October wrap-up: walks, logs, cookies and leaves

I love the fall! It really is my favorite season. The weather is perfect, the trees are beautiful and there is always something fun to look forward to. This past October was no exception as we found several things to keep us busy and enjoy the season.

I've joined a walking group that walks 3 miles twice a week and I love it! It's fun to get together with a few other moms and talk as we push the strollers and let the older kids ride bikes along beautiful Charlottesville trails and paths. My favorite trail is the Monticello Trail that takes us up the side of a mountain to Monticello itself. It is beautiful--full of trees and bridges--and the trip back down the mountain is fun, especially for Jude who likes to ride his bike.

On one of our walks, Jude found a salamander! 

We all thought it was pretty neat.

He was a tiny little guy. All the kids took turns looking and then we put him back in the muddy hole we found him in.

The other awesome thing about this trail is this:

At the bottom of the trail close to the parking lot they have a couple HUGE old logs that came from Monticello. They're not sure how old the trees were before they had to be cut down because the decay inside made it impossible to count the rings, but I can only image they were OLD. Look how big they are!

It's a treat for the kids to get to play for a while at the end of our walk.

They think it's the best thing ever!

So cool!

Since it's the month for all things spooky, we had to break out our Halloween decorations. This year we did something a little different and in addition to our regular decorations, we hung up almost 50 paper bats.

It looked great! I loved the effect it had and that it was Halloween-y without being too cutsie or too scary.


And of course we had to decorate some Halloween cookies.

Jude did a great job! He tried hard to keep the icing on the cookie.

Cole just wanted to eat his. He's telling me where his cookie went. :)

Nice bat, Jude!

Lance joined us for a bit, too.

He apparently wanted to color all his cookies black. :) Let's see: a cat, two bats and a black ghost.


We have these huge trees in our "backyard" and every fall the leaves that fall provide hours of entertainment for the kids. We sweep them into a huge pile and the kids go to town jumping, throwing and rolling in them. I love it!

The big kids were jumping from the table into the pile. Cole thought this looked awesome and would climb up to jump, but then just stood there. He never quite got his courage up enough to jump from the top.

One of Cole's obsessions right now is bubbles. I have to admit I have a love-hate relationship with bubbles. They're fun but messy and the kids always want to blow them which leads to a bigger mess most of the time. Thank goodness for good weather where we can blow the bubbles outside!

Cole does a good job blowing bubbles.

Sweet boy.

Jude is as crazy as ever! If he does stop moving, it's because he's asleep. He's on all day long, constantly running around and jumping and laughing. He's the happiest kid and never ceases to find the fun in everyday life.

His favorite thing to do right now is play with his buddy Cameron who lives just down the hill from us.

They get together almost every day to play at the park and play LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean on the Playstation.


And finally, we love having friends come over. One day we had ten kids for a couple hours (I was babysitting Ellie and another family, so we had the Vedomskes come play too. Lance was on the computer playing Minecraft away from the "babies".)

Nothing like watching Phineas and Ferb while eating popcorn. Love it!

A weekend with friends

How do you know someone is a real friend? If after 12 years you still want to hang out and find ways to see each other even though you live states away. Nolan Madge and Andrew Connors are just such friends. Andrew (aka Louie) was in our High School class and when we graduated he and George decided to room together at UVa. Nolan was randomly put in their suite and they became friends. These three roomed together for their first two years of college and have been friends ever since.

Nolan now lives in New Hampshire, but on October 19th he and his girlfriend Amanda drove down to Virginia to visit. I've hung out with Nolan a handful of times (he even came to our wedding!) and think he's great. It was fun to meet Amanda for the first time, too. George and I both agree that Nolan needs to lock that down before she escapes. She's awesome. 

While they were in town, we took them up to Carter Mountain to pick some apples. 

This time we found a better area that had tons of apples just begging to be picked. It was a blessing and a curse, really. The apples were easy for the kids to pick which meant within 5 minutes we had about 15 lbs of apples and kids that still wanted to pick. I think we walked away with almost 20 lbs of apples and we still had to drag the kids away from the trees.

Nolan and Amanda

And of course we had to try for another family picture.

I'll take it!

Preggo belly hanging out. I think I'm almost 29 weeks in this picture.

Ellie came with us too! She was an angel and just hung out munching on crackers and apple cores. 

Later that night, we drove a couple hours to Christiansburg Virginia to meet up with Louie, his wife Allie and their cute son Jefferson.

They treated us to s'mores and snacks around the fire.

It was cold! Luckily I had several blankets in the car. 

Roomies!

It was great to catch up with these guys! And thanks Nolan and Amanda for making the 14 hour drive down to spend the weekend with us. We really need to find a way to get together more often!

October randomness

Cole has an obsession with any kind of vehicle, so the fact that our friends have this scooter parked behind their apartment makes their back porch a Cole-magnet. We'll be out playing at the park and Cole will disappear, only to be found "riding" the scooter.

Molty is starting to feel more at home here and is growing. We've had a few scares thinking he escaped his cage, but it turns out he just likes to disappear inside his hollow tree for days at a time.

After a particularly long stretch of days where we thought maybe he had died inside the tree, he finally emerged and shed his skin. It was actually pretty neat... there was a whole long snake-sized skin glove just hanging out in the cage. It even had spots like Molty. Lance got to bring the skin to school and show his classmates who all thought it was cool.

Speaking of school, Lance is liking second grade and usually enjoys being at school. Fridays he informed me, however, are his least favorite days ("the worst days ever"). Why are they so terrible? Because they serve pizza for lunch. Yep. Lance hates Fridays because he doesn't like the school pizza. Have you ever heard of a kid who didn't want pizza at school? Me either. He used to love it, so it came as a shock when he told me he now "hates" the pizza. I'd pack him a lunch, but he's so picky with his food that most of the things I would pack for him would go uneaten as well. 

I usually make him tough it out and eat it anyway, but one Friday I took pity on him and surprised him at school by bringing Chipotle for lunch.

It was a treat for all of us: we got to see Lance on a school day, the little boys got to come to school and sit at the big kid tables, and Lance got something yummy to eat. Yay!

Some buddies who came to sit with us.

The first weekend in October was General Conference and since George was working nights, I took the boys up to Ashburn to hang out with Aunt Amy, Aunt Laura and her boys. Most of it was spent just hanging out at Mom's house, but we did take the boys to the local park between sessions one day.

Amy and Laura with baby Grant

Jude and Mason play so well together.

Cousins!


October 17th is our anniversary, but since George was going to be flying back from a conference in Seattle late that night, we celebrated a week early. We left the kiddos with Grandmom and Pop Pop and treated ourselves to an amazing dinner at Texas de Brazil. We LOVE that place! They walk around with different cuts of meat and you can have as much as you want. They're pretty sneaky, though, and have an all-you-can eat salad bar full of gourmet cheeses, smoked salmon, and other filling options such as the best potatoes au gratin I've ever had. After my plate full of yumminess, I barely had room for the meat, but George and I plugged on valiantly and even made room for dessert.

Here's to the best 5 years of my life! Woo Hoo!



Cole has taken quite a liking to babies lately. He's always loved Ellie (the little girl we babysit during the week) and whenever he sees a baby he'll try to love on him or her, but he's recently discovered dolls and loves them. While we were visiting Callie and Bryce one weekend, he found Callie's dollies and had to carry two of them around with him the whole time we were there.

What was Jude doing while we were there? Playing Halo with Bryce on their brand new HUGE TV. Lucky boy. Lance was spending the weekend with his dad.

Oh good, a stroller. 

What a funny boy! He has a "baby" at our house too. It's really a glow worm that lights up and plays lullabies when you press it's belly, but he calls it his baby and wants to sleep with it at night. I think he's going to make a great big brother!



And finally, another one of Jude's buddies moved away. I love most of the aspects of living in a neighborhood full of students and their families, but I'm getting really tired of all our friends moving away. Most of these people are here for two to four years and it's getting harder and harder to say good-bye as the people we've grown to care about keep leaving.

Brandon and his family moved to California. They came by to say good-bye before the left. Brandon and Jude are good buddies that played together all the time.

It's sad to be outside at the playground and not see him and his grandparents anymore.

Here's his sweet mom Ran. She was always so nice and fun to talk to. 

We're going to miss you guys!