October

October is for fall, and pumpkins, and hay rides.......  and celebrating that Mike is 2 months and 8 days older than me!

Mike's parents came for a short visit for Mike's birthday weekend, and we had a nice time.  Nonna got lots of hugs.  

We enjoyed a nice dinner sans children (relaxing!)

A couple weekends ago we headed down to Bog Hollow, which is a cranberry farm in Kingston.  It was the most gorgeous warm weekend I think we've had since July/August during the summer.  It couldn't have been a nicer day to spend outdoors, with the sunshine and blue sky.  The farm hosted a family weekend with activities of hay rides, face painting, train rides, pumpkin picking, etc...

Off to the pumpkin patch!

Nothing like a train going around in small circles to make kids happy, Vince was ecstatic

Zoë's meltdown in the pumpkin patch, love it!

let's play on the giant pumpkin! 

The farm also had a giant pile of sand, which was the main attraction for the kids.  They came home with enough sand in their pants to add to our sand box.

A neat old firetruck that the kids could play around on

Mike got into the spirit of Halloween

 

Vince got to try out an old broken down tractor

A List of Firsts....

A few first time events that have been going on around the house, backed up on my blogging to do list for at least a couple months of course.

Vince and Ramona had their first ice cream truck adventure at the playground.  We parents broke down and allowed them to get consumed in the music, bells, and whistles of the truck as it screamed into the playground parking lot.  This of course created a blanket of kids that ran over to the fence and plastered themselves to the chain links... staring at the truck while their friends ordered ice cream treats.   So we decided they could go over and pick an ice cream from one of the pictures on the side of the truck.  Ramona picked the head of Dora the Explorer, and Vince picked the head of Shrek, both were truly bizarre and complete with creepy, glaring gumball eyes.  I bit the ear off Vince's Shrek head and although it looked like ice cream and melted like ice cream, it had the distinct flavor of a sour apple lollipop... totally gross when you think it's going to be creamy.

To make a long story short, Vince's poor Shrek head didn't fare very well in the mid day sun, and in the end his head was a melted mess on the playground grass, complete with a melting face that reminded me of that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.... when the Nazi's wouldn't close their eyes when they opened the Ark.  With Vince's hands, arms (down to his elbows), and shirt now stained a bright green apple color, the departure from the playground included a screaming little boy desperately clutching a green head that looked like Frankenstein.  So ends the first ice cream truck adventure

first fort built in our living room to commemorate the loss of electricity during hurricane Irene

Vince's first work badge, complete with space shuttle icon

Zoë's first hike in the woods

And my personal favorite, and definitely the most exciting news to come out of our house since getting air conditioning.... Vince now eats sandwiches!  Yes, here's the proof, a picture of his first jelly sandwich that he tried and ate happily.  This is seriously a landmark event, as this boy is so picky and we constantly struggle with him on food we want him to eat vs. what he'll eat.  He never would agree to eat sandwiches, but now that's all in the past.