Halloween scramble!

Every year our town's Parks and Rec sponsors a Halloween egg scramble, with black and orange eggs. We always joke about the amount of spider rings Brant gets, and one year, he's going to get the prize egg.  Or maybe Henry will!  

The Thursday night of fall break was the scramble this year, and Henry had been fighting his first cold. While better, I decided not to take him out into the night air.  So Brant and I headed out and ran into some soccer friends. 

Alana and Brant

And Elmo!

Checking out the competition.  The kids in orange uniforms actually had a game on that field right after! 

You can't see how many he got, but his tactic is finally working.  Run past the eggs at the front, then stop and pick them up.

checking out the loot

Small town fun, ain't it great?!

Family hikes

The fall weather means we can get outside and hike without melting!  So we got everybody loaded and walked down to our park nearby to hit the trails.  We all loved our jaunt out (we hiked about 2 miles) and we enjoyed our time in nature.

"Hearts a bustin'"  I learned this plant from the horticulturalist who is helping my 8th graders with a community service project!  Deer love to eat the red berries.

Fall Festival Fun

One of the best things about living in a small town are the great activities that are within walking distance!  We love strolling downtown to catch a parade or enjoy a festival.  Saturday morning farmers markets and Saturday night music...it's all such fun!

Last Saturday we headed downtown for the 25th annual fall festival.  The boys were selling Scout popcorn for a large chunk of it, while Grandma and Mommy were enjoying the booths (Daddy HATES that part!).  After the selling stint was up, we headed over to the kids area for Brant to play.  Daddy and Henry headed home for lunch and a nap.  

Who doesn't love a big bouncy slide?

Slipping and sliding, what fun!

Grandma and Brant waiting in line for another bouncy thingy.

The kids section was great.  For $5 you get to bounce as much as you want, make Duct tape jewelry, paint pumpkins, make Halloween crafts AND get balloon animals!  Yep! Love those small towns!!

The artist!

 As always, the trains were a huge draw.  It's such a neat thing to have a Garden Railroad downtown on the Green, but they haven't been running much.  The man who built it is getting old and I think it's getting to be too much for him. Thankfully we saw some younger guys out there this time too, so hopefully the train will run more in the future.

My boy LOVES trains, any type, any kind.  And what was even better?  The Amtrak came through while we were there too!

And Thomas ALWAYS has a special visit.

A great morning, full of fun and fried Oreos.  Doesn't get much better! :-)

Picking out a Pumpkin

Happy Fall Ya'll! It's pumpkin time and we've usually had our pumpkins for a long time.  We usually head up to Delaware in September and visit the apple orchard and a farm stand that sells absolutely enormous and cheap pumpkins.  But that weekend we usually go was Henry's baptism.  So we went in search of pumpkins in NC.  Not too hard to find, our church is holding a pumpkin patch! While it's not quite as fun as running around a farm stand or orchard, the boys enjoyed it just the same!

Brant kept a tight grip on his brother and the pumpkin he just picked out

Silly boys

Henry didn't quite know what the orange things were

But the stem was just right for grabbing!

Brant checked them out, looking for just the right ones to take home

Doing a stem test with the nice Methodist man (I didn't know his name, we've not been going to that church quite long enough)

My little man carried all 3 of our pumpkins to the van for me.  Daddy was at work, and Brant worked hard filling his shoes.

Of course, Grandma needed one too!

I sat the boys down of a bale of hay for this one.  Sigh.  Those boys love each other!

serious much?

After a quick dinner it was playtime.  Henry is really enjoying being independent.  He'd rather play on a blanket in the living room than with his playmat.

And picking your own toys out of the basket is the best!!

Doodle at 7 Months

On October 6th, Henry turned 7 months old! Still can't believe it's been seven months.  So short in many ways, long in others.  Seems like he's always been in our family! But as it's been really crazy, and I can't seem to get things together (well, anything other than the things that HAVE to be done), I'm just now getting this posted.  But I wanted to mark the special day with the photos I took ON the day, intending to post later.  But here it is now, happy 7 months little Henry doodle!

Henry LOVES books and likes to have his brother read to him

I sit up to play all the time now, or if I roll, it's multiple times all the way across the floor.  Watch out, I'm learning how to  get up on my knees too!

Brother and I are buddies. He always makes me laugh!

No joke. Mom made us sit there forever.  All of us made silly faces in some of the photos, this is the only one where we are all actually looking at the camera!