Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween night! Jaydon didn't want to get his costume on at first and while we were hoping to hit the town trick-or-treating we only made it around our cul-de-sac. It took him one house to figure out how this worked and he was then off to the next. He was pretty cute trying to say trick-or-treat and at one place he forgot the trick-or-treat and just said 'please.' He also really enjoyed watching other trick-or-treaters and answering the door!

Our little giraffe heading out!

Leaving one house to run to the next.

Just barely reaching the door bell at our neighbors.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Looking at some of the other trick-or-treaters in the street.

Enjoying his first piece of candy! He got to have two pieces and it was like heaven to him, then he went a little sugar crazy :-)

He had a great time and we live in such a fun neighborhood that many of the neighbors spoiled him with extra goodies. He did try trick-or-treating for a few days after Halloween and the neighbors happily obliged him.

Pumpkin for a pizza!!

While staying at Grandma's house he colored this pumpkin so he could get a free mini-pizza from Papa Murphy's. He was pretty excited to get the pizza!

His photo, while our friend Sophie is an art genius at 2, Jaydon appears to be right on track with the scribbles. There was another two-year-olds picture on the wall at the store and it looked quite similar to Jaydon's.

PIZZA!!! He picked pepperoni and green peppers! He loved it!

Sophie's Halloween Party

As usual we had a fabulous time at one of Sophie's parties! We made pizza, decorated pumpkins and even made a crazy spider. Jaydon had a good time but he is not the most serious artist. He gives a project a few minutes most and then he just wants to do something else, often vacumming when we are at Sophie's house because she has a really cool toy vacuum.

Holding his spider and pushing the baby stroller

A couple of kids playing and a photo of all the art supplies!

Jaydon's pumpkin. I had to ask him to add a nose, but he did pick the eyes and place everything on it himself.

The kids!

Getting restless.

Leighton's Halloween Party

When my sister and I were kids we would go to the Leighton Pumpkin Parties and now we have the second generation participating. It was pretty fun to see the photos and people who I was around when we were younger bringing their little ones to the event. Nana Lainie and Papa John threw a great party and the weather was great so we could be outside carving pumpkins, doing a scavenger hunt and hanging out.

Jaydon met another giraffe.

A giraffe and police officer playing together.

Papa John cooking up some burgers and dogs.

All the kids, with a few adults to make things a little easier. It was really hilarious to be on the kid end of this picture taking adventure. The parents and grandparents with the cameras put on quite a show trying to get kids to look and smile.

Jaydon got to pick his pumpkin from Papa's patch

One carving table

Jaydon helping dad carve his pumpkin, after being given the option for happy or scary face he went with scary!

Dad hard at work with Jaydon watching with a fork, he used the fork to help fling the guts out.

Jaydon getting a bit of his own medicine with Brenna tackling him.

On the scavenger hunt looking for the family of ghosts.

Grandma and Jaydon (he actually enjoyed having grandma chase him around the house in her get up, some of the other kids were not so sure about that crazy spider web lady).

close up, Jaydon appears to be doing his 10 sign, what he says when he thinks he wants a lot of something!

Jaydon didn't want to wear his costume without Jeremy and me wearing something so we luckily had a headband for Jeremy and some cat ears for me and we were all set.

The Pumpkin Patch

We had a fabulous family outing to the local pumpkin farm. It was really rainy as we were leaving our house but it nicely cleared up by the time we got to the farm. The nice thing about going on not as nice a day is that the lines were non-existant and we could do all the fun things we didn't do last year.

Jaydon with daddy, how tall this fall, why right about 3 feet!

Riding the 'horse'

Riding the train

This dad was great, his kid (right behind him, you can't see in the photo) was scared so the driver had him climb in too. Pretty funny! Jaydon took his job seriously and steered the whole time.

The corn maze

Family shot!

That grin says it all, hot apple cider cinnamon doughnuts! They were amazing (not to metion the crazy good pie too)!

Feeding some of the many animals on the farm!

My little model

Our friends did a professional family photoshoot (yes I feel slightly guilty that we haven't done one) but they wanted a few pics of Jaydon and their daughter because they are pretty much cousins and then we could give a photo to nana and papa. Anyway, Jaydon was sort of sick, Jeremy was out of town but off we went (an hour late) and while I will hope the photographer got some amazing photos, I will impress you with my one point and shoot shot. Awesome I know, he is eating some bunny crackers but I will say I love the sweater and leaves.

He sure is growing up fast!

My weekend away

My sister Kelsey, in AZ, just had a baby in August and I was really trying to figure out a way to get down and visit. Jeremy awesomely offered to have me just fly down with my sister Jenny while he stayed home and took care of Jaydon. It was the first time I had been away for a weekend and it was great. I had a lot of layover time in the airport and loved every minute of just sitting around and reading and not having any responsibilities.

The terrible thing was that I forgot to take photos! I can't believe it but I didn't even get a pic of the mom and dad with their beautiful little girl, Piper, and I forgot to have anyone take a picture of me holding her. Man I sure hope we can have our next child be as easygoing as Piper is at this point. I know that may change for Kelsey and Tyler but right now Piper is a pretty good sleeper and quite content with life.

Here she is snuggled in her carseat on the way out to lunch one day.
I did manage to get a couple good shots of Auntie Jenny with Pipes. We were so lucky to get to go spend a few days with her and help out Kelsey and Tyler whereever we could. We even got Kelsey and Tyler out of the house for a little while to enjoy some 'them' time.

More posts to come

I haven't been neglecting the blog on purpose, but we have been transitioning to a new computer and I don't have the software I need to get the pictures from my camera onto the computer. While I will get more pics and stories on here soon, for now know we have been keeping busy and are having fun. Jaydon and I have a number of weekly activities we attend (library story time, Time with Twos (at the tech college), toddler time, a moving and music class, and many trips to the park or to watch sporting events when the weather is cooperating).

Jeremy is keeping very busy with work and school, he started the coursework for his PhD program.

We are excited about fall and Halloween rapidly approaching. Jaydon has asked to be a giraffe so I will be making a costume (we will see how that goes) and will make sure to get pics and good stories on here of the events we have planned surrounding Halloween. I love to be able to have my house decorated and enjoy the many different decor changes that will happen between now and Spring.

Jaydon's 'preschool' artwork

Jaydon and I enrolled in a class once a week at the local college that is a parent and me class. We go for a few hours and there is a ton of cool stuff to do. Part of the time is lots of free play and art projects and neat activities, part of the time is singing and stories and part of the time the kids play while the parents take turns in two groups having a parenting discussion about various topics. It has been a lot of fun! Jaydon loves the singing and music time, he requests songs and is great at doing some of the hand motions. I love that they have so many art projects out and ready for the kids to work on because Jaydon doesn't do any art thing for more than a couple minutes and it seems so daunting to do all the work at my house for a couple minutes of playtime. The parenting discussions have been great and really helpful for different ideas and strategies, especially since we are really hitting those tantrums and challenges the come with raising a 2 year old.

In the first couple weeks he built a wood sculpture, painted with an apple slice (though it is just the red painting from the picture), and colored on a paper plate.

Here he used eye droppers full of different dyes in a really large coffe filter like thing. It has been fun and I am so glad we are getting this great opportunity. Minus the crazy parking ticket issue that was happily resolved but still irritates me.

More Jaydon Photography

Jaydon now has a bit better understanding of the camera and so instead of just taking really bad photos of whatever he is near (though he still does that at times), he wants to take pictures of items he likes. So one day he wanted to take a picture of his Teddy and the robot we built. These are pictures he took, I just sort of pushed him back far enough to get the image in the screen.

Teddy

Robot

And another real close up, can you guess what it is?

If you guessed Higgins you are correct, Jaydon wanted to take a picture of his cat.

Cats Hiding

Jaydon is getting taller and he is pretty good at climing on things. Fortunately, the cats still have one place they can go and truly escape...the top of the kitchen cabinets. You will find Lily up there quite often as she doesn't put up with much of Jaydon's 'playing' Higgins however just does his usual growling while staying within reach because he is above running away.

Working on getting dressed

Jaydon is working on dressing himself. He did manage to get his shirt all the way on by himself a few days after these pictures were taken and while the shirt was on backwards we went with it all day, he was quite proud. Here was an attempt that did not turn out so well.

I am not even sure I know how he got this twisted up, one arm is in the correct hole but the head and arm are through the neck hole. Fairly constrictind and unfortunately not all that warm or even acceptable in public, would this count as no shirt or shirt?

ta da!

Now that the shirt is fixed he wanted to accesorize. We got some headbands for his giraffe costume for Halloween, he is pretty excited about it and is really cute because he sort of feels magically transported into a giraffe while wearing the headband since he knows it will be part of his costume.