29 October 2012

Air and Scare 2012

We went out to the Air and Space Museum near Dulles for their annual “Air and Scare” trick-or-treating extravaganza on Saturday. It was the boys’ costumes big debuts. There are a couple of kinks to work out, but they were a big hit.

You can’t really tell in this first picture, but Conan is a turtle. For Lincoln we went with our “costume from a diaper box” tradition.

DSC_0525

IMG_0683

DSC_0538

We need to get some better pictures of Conan crawling with his shell on.

DSC_0534

DSC_0537

Long time readers of my blog (ha!) might remember that we tried to get Lincoln’s picture taken with Darth Vader at this event last year and he wasn’t really excited about that. This year we couldn’t even get Lincoln near him. Conan was more cooperative.

DSC_0545

DSC_0552

More Halloween festivities to come this week… that is if this dumb storm doesn’t get in our way.

Carving Pumpkins

Lincoln was super excited to give his pumpkin a “spooky smile” this year. He waited very patiently, and we finally carved our pumpkins on Friday.

 DSC_0462DSC_0464

He was really excited… until we told him he had to remove all the pumpkin guts.

IMG_0672

He would not stick his arm in there, but did try with a spoon for a while. He didn’t get very far, so Jonathan did most of the heavy lifting.

IMG_0678

Here are our finished pumpkins.

DSC_0482

 

DSC_0506

And Lincoln giving me his spookiest face.DSC_0514

28 October 2012

Cox Farms

Last week the boys and I went with friends for some weekday fall fun at Cox Farms. They have a huge fall festival with tons of slides, a corn maze path, a hay ride, and various other attractions. It was a beautiful day and a lot of fun.

I had some issues convincing Lincoln that we shouldn’t just spend all of our time on this wooden train.

 DSC_0420

He didn’t quite get that he was supposed to pick up his feet for this rope swing. The first time he just ran holding the rope, but the second time was a little better.

DSC_0441

Me and my boys on the hayride. It would be nice if one of the boys were looking, but I’m just happy to be in the picture. Thanks Sarah!

IMG_0592

I went down this slide with Lincoln the first time, but after that he had plenty of courage to do it and all the others on his own.

IMG_0600

These two were not interested in entering the “vortex” along the corn path, so the three of us passed it by. I remember being scared of everything when I was much older then them, so I didn’t mind.

IMG_0603

All of the kids seemed to like these silly mirrors, though.

IMG_0608

We were about out of time when we got out of the corn path, and only had time for one more activity. We spent our final minutes before the farm closed relaxing in the cab of the engine again. This boy seriously loves trains.

IMG_0623

And who doesn’t love pumpkins?

IMG_0636

14 October 2012

Fall Festivities Up to this Point

It’s no secret that we are big fans of fall in our family. Here are some pictures of how we’ve been enjoying the season.

Last week we went apple picking at Stribling Orchard, and we’re still figuring out what to do with all the apples.

IMG_0299IMG_0303IMG_0305

IMG_0313IMG_0345IMG_0348

While we were in Florida Conan’s first tooth broke through, so for the last week or two he’s just had one tooth. It was so cute I could barely stand it. His second tooth is now out so this magical just one tooth time is over. It’s a good reminder for me of how fast babyhood goes, just a week or two and things are already different. This doesn’t really have to do with fall, but Conan is wearing his skeleton pajamas in the picture so I’m counting it.

DSC_0804

Yesterday we went and picked our pumpkins in the most beautiful pumpkin patch. I didn’t even come close to capturing the beauty of Hollins Farm with my camera, but we’ll definitely be back in years to come. I know he doesn’t look like it in these pictures, but Lincoln was crazy excited about getting pumpkins. We’ve been reading a lot of Halloween books and working on his costume to get ready for the big day. He is more then ready to give his pumpkin a “spooky smile” next week.

DSC_0843DSC_0857DSC_0884

DSC_0893DSC_0896

Since we’d already driven for an hour to get out to the country we hung out for a while. We got some delicious apple cider doughnuts and apple cider at a restaurant called The Apple House and enjoyed them in a park while the boys played. Conan had never been on a swing before and he loved it. We’re going to have to find some baby swings a little closer to home.

IMG_0440IMG_0456IMG_0474

03 October 2012

Fort Lauderdale

We just returned from a week in (mostly) sunny Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Here are some highlights from our trip:

Conan took his very first flight!

IMG_0058

We spent a lot of time on the beach. Lincoln and Jonathan were in seventh heaven.

IMG_0063IMG_0087

Conan and I spent a lot of time in our borrowed beach tent. It was perfect for small kids.

IMG_0095IMG_0102

Sleeping was a challenge for Conan on this trip, but the beach did wear him out. This is his sleeping pose. If he’s sucking his thumb and rubbing the back of his head he is ready for bed.

IMG_0109

We loved having Jonathan around all day everyday! If only he didn’t have to work when we were home either.

IMG_0110

We ate at Sonic and Conan experimented with baby food from a pouch.

IMG_0118IMG_0129

Lincoln loved to pretend he was a train chugging along a track on this wave wall that ran along the beach.

IMG_0142

We rode the Water Taxi one day. We saw huge yachts and homes while the captain regaled us with tales of their occupants and price tags.

DSC_0628DSC_0643DSC_0648

When we disembarked we had an amazing lunch in downtown Fort Lauderdale at a restaurant called The Cheese Culture. I’ve never written a Yelp review before, but I intend to now. I’m still dreaming about my grilled ham and brie sandwich with mango chutney.

IMG_0147IMG_0151

The Water Taxi captain suggested a sweets shop called Kilwins on the main drag, which was also delightful. We had to grab our ice cream and get out of there before we bought one of everything.

IMG_0153

Lincoln declared his scoop of chocolate ice cream “extra brown.”

DSC_0650IMG_0162IMG_0173

Lincoln took some shots of Jonathan and I while we waited for the Water Taxi to return.

DSC_0668IMG_0177

Conan napped…sometimes.

IMG_0197

The water in the pool at our hotel was, oddly, colder than the water in the ocean. No one ever got pulled out of the pool on account of sharks, though, so you win some, you lose some.

IMG_0209IMG_0211

Lincoln could not stop talking about the train tracks Jonathan built out of sand.

IMG_0222IMG_0226IMG_0233IMG_0244

Golly, for a kid who supposedly had a hard time sleeping on this trip, I sure have a lot of pictures of Conan sleeping.

 DSC_0722IMG_0250

We attempted some family pictures with the tripod, but couldn’t get Conan to smile at the right time for the self timer. It’s funny because I’m always getting comments on how he is always smiling and what a happy baby he is. I guess he needed someone behind the camera to smile at.

DSC_0757

Our last day was really rainy. We can’t complain too much, though, because we had beautiful weather the rest of the trip. We took the city bus to a restaurant called Grampa’s that was featured on “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” on the Food Network. It was… dive-y, but the portions were large and the food wasn’t bad. After we had lunch we walked over to another restaurant called Jaxson’s to have some of their famous homemade ice cream, also in ridiculously large portions. Needless to say, we could not finish our one ice cream sundae between the three of us.

IMG_0251IMG_0261IMG_0263

After our last summery hurrah, we are officially ready for fall to begin!