Busy Saturday

Yesterday 'the men' worked in the rain and wind in our yard to take down a few trees that were dead or on their last limb. So while Rod, Stephen, Jim, and Bruce were outside, the ladies (Penny, Pam and I) had fun inside with the kiddos. Cousins Faith and Chloe are getting so big!
Then, later in the afternoon, Grandpa Russ stopped by with some treats straight out of Mexico for the girls!

Fun at the pumpkin farm

We met up with a few friends yesterday and headed to a fall fest/pumpkin farm. Talk about a fun-filled, busy afternoon! The kids dressed up. Victoria was a pumpkin fairy, Evan was an elephant, and Caiden (thanks to his daddy not bringing his costume) was a girl!



Got to play in the corn-box...


Raced tractors, cars, trucks (okay, didn't really race, more like sat on)...


Played on the slide...

And other things we didn't get photos doing included a petting zoo, a horse-drawn trailer ride through the corn fields, and a sandbox. Would have been a good fall day if it hadn't been 80 degrees! Whew!

The downside to our yard

We love our yard. The land, all the big old trees, everything about it. There are a few downsides that become especially apparent this time of year, though. The leaves don't look too bad yet, but the trees are still mostly green. And Rod just mowed 2 days ago. But with that big storm, we had one tree casualty.

Sickies, again

Well, now that I got better, Rod's still sick, and Victoria has a *touch* of bronchitis, as the doc put it. Victoria is on antibiotics for, I think, the first time since she was in the hospital. Hopefully we're on the upswing of it.

The first full week of being a SAHM again has gone well. We're having a blast, I have a chore chart to keep my butt in gear, and I've managed to get up and take a shower before V gets up in the morning every day!

She's mastering new verbal concepts these days, including identifying things as "yours" or "mine" instead of "Victoria's" or "mommy's". She has these Baby Einstein alphabet books (each book is it's own letter), and if we toss them all on the floor, we can tell her to pick up a specific letter and she's able to pick out the right one about 80% of the time. She also is working on identifying colors (blue, orange, green, yellow, red, pink, purple, brown, white, black).

What else, what else... Foods she loves: peas, blueberries, craisins (any flavor), apples, bananas with peanut butter on them, Gerber ravioli (won't touch any other kinds!), cheese, grapes, and her multivitamin (flinstones), multi-grain fruit cereal bars. Everything else is hit or miss. Not too much protein these days unless it comes in dairy form. I wonder when she'll be old enough that we can have the "Just try one bite" conversation... we're not there yet!

I really did miss spending so much time with her. I'm glad to be home :)

Another new phase has begun

For more than just Victoria. As far as V goes, she decided this morning she wanted to choose her shirt and pants. After going through every single shirt, and every single pair of pants, here's what she came up with (and refused to let me try to put anything else on!) At least it matches - sort of!

On the homefront, today is my last day being part of the paid labor force. After today, I'm back to full-time stay-at-home-mommy. I debated for a while about the decision, and we determined it's the best thing for our family for me to be home with Victoria now. I tried the working thing, and just wasn't ready for it yet. We're gonna have a blast!

Visitors!

Grandma Penny, Papa Jim, and cousin Faith stopped by on Sunday for a little visit. The girls had a blast (for the most part!) playing together, and I got a little taste of what life would have been like with two kiddos!

Getting Ready for Halloween

Well, it seems the month of October will be spent preparing for Halloween. Today Victoria was at Miss Melinda's daycare and got to paint a pumpkin.

And the other day, Victoria got to try out another fun Halloween treat...

It finally fits!

Great-Uncle Tony gave Victoria this cool shirt. Well, at least cool cuz it has a dog on it! Rod initially told him no way would she wear this shirt - she's a cop's kid, not a firefighter's kid! But after some consideration, Rod's comment was, "On second thought, maybe we do want her to be a firefighter - after all, why work when you could get paid not to?!?" ;-)

Picking out pumpkins and other stuff

This weekend Victoria got to go into Jaja and Busha's garden to pick out her pumpkin.

Then she tried to pick up her pumpkin!

And this is the fun we have with the view-window on the camera!