Carving

If spending 2 hours carving Tiana into my daughter's pumpkin doesn't earn me a glass of wine, I don't know what will!  I surprised Riley with a princess carving kit for her pumpkin and she of course picked the most complicated of princesses to carve!  She started out strong scooping out the guts of her pumpkin but lost interest by the time it was time to actually start carving.  Jacob's class carved a pumpkin in class last week and his teacher's said he loved scooping out the insides so I thought he would be into it but he cried the whole time.  He definitely woke up on the wrong side of his nap!  But we are carved and ready for Halloween!

Princess Tiana

An owl

Now they like their pumpkins!

So excited!

One Last Visit

We made one last visit to Joan's Pumpkin Patch on Sunday.  Ri's play group was having a play date there and since we didn't do the rides last time we decided to go.  I told them no more pumpkins since we had already gotten them and surprisingly no one tried to talk me into another pumpkin (oh and did I mention that Jacob learned the word "no" this week and it is officially his new favorite word???)  The kids had so much fun on the rides and Jacob saw two little boys from his class there so he was excited to see two of his friends.  Jacob even had his brave pants on and rode the train with Riley.  (I rode in the tractor part in case he freaked out but no tears).

Looking at the horses!

She loves horse rides

Riley made Jacob brave!  No tears on the train

Besties

Feeding the goats

Jacob loves animals

This face pretty much sums up how Jacob feels about animals

It's A Wrap!

Another t-ball season is in the books, Saturday was Riley's last game and she did great again.  She's so into t-ball, I love it.  She has the whole hitting and running to first base down and then when she's fielding, she fields the ball and throws to first base, I am so impressed how much she's developed from last year.  I'm trying to get her into the Pleasanton Girl's Softball league for the spring but she misses the cutoff day by 12 days so I'm appealing because I think Riley would do great!  

Saturday the team got trophies and the kids were all excited.  Riley hasn't put it down since she got it, she even tried to bring it into Costco with us after her game and napped with it.

Watching Ri's bat

Getting ready to bat

Base hit!

I brought his bike this game and it made it so much easier to manage him.  Except for when he rode it into the middle of a group of pre-teen girls and looked up and said real sweetly "Hi!"  He love the ladies!

Getting her trophy

Who doesn't love Costco!?!  It looks like Jacob is trying to figure out how he can get Riley's food!

Annual Harvest Festival

Every year the kids' day care has a harvest festival, so of course we had to go this year.  Riley's class, along with kindergarten set up the Haunted Maze in the school so they were beyond excited about it, even though she's still talking a year later about the "scary boy" in the maze (who is her teacher's son dressed in a clown suit and creepy mask, I must say he is quite scary for a a day care Halloween party but now that she knows it's him, it's less scary.  The kids had a blast and got to debut their costumes - Sophia the First for Riley (her favorite!) and an elephant for Jacob which is so perfect for him and he looked absolutely adorable in it!

It's A Tradition

Last weekend we made our annual trip to Joan's Pumpkin Farm in Livermore.  We squeezed it in before t-ball so we didn't get to do rides but we got our pumpkins, took our favorite pictures and were on on merry way.  We went right when it opened and it was great, not too crowed.  Jacob is OBSESSED with pumpkins so he was all over the place trying to pick up every pumpkin that he came in contact with.

T-2 Months

I can't believe Jacob will be 2 in 2 short months, how this is true, I have no idea.  He is a TON of fun right now, I know I say that every month but this month he has started to care about his friends and it's adorable.  The past few days when we've left school he's walked around and hugged each of his friends good-bye.  I few of his favorite friends are Emma, Nathan and Xander.  He also hugs his old teacher Miss Michelle (who often babysits for us) when he sees her in Riley's room.  His speech has picked up significantly and his new favorite word is "airplane" but he has also started to piece two to three words together and in Indiana said "No more buebewwys" when we were out of blueberries and then when we were on the plane he said "No mo ice."  He's still obsessed with ice.  I think he's saying a lot more words and we just don't understand him but is biting has definitely subsided (knock on wood) except for the bite he gave Riley on Saturday (and she deserved it because she was taking all of his toys away).  He can now climb into his booster seat, which is a scary proposition for me but it makes him feel like a big boy and he loves the toddler bed which I am not ready for him to be in!  And the biggest development of the month...HE PEE-PEED ON THE POTTY!  Yes, you read that right, I'm sure it's a fluke but he's been wanting to sit on the potty lately so I've been having him sit on it before his bath each night and the other night he took his little seat out, sat down and actually peed.  I need to read up on potty training boys because most of it landed on the floor but he went on the potty and I've noticed his diaper has been dry after naps so he may be ready.  My baby boy is growing up SO fast!  Too fast, where's that machine that freezes time???

Not happy about the proposition of doing his picture

So I tried to bribe him with an M&M, not interested

We finally settled on a marshmallow, I had to settle with a scowl

Hello growth spurt!

Apple Picking

Our last day in Indiana we went apple picking, it was SO much fun (minus the massive quantities of bees).  The kids loved picking apples.  Marc picked an apple off of the ground to try to show Riley what he used to do with them, throw them against trees and houses and Riley yelled "AH!  That's a bad decision daddy!  We do not throw apples."  That's my girl!  Other than reprimanding daddy, we had a great time picking apples.  The also had a pumpkin patch which was bit of a negotiation, apples I could try to  get back to CA from IN, pumpkins, probably not so much!  But Riley finally settled on helping Brady pick a pumpkin with the promise of a pumpkin patch when we were home.

Yep, we brought all of these apples back home, minus the few we ate on the plane