Funny or concerning?

Some days weird things just unfold as you're watching kids play and imagine and interact that you just don't know how to categorize. Take this video from yesterday for example:

Hannah is dressed as a Native American and a ballerina, she is goose stepping and counting as if leading a regiment into battle and swinging two puppies tied by their necks to the ends of a shoelace. She did this for at least 20 minutes, cracking herself and Noah up the whole time. What an odd conglomeration of potentially offensive things, that just end up being funny and cute when a little kid is the one doing them.


(According to her, she is "marching in an Indian parade." And yes, that is Noah swinging puppies around by their necks, too. "It's a puppy helicopter, mom." Ah, of course. That's what they are doing.)

Noah's manners

Overall the kids are pretty good at using their manners. Of course, sometimes they need to be reminded-- but then again, so do many adults these days. Noah is so good at it though, that he has taken to covering all of his bases for proper polite questioning structure. As you can see in this video, a standard Noah request is, "Please may could I have..." And he reeeeeaaaaallly wanted one of the muffins I had just taken out of the oven.

Cheese.

You can tell quite a bit about the kids from their random candid pictures. Pull out the camera these days and Hannah strikes a pose with a toothy grin and a funny arm gesture. When Noah sees the camera, though, he does something like this (his "scary face") or says "cheese" so intently that his eyes are squinched closed and he looks like he's in some kind of pain.

"In this town we call home, Everyone hail to the pumpkin song. This is Halloween!"

This year marked our first real Trick-or-Treat action. After some play time at Papa and Grandma's house with cousins, we suited up and joined the throngs of revelers in Maywood. (Okay, maybe there weren't exactly "throngs" when we went out at 6:30, but there certainly were when we headed home from my folks' house around 8:00.)

Somehow, I'm guessing it won't take too long before the children will not be satisfied with only visiting 7 houses of neighbors we know. Next year may have to be an epic trek as they realize how many possible doorbells they can ring right in our sweet little neighborhood. I'm pretty sure, though, that Papa and Grandma's will always be their favorite stop-- and not just because they hand out full size candy bars, either!

The boy just loves to sing...

Here's a little video of Noah singing "Zacchaeus was a wee little man". Such a cutie.

Pumpkin Patch!

Love the place we found this year! A student told me about it and I'm so glad we went. It's called Bushue's Family Farm and it's located out in Boring, off Orient drive and Bluff road. There are pre-picked pumpkins, or you can go out in the field and pick your own. Hannah and Noah both liked petting the goats and sheep and checking out the little pigs and chickens. I saw ducks on the little pond when we went on our cow-train ride (see pic). They also do hay rides and apparently have a hay tunnel/maze in the barn too, although we didn't check that out since Hannah and Noah are a still a little small and Hannah is not a big fan of the dark right now.

What was most refreshing, though, is that it is simply a small, family run farm. The mom was feeding the sheep and goats when we got there, the dad and his sons were getting the tractors ready for hay rides, letting the pigs out, playing with the big old black lab roaming around. No overt commercialism, no overpriced snacks, no crazy crowds and bustle. Just a simple, fun spot. It costs a couple bucks for the rides and/or the maze, and of course the pumpkins and other fall squash and veggies and flowers are priced accordingly. But the rain held off for us, the kids had fun and we made off with 4 sweet pumpkins to carve-- it was, without a doubt, 20 bucks well spent.

Highlight Reel

So, since I have been a blog slacker (see previous post) here is a quick pictorial of highlights from August and September. August was full of trips to the park, a visit with great grandma Peterson, and camping (no pics, just vid). September ushered in the landmarks of Hannah's first day of preschool and Noah's 2nd birthday party.