Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to everyone out there. While we haven't yet gone trick-or-treating there have been several occasions lately for the kids to get decked out in their costumes. We had a great neighborhood party where we all dressed up, and then Meghan had her preschool party and parade yesterday which had an abundance of superheroes and princesses. Meghan decided to be a princess-butterfly, and sometimes is a fairy. Nathan is a dragon, and I was the fairy Merriweather from Sleeping Beauty... (Originally Meghan was to be sleeping beauty and then we would have all matched a theme, but that's okay!).

Some Good Old Fashioned Fun at South Mountain Creamery

We spent this past weekend at the South Mountain Creamery enjoying their annual Harvest Festival. It's a free event and full of fun for the kids... including hayrides, visiting the baby calves, a drainage pipe slide, homemade ice cream, shake your own butter tubes, and a gigantic barn full of ride-ons for every age, an 1800's musician, and a grind your own cornmeal machine. It truly is every kid's dream, and the food is pretty good, too. In short, we love to go there every year and have a lot of fun. Meghan entertained herself at the cornmeal station for about 45 minutes. It was entertaining watching the children figure out the machine to remove the corn from the cob and then grind it up. Nathan enjoyed his first go round on a ride-on... first backwards, and then forwards. We all enjoyed the fruits of Meghan's shaking (Nathan helped a bit, too) as she made some tasty butter, and the ice cream was pretty good, too

We also enjoyed the musical entertainment. This man acts out the part of an expert musician in the 1800s Gold Rush. He has numerous instruments and plays them all amazingly well, including the spoons and various drums, etc. It's a great opportunity for the kids to listen to a different type of music while shaking their butter tubes or riding around the barn.

And yes, we do get our milk from the creamery. We have milk delivered every week and it's so yummy, as is the apple cider, egg nog, cheese, cream cheese and everything else we've had them deliver. Check it out of you are in the D.C. area:
http://www.southmountaincreamery.com/home.php

Nathan in the Leaves

I'm currently enjoying my new 50D Canon camera that Michael bought for me. Also learning how to use some fill flash, and taking in the beautiful fall color. I had the opportunity to take Nathan out this past week for his 9 month photo shoot (Of course he's almost 11 months now, but hey I got a session in for him sometime!). Here are the results...

Meghan is reading

Meghan has learned how to read basic 3 letter words in this past week. It's very exciting to see the pieces click together and she is thrilled... Sounding out words all over the place. She has been practicing reading lessons at her school recently and brought this one home this week.

Nathan's First Haircut

Today, we had a family day out at for hair cuts. Nathan had his first cut and of course we had to take pictures.
Meghan was 22 months when she had her first haircut, and was able to sit by herself, but since Nathan is still so little, Daddy had to hold him and he did quite well. When he started to squirm, the store owner grabbed a broom and a paper cup and proceeded to keep him entertained. Who needs cartoon cuts when you have such a great family oriented location. We all had a blast and Meghan had her lollipop, of course.




And, for comparison, here is a shot of Meghan on her first haircut... since I didn't have a blog back then. :)

Nathan loves to climb

Nathan's favorite activity lately has been climbing... Climbing the slide, climbing up the stairs, you name it and he wants to climb up it. Of course he can't walk yet, and he usually can't climb down whatever he went up, but he enjoys it anyway, and it makes for an interesting time to watch him, and then rescue him time after time.