A hayride we go...

Last Sunday after church we headed home for lunch and then packed up again to go to the Apple Shed for a hayride. We attempted a hayride the day before at Wickam Farms but they had stopped for the day. But this was way more fun since we joined the D's. They planned on going and we tagged along. 

He is too cute.

 Callen really was happy, just not at that moment.

 Poppy Lee, Gracie and Grandpa D.

 The D's

 All the D's and Poppy Lee.

Isn't this the cutest picture with barn background.

Well, the below picture is my failed attempt to get ALL of us. I set the camera on a nearby table and attempted to get a picture with the timer. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to finagle with it and well, as you can see, it didn't turn out. But I love it anyways...Granpa D got chopped, as well as Gracie but you can see her legs, and well, Poppy Lee is blocking Clayton and Mary too.

A trip to the farm, fruit farm that is...

It seems like every fall I forget how much I love fall in NY. I am so excited for spring and summer to roll around after such a cold, long winter that I forget my favorite time of year. How can you not love the cool, crisp air, and the beautiful red, yellow and orange leaves that adorn the trees before they fall to the ground. Then we get to rake the leaves to make a big pile to jump in. And of course apples galore, oh the smell of apples and leaves just makes everything seem so homey. 

I feel so spoiled sometimes to be able to be home most days during the week to spend with my boys and sometimes fellow mommies too. I am truly blessed to have this privilege.

Last Wednesday we had to go grocery shopping so we went across town with the plans to stop at a fruit farm to have some outdoor fun. They had a jumping pillow, animals, pumpkin patch, playground, sandbox, tractor, pretend apple picking farm and so much more. I was so excited to take Chase there. We invited Katie and the kids too.

 

I was trying to get the both of them together for a nice fall pumpkin picture but Callen wouldn't sit up, well he can't yet and Chase was too excited to do everything else, not pose for a picture for mommy. This is the best I got. But I love it anyway.

 

Second attempt while Callen was eating the grass.

How tall are you Chase?

They had this cutest little area where they made "apple" trees out of wood and painted them to look like trees. Instead of entering through the fence he decided to jump the fence. Hey, he wanted an apple.

Getting ready to eat his freshly picked apple.

 Chase loved the jumping pillow. Everyone had to take off their shoes to play, which Chase gladly did. After a few minutes he had the entire jumping to himself. He loved it. Unfortunately the pictures aren't the best because I was getting ready to feed Callen and not in the best spot, but they capture the moment. 

 

At one tumble down the side, he took a face plant right into the sand with his mouth wide-open, and yes a mouthful of sand pursued as did spitting.

These two are too funny. They are getting ready to get their HUGE cookie. The idea when we bought the cookies was for them to split with Katie and I. Well, as you can see they both got the whole cookie.

 Love this picture, notice Chase has only one sock on. He managed to take the other off to play on the jumping pillow before I called him to come over.

 How's your cookie Chase?

And they didn't get to eat it all, they were made to share with their mommies.

And on a sad note...an old wives tale says that you can tell how long the winter is going to be based on the below caterpillar. If the orange is real long that means we are in for a loooonnngg winter. Boo hoo. 

Hiking with Nonnie, the boys and Harley...

Today was a pretty nice Fall day and I was home with the boys. They both have colds, Chase more than Callen, but they both weren't feeling 100%. I try to go for a walk/jog with them everyday that I am home but instead of going the same 'ol route I figured since I had the truck we could take the double jogging stroller and go to the canal trail.

I gave mom a call to see if she wanted to join and of course she did. We went hiking instead of a jog so that we could bring Harley and let him run loose. But where we were going, a double stroller wasn't going to work, so I finagled Callen into the Moby Wrap and Chase was on his own to hike.

 

We were gone for about an hour and then returned for a picnic lunch.  On our way back, Chase fell flat on his face on the path. 

Chase you all right? I asked. 

Yeah, he said laughingly, my feet hurts.

My mom and I couldn't help but giggle because of how he said it, laughing at himself. Then as we were walking to the cars to get ready to eat, Chase just stopped in the middle of the driveway and took off his boot. We thought he had a cramp or something but his foot "hurt" and felt "funny" because his sock had fallen down. I didn't think about the boots not being the best to walk in but I was thinking mud and water. I didn't realize he'd be walking so much.

 Hey mom, um, I can't see here...

Naked baby, candy corn and the letter C

It was not a nice Fall day today; more of a cold, rainy, dark day, but that didn't stop us from having an enjoyable day just being inside. My day's agenda was to include cleaning, cleaning, and oh, did I say clean? It's not that my house was dirty just not tidy and I needed to get caught up. Sounds simple enough but not with two little boys demanding my attention.

My first was to tackle the kitchen. But there were many "pit-stops" that included visiting and playing with the boys. And the first was, of course, playing trains with Chase. He's been on a Thomas the Train kick for about a month now. He got this train table for Christmas last year from his Grammy and would play with it now and again, but frankly he played trains on it for about a month before it just became a toy table; cars Little People, you name it. This is the first time since probably February that the tracks are all set up nice like a train table thanks to daddy. It's crazy how kids get stuck on a certain toy and then every.single.thing about that toy. He knows all the trains, it amazes me. We are working on putting useful information in his brain but he's gotta be a kid too. NAKED BABY
I decided today to give Callen some "free-time" from his diaper. I just can't imagine being in one of those from birth 24/7 until 2 years or so and the only time out of one for a period of time is in the bath. I am researching going cloth for many reasons, cost, comfort and the environment, somewhat. I have debated about this before Callen was even born but couldn't get over the poopie part of it. But after some research online and on blogworld, I am contemplating it again as I am in need of diapers, so mine as well take the leap now.

Anyway, naked baby, so I laid a blanket on the kitchen floor and put a naked baby on it. This isn't his first "free-time" but this time he did pee, which was absolutely fine, he was at least on his belly. :)
So after he left his mark on the blanket, I moved him to his bouncy chair not worrying if he peed that too since I could also just wash it. I put our little space heater pointing towards him to make sure he was warm. He just adores his big brother. CANDY CORN AND THE LETTER C
While Callen was playing naked baby on the floor, Chase and I were at the table learning more about the letter C and candy corn. He is pretty smart with his ABC's, he knows all of them by sight and knows the sounds they make, but today we practiced writing the letter C. I found a fun website with learning tools and print outs. They had the cutest Fall oriented ones and one was about candy corn. I just love candy corn even though it is so very bad for you. But it signifies Fall so we must eat it.

I printed a few pages, one for writing the letter C and a few others for counting because we were also going to do the number 1 and number 2. For whatever reason he is struggling with numbers and counting. But in time he'll get it.

One printout was of a candy corn where we glued the eyes, nose and mouth on, as well as the legs and feet. The legs were two letters C's and the feet were candy corns. After we finished assembling him, Chase looked at him and said, "He's missing arms." So I made some arms and gave him a candy corn in his hand.

The print out I found for the numbers was related to using candy corns too. For the number 2 we counted two real candy corns and then I drew two candy corns in the jar. We practiced writing it, somewhat.
The final revelation for the day is...Chase is not to have anymore candy corn. Oh my, he doesn't normally have sugary sweets anyway and then to learn using candy corn. Wow. I can so see a difference in him when he has a lot of sugar. He doesn't listen, gets crazy and obnoxious, does naughty things just because and more. So he is officially limited to maybe 1 or 2 a day. Mean maybe, but I like my child to be sugar-free, nearly sugar-free anyway.