Leaf Piles

The leaves hung on for a long time, but they’ve finally started falling off the trees.  The kids have been waiting to rake them into jumping piles for a long time.  They were both very focused when it came to the actual raking of the leaves.  And then the jumping began!  Jake jumped, and jumped, and jumped.  Payton stood in the middle of the pile and jumped up and down a few times but didn’t quite get the appeal.  She preferred to ride her bike, but did come back for a few more tentative tries.  Jake kept at it for a long time.  Then a warm house and hot apple cider won out (I was freezing and not above a little incentive!).

Little Gymnast

Payton loves to jump off things: the couch, the stairs, her bed.  And she loves to stick the landing and proclaim “good jump!”.  We decided to channel her energy into proper gymnastics, in large part due to the daredevil nature her jumps were taking on.  She loves them!  And she loves her pink leotard almost as much.  I didn’t get many good pictures of her doing much in the way of actual gymnastics, but she had a blast.

Blackberry Picking

I really thought we’d be drowning in raindrops by the time October rolled around. So imagine my surprise (perhaps downright, giddy excitement) when the sun came out instead. So blackberry picking we went.

Halloween Happenings

The buildup to Halloween happened all month long.  There were decorations to be made, cookies to be frosted, costumes to decide on, pumpkins to carve, all culminating with the much anticipated Halloween feast.

 

Sunrise Hill Farm

Our annual trip to Sunrise Hill Farm was filled with corn mazes, farm animals and photo op pumpkins.  We’re too cheap to actually buy the oh-my-God-how-can-you-charge-twenty-five-dollars-for-the-same-pumpkins-I-can-get-for-four-dollars-pumpkins at the farm, so we really just fake the pumpkin patch part.  Don’t tell.  Everyone was in a cooperative and fun loving mood and it was a sunny day to boot.  Love it when that happens!

 

Magical Muggle Memory

Jake has an incredible memory.  He used to memorize entire books when he was 3.  We’re not talking short stories.  More like Disney-type books (Cars to be exact).  When we’d read him the books, he’d tell us if we mistakenly said “McQueen said” instead of “McQueen replied”, for example.  Lately we’ve been reading the Harry Potter series.  Jake will often go back and re-read the books in the series we’ve already finished or look ahead in the book we’re currently on.  Tonight Jason was reading from The Order of the Phoenix and read “Harry walked off….”  Jake immediately chimed in with “you mean Harry stalked off.”  And he was right.  Jason started quizzing him on words or phrases in other parts of this book and some of the previous ones.  He was right every time. 

Smart and adorable…(no bias here)!