Randoms of October

The month of October has truly flown by! The weather has been teasing us with some cooler temps and it's finally starting to feel like fall. Life has been pretty full these days, with little time/energy to blog, so here are some things we've been up to recently in an effort to catch-up.

Plenty of baking, especially recipes involving pumpkin!

Cuddling under comfy, warm throw-blankets. Poor guy had his 1st ear-infection. Boo!

Making cool crafts at pre-school. Eli was super proud of his dog head-band!

Making more fun crafts at home. Boy loves using a glue stick!

Visiting the bears at the Life and Science Museum

Fall FanFest at the Durham Bulls Ballpark

Eli went on his first field-trip last week. His class visited a local farm with school. We saw lots of animals and he got to pick-out a pumpkin to take home. He loved that!

And for a bit of a laugh, this is how I found Eli after his afternoon nap recently. This was actually the first time he had ever done something like this, so I consider myself very lucky! Love those sweet cheeks!

Apple Picking 2012

Three weeks ago Mark, Eli, Baby Boy, and I joined my family for our annual Apple Picking weekend. This year we decided to do things a little differently and relocated our festivities to LakeNear (my parent's place in the mountains of western VA.) The setting may have been different but the memories and fun made together were just as priceless as years past. Here are a few of the highlights from our weekend:

Each morning began with a little cousin breakfast bonding

There were also some "tractor" rides with Grandaddy (Erin and I may have joined in on the fun too!)

We enjoyed a yummy pre-apple-picking picnic lunch...albeit some VERY chilly and WINDY conditions. Not really any pics of the meal but the kiddos had a blast playing at a nearby creek.

Our family hill-rolling tradition continued...I did NOT roll this year.

There was a bit of posing with some pumpkins

A Blacksmith Lesson

And some Apple-Picking of course!

There may have been a stop for some ice-cream on our way back afterwards. Picking apples is hard work!

The guys treated us to a Mega-Pancake, bacon, and egg breakfast on Sunday morning. It was delicious and a wonderful treat to us ladies, especially!

And most of all, there was plenty of quality-time with everyone together. We are blessed!

Odds & Ends

Amazingly, September has come and gone but we sure did pack-in some fun stuff during it's final days.

We spent a beautiful Saturday morning/afternoon at Mark's work's annual Family Day. The 3 of us went last year for the first time and had been anxiously awaiting this year's festivities. There were lots of fun games and activities for the kiddos (and grown-ups)and some really yummy food. I'm still thinking about the delicious mini chocolate chess pies they served. Made this preggo very happy!

Eli enjoyed the baseball game and playing on all of the inflatables.

He even won a prize for hitting the baseball into the hole all by himself! I don't know if I could've done that!

There was also a little place set-up with a photographer to take a free family picture, so here was what we got. Not bad for a spur-of-the-moment photo-op! Even baby boy made it into our picture!

My boys and I snuck in one last swim this weekend before our neighborhood pool closed for the season. We've really enjoyed swimming there all summer and look forward to even more fun next year. The water was a bit chilly but we managed to have some fun with the pool all to ourselves!

The Party

We wrapped up Eli's 3rd birthday palooza with a party at a local bounce-place about a week ago. This was his first "friend party" and I think he had a blast. He was definitely talking about it for weeks before and afterwards!

The kiddos bounced around like crazy for a long while and we finished things up with some snacks, birthday cupcakes, and opening some really fun gifts. The boy was spoiled by his friends and the rest of our day was spent opening-up and trying out EVERY SINGLE THING.

Somehow Mark ended up chucking a bunch of our smaller party guests up onto this velcro wall thing over and over and they were loving it. It was pretty hilarious!

In the Tornado Simulator with Daddy

All of Eli's friends are so sweet and his mommy and daddy had fun getting to sneak in a visit with some of our fun friends too! I would say the party was a definite success!