fall's my favorite

this time of year has been my favorite ever since i can remember. growing up, it was because i enjoyed new school clothes and supplies and because my birthday is in september. in college, i loved walking on campus and seeing the changing leaves in the mountains - fall still makes me miss school. i love the bright colors, the cooler weather, football season and the excitement for the holidays. last fall, i was busy with morning sickness and missed out. and, we didn't see much color or cooler weather in arizona, so i'm loving four seasons again (i'm sure i will retract this statement when winter comes!).

this is the view from our back deck:


this year was our first time visiting a pumpkin patch together. we went to a local family-run farm and had a great time despite the mud and colder temperatures.

there was a little petting zoo - here's the boys by the donkeys:

calvin tried out a mini straw maze

we took the tractor-pulled hay ride to the corn maze and pumpkin patch

calvin was preoccupied with the tractor (of course), so we didn't get many pictures of him actually looking at the camera. he always had to know where the tractor and the driver were and probably would've jumped on and tried to drive if we had let him.

jumping into the corn box - like a sand box, but with corn...=)

and, since we missed the county fair this year, we had to indulge ourselves and get a funnel cake (okay, AND some chili cheese fries - they're big on chili out here and we had to try it...). i think calvin just took a bite of the fries and he clearly liked the funnel cake better:

here's the boys with our beauties from the pumpkin patch, which, by the way, were a great deal: 7 bucks for three pumpkins and they threw in 2 free gourds

calvin picked his own - the biggest one he could find

mason ate rice cereal in the festive halloween bib while we carved our jack-0-lanterns

this man takes his pumpkin carving pretty seriously.

i think it's because he has ocd, but his attention-to-detail always helps the jack-o-lantern turn out nicely. (no, he's not gonna be a surgeon...)

i love how they're looking at eachother - like pumpkin friends

happy fall everyone!

recent adventures

since moving here a couple months ago, we've done some exploring...

enterTRAINment junction in west chester, oh:

a HUGE model train exhibit and museum

fun kids area w/ playground, rides, and little theater area w/ non-stop thomas episodes

a hand-crank powered train ride that calvin loved!

they were doing "everything thomas" when we went, so calvin got to ride thomas (his favorite) as well.

shoveling coal w/ dad

we also took a trip to kirtland for a couple days before russell started school:

we had a nice tour of historic kirtland from some delightful sister missionaries

it was cool to see the temple too

we drove up to see lake erie before we left the area - it was huge!

mason did some snoozing,

while russell and calvin skipped rocks on the beach

we house-sat for our bishop and got to take advantage of their beach access to lake waynoka:

a couple weeks ago, we took a temple trip w/ some friends. the louisville, kentucky temple is a mini-temple, but still gorgeous. calvin cried when we left because he wanted to go in...

after the temple, we took the tour at the louisville slugger factory and museum w/ our friends, the schenks...

our little baseball fanatic and his daddy hugged the big bat when we got there

calvin got in lots of practice in the batting cage before our tour started

we saw how they make the bats and then checked out some cool artifacts in the museum. here's mason (my babe) next to THE babe's bat - you can't see it in the picture, but the bat is cracked...

calvin and russell holding a mickey mantle bat. this was probably russell's favorite - he saved his gloves! (sorry for the bad lighting)

calvin and his friend sarah (and russell in the rear) crawling in the big baseball mitt

we got souvenir mini bats

he couldn't bear to put it down!

we're in!

i'm happy to report that we're no longer mooching off of good friends and living out of suitcases! now we're living out of boxes, but at least we have all our stuff in our own place. we love the house and are getting settled slowly but surely. mason sleeps like a champ in his crib in his own room and calvin loves his new big-boy bed. now on to potty training...ugh! russell passed his first finals of this year and we're all finally starting to feel better after a month of being sick. it's already getting chilly here, but the changing leaves are gorgeous (pics to come). a couple snap-shots for now:

i love dressing them alike! i'll try to get over it before they get old enough for it to be embarrassing, but for now i think it's pretty cute. calvin likes being "twins with baby mason," too.

this boy is getting so big - almost 4 1/2 months! he tried out his new highchair today (w/o the food, but we'll try that soon).

calvin eating his "i pooped in the potty so we made a chocolatey-brownie ice cream treat" treat. he scarfed it. what do i do next time? i'm running out of ideas...
at least he knows it not scary now!