under the bridge and spent some time looking at

the tug boats. They were both so excited to see the boats and run over the bridge.

This picture makes me happy.

On our way home we passed the construction equipment on the street over from us. They are getting their water mains fixed and it has been fun to watch the crews work. Jack and Addy loved being able to sit in the scoop.

Random sharing for a Saturday

This is too funny not to share. I promise this is an actual quote.


"Hey, congratulations Amy. You have a black girl booty. Looks good."



My visiting teaching companion said this to me yesterday. And apparently she is an expert because a) she is black and b) she likes her big booty.


I am taking this as a compliment :)

Fall in New York

means picking apples.

(Excuse my closed eyes but it is the only picture of the 4 of us in front of the trees)


This is one of my favorite Rochester traditions and as this may be our last fall in Rochester, I wanted to really savor the experience. There is nothing quite like picking apples in NY.

I am pretty sure that Addy and Jack each ate 4 apples.
They loved picking them and choosing which one to eat.

This was supposed to be a picture of Addy picking her first apple but Jack was so excited to show his own apple that it kept showing up in the pictures. We have some enthusiastic apple pickers at our house.

I love these pictures of Addy in the pumpkin patch.
In the first picture she is striking the pose she makes when she is checking something out. Once she decided it was okay, she reached down to touch the pumpkin with one finger. She then proceeded to walk around the patch and pet the pumpkins. So adorable.

For a special treat, Jack got to ride a pony.