Pumpkins!

I was going to write Josh's 10 month post, but I decided I wanted to do something that uses less brain power.  It's only Monday and I'm already beat!  I couldn't decide which pictures I liked best, so here are a bunch of pictures from our trip to the pumpkin farm yesterday.  We went about an hour before close and during the Packers game, so there were barely any people there.  Just the way I like it!  We turned the heat on over the weekend, so I was happy that we actually had a pretty beautiful day!

I love fall and my sweet little family!  Ben is so eager to carve the pumpkins, but my guess is that he isn't going to want to go anywhere near the pumpkin guts.  

Weekend Recap: We Love Fall

I'm so late on this post that I'm struggling to remember everything we did this weekend, but luckily I have plenty of pictures to remind me.  ;)  The boys were at school this past weekend, so we got to hang out with Maddie and Sarah on Friday night.  We went over to their house so the little ones could play.  I was again reminded that Ben plays quite a bit harder than Maddie.  She was perfectly content playing in place for an extended period of time, while Ben was turning her microphone in to a baseball bat and drop-kicking balls into the window.  I am usually pretty tired by Friday nights, but Ben made sure I was totally beat this week.  :)

After music class on Saturday morning, I decided to take Ben shopping with me.  I must have temporarily forgotten how busy he is, because I was surprisingly frustrated with his ball kicking, shelf-climbing, clothing stack knocking self.  There was no way of containing him to the stroller so needless to say our trip was cut shorter than it would have been if I was shopping solo.  Of course he balanced his silly behaviors with his sweet behaviors, so I couldn't be frustrated for long.  :)

After our fun shopping trip we went and took care of some business.  My car had been having some issues, so we dropped it off at the dealership and got a super awesome loaner car in its place.  Smooth move, Acura, now I want a fancy new MDX!  I really can't remember what we did for the rest of the afternoon besides count down the hours until daddy came home.   Ben misses Andy when he is gone, but after a trip to our favorite restaurant for dinner with daddy, all was right in his little world once again.

We like to make the most of our Sundays after Andy has been gone, so we decided to have a picnic lunch and go on a hike to enjoy the beautiful fall weather.  Apparently I took about 50 pictures of my boys, but they looked so cute it was hard to resist.

They were both in heaven.  Luckily for Andy, Ben loves the outdoors as much as or maybe even more than he does.  

Not sure what the tongue is all about, but cute nonetheless.  

There were big beautiful bluffs, so we had to take some STEEP stairs to get down to the water.  

But, once you walk down, you have to walk back up.  I did feel a little bad that Andy had to carry 25 extra pounds on his back, but then I remembered that I've been caring an extra 20+ pounds around 24/7 so I didn't feel as bad.  Hah!

Although he was a happy camper in his carrier pack, we did let Ben get out for a bit.

I am pretty sure he could have thrown rocks in to the lake with Andy for hours.  

He did have time to take a quick picture with his Momma though.

The weather was gorgeous and some of the leaves were changing, so it was a perfect afternoon with my boys.  I can't wait to have another little boy joining us soon!

Ben took a nice nap after our big hike, so I was able to go shopping…BY MYSELF for a few hours!  I love my boys to death, but it was nice to have a little "me time."  Although we were all plenty satisfied with our busy day, we decided to squeeze in a little more fall fun on Sunday evening.  We went to a pumpkin farm close to our house that also had a play area, a petting farm, and a train.

 We didn't get to pick our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch, but Ben still had fun choosing the perfect pumpkin.  He made it very clear that the first one he picked was for his baby brother.  It was pretty much the sweetest thing ever.

Love my little pumpkin sooooo much!

Last, and definitely least, Ben went on the train.  The last time Ben went on a train like this, it went in a circle right in front of us.  The farm was almost closing, so there weren't a ton of kids there riding the train, and we were totally caught off guard when the train went around the entire farm!  The poor little guy was on the train all by himself!  We felt soooo bad and I was actually kind of scared for him.  He was excited to get off and wasn't upset when we said it was time to go home after the train.  ;) No tears for him, but still!  That doesn't exactly look like the face of someone who just had a good time.






Time for bed!  Goodnight!  Tomorrow is Friday!!

Weekend Recap: More Halloween + Christmas Fun

Happy Monday!  Thanks to the Packers/Bears game on Monday night football, it feels like a Sunday but the best part is--- it's almost Tuesday!  Since I have plenty of time, I'm going to recap our Halloween festivities in addition to our weekend fun.  We finally carved pumpkins.  Although I was pumped to get seeds, Benj wasn't sure what to think.  We tried to get him to touch the various textures, but he was not that into it.  He had fun nonetheless.  I absolutely love each and every face he made when checking out all of the pumpkin guts.  Man I love this boy sooo much!

I am not quite sure why google thinks these pictures go together like this, but I thought it was kind of funny.  :)

I'm giving Benji all the credit for my new found love for Halloween.  I always dressed up and celebrated, but he takes my Halloween excitement to a whole new level.  That being said, I had big plans of doing a themed family costume, but before I knew it it was the night before Halloween and I was frantically running around Target trying to get the finishing touches for my work costume.  Ben rocked his monkey costume, but Andy and I were repeats--lame!  We'll get 'em next year!  After a miserable 2 hour doctor appointment (at which Ben was a complete angel, despite the not so angelic doc), Ben took a power nap before hitting up his library playgroup's Halloween party.  I would have traded all of the Halloween candy in the world to be able to go, but thanks to the never ending doctor appointment, that wasn't in the cards.  My mom has some video that I haven't been able to check out yet, but even Andy reported that it was the cutest thing ever.

While I now believe that Halloween should be a legal holiday so that I can hang out with my boys, unfortunately I had to work.  I rushed home after work to get ready for our mini-party and for the trick-or-treaters!  Since it was rainy and dark, I'm extra happy that we trick-or-treated last weekend.  Ben and Andy did go to 2 of the neighbors' houses and came home with 2 giant-size candy bars.  Clearly we weren't the favorite house on the block!  We ended up just having some friends over and eating festive foods and drinking festive drinks.  Although I had a Pinterest board full of ideas, believe it or not I did not have time to be too cutesy.  However, between the jack o' lantern pizza my mom picked up for us and every orange product I could find in addition to a creepy pandora station, we were in perfectly good shape for a Halloween party.  We probably had about 10 groups of kids come by, so it was a good thing I bought candy that I don't like.  Unfortunately, Ben got a hold of the leftovers and managed to nibble a little hole in nearly ever piece.

Saturday might as well have been a holiday because after music class and a quick stop at work (boo), Andy and I went OUT!  His friends from college, who he hasn't seen in almost 3 years, were in town for the Packers' game.  I didn't want to ask my mom to watch Ben since she already watches him during the week, but (no) thanks to the above mentioned doctor appointment, I think she was concerned about my mental health and essentially insisted that we go out.  (Side note: she is seriously the best mom in the word and I'm not sure that I would function as a mom without her.)  We ended up going to not one, not two, but THREE different restaurant/bars downtown.   Andy was in heaven reliving his glory days and I was in heaven after learning Benji ate tomatoes and fries at Culver's in addition to his other food.  (Eat that, GI doc.)

Despite our wild and crazy night (we were home by 10:30,) we were up with the sun on Sunday morning for the Jingle Bell Run at the zoo!  We've done this run several times and it is actually the first run that Andy and I did together when we first started dating.  It was also the first ever 5k for my coworker and friend Anne.  It was Ben's first 5k too! The weather was perfect and the fall leaves were gorgeous, so all in all a perfect morning!  My little snow bunny was double bundled in festive pajamas and he actually napped for the majority of the run as I pushed him in the jogging stroller.

Just as I suspected, despite minimal training, Andy went out there and dominated.  Anne and I also rocked it as well!  She did a fabulous job--especially for her first 5k!  I think and hope she will do another one!  To top it all off, all of the jinglebell-ing got me SUPER excited for the upcoming holiday season!  Andy and I always have to compromise on when the Christmas music can start, so it was nice to get a little sampler.  We're supposedly waiting until November 15th this year.  He caved last year.  :)

Benj and I ended our weekend with a visit to Great-Grandma's house while Andy met up with his friends again.  In other words, it was the perfect ending to our fantastic weekend.  I'm already looking forward to the next one! 

Weekend Recap: Date Night & Pumpkins!

Another fabulous fall weekend in the books.  We've really stepped up our workouts, so we were beat by Friday and crashed nice and early--so early that we didn't even finish a really good Dateline.  Thank goodness for DVR!  It was a typical Saturday morning with music class for Benji and momma while daddy hit the gym.  It was a rainy Saturday so we cleaned the disaster that was the work room in basement--exciting stuff!  However, we didn't want to exert ourselves too much, because Saturday night was....DATE NIGHT!!!  I still can barely believe that we had a Saturday night out!  Thanks, Auntie Anna, for volunteering to hang with Benj for a few hours so we could be grown-ups for a bit!  We went to a wine bar we've been wanting to check out and then to one of our fav restaurants.  It ended up being a gorgeous night and we had so much fun together.  Hopefully Auntie Anna had fun too so she'll want to come back more often... :)  We used to have date night every Monday, but Auntie has quite the social life!  We love you, Auntie Anna!

We got our workouts (and Packer game watching) in on Sunday before heading to the pumpkin farm!  I am truly blessed in the fabulous co-worker department, so we went to the farm with some of my coworkers and their families.  No sooner were we off the tractor wagon was Benji off and running in search of the perfect pumpkin.  As anticipated, he found a super sized pumpkin and proceeded to try and pick it up himself.  :)

The pumpkins were so huge that unfortunately Benji could not carry his own, so he asked daddy for some help.  

He wasn't discouraged though and found plenty of rocks and sticks that were his own size. :)

Luckily, daddy is super strong, so he was able to carry 2 pumpkins so I could keep track of the cutest pumpkin (Benj--obviously).

It was a little different than last year's trip to the pumpkin farm, but equally fun!

After we found the perfect pumpkins, which was actually hard because you had to hurry back to the tractor before it left without you, we checked out the corn maze.  Luckily, we had some great navigators because with Andy pulling the wagon and a certain hungry boy who was refusing to hold his own bottle, it was hard to pay attention to a map. :)

Talk about a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the fall.  Hopefully the ginormous pumpkins will offer lots of seeds!

Weekend Recap: Brewers, Apples, & All Things Fall

Happy official first day of fall!  What better way to kick off the season than with some awesome fall scents, sights, and tastes?!  This is the first weekend in a long time that we did not have much planned, and it felt a-mazing.  Before we kicked it in to fall gear, we brought Ben to his first Brewer's game!  We tailgated before making it in to the game for....1.5 innings.  It's not that he wasn't well behaved, it's just that he was VERY busy and did not want to sit down at all.  Luckily, it was an exciting 1.5 innings with a home run and all, but unfortunately Ben was more interested in the water bottle that belonged to the lady next to us.  Next year, Benj!

On Saturday morning, Benji had his first music class.  We didn't totally know what to expect, and I probably should have been more prepared, but oh well!  It was much more structured (and strict!) than we were anticipating.  If your child made too much noise, you were supposed to go into the hall so as not to distract the other kids.  I was going to make it a no-nuk event until I learned that rule--you better believe I had that puppy nearby at all times!  Even though Benji was so stinking cute and such a good boy the whole time, I didn't take any pics because I was afraid of being that (rebel) mom.  :)  All in all though, I would consider it a success.  Ben loves music and he was quite focused on all the new sights and sounds.  I just better make sure we do our homework and listen to the CD so we aren't the only ones who don't know the words to all of the songs next week.  But on to the fall fun!  I must have attempted to make up for my picture-free morning by taking a million photos at the apple orchard.  Who am I kidding?!  I would have done that either way.  ;)

I didn't even know that Ben likes apples, but it turns out he is obsessed with at least biting on them and sucking on the juice.  Of course I was freaking out that he would choke on a chunk of apple, but at the same time I'm not actually sure that he ever swallowed anything at all.

I seriously love these pictures and I had a hard time choosing which ones to post, obviously.   We were a good half way into our trip when I realized that I had been so busy watching Ben and socializing that I hadn't picked any apples yet.  Thanks to my friend Anne for capturing an action shot of me working so hard.

We had to put Ben to work too since he was otherwise leaving a trail of apples everywhere we went.  But, I'll take a bruised apple over a baby choking on an apple any day.  Whatever keeps him happy that doesn't involve double-fisting apples.

After we finished picking apples we checked out the apple orchard store, which we somehow missed on previous trips.  We went fall food wild!  Apple syrup, mulling spices, cinnamon sticks, apple pumpkin bread, apple pie (heavenly!), apple cider donuts (world's greatest donuts, and I don't even like donuts)---just to name a few of the treats we went home with.  We didn't buy any pumpkins just yet, but Ben had a darn good time showing us what he looks for in a pumpkin--bigger and heavier than he is!

As if I didn't almost die from the cuteness overload when he tried (unsuccessfully) to pick up a watermelon the other day, I had an even better time watching him try and pick up pumpkins.  He gets an A+ for effort and for the determined noises he made.

As you can see, we were all in fall bliss after this trip.  We went home and Andy made a delicious dinner incorporating some of our treats.  We lit our fall-scented candles, Red-boxed a scary movie (of sorts), and decorated the house with some fall decor.  We meant to make a fire to add to the effect, but forgot.  Luckily, we have many fall weekends ahead of us!  Happy fall to all and to all a good night!