Happy Halloween!

In celebrating the spirit of Halloween, Dex wore a cute shirt yesterday, and today we FINALLY got off our asses and went to a goddamn pumpkin patch, because that's what you're supposed to do with your kid. It actually was cute and little and fun and also about three minutes away. SCORE!

BOO! And stuff.

This cheap-o Halloween pumpkin thingy from Wal-Mart has been a pretty big hit this year.

Dude, Mom, I'm busy. Can't you take pictures some other time?

Super strong. And making "I am pooping my pants" face from all the effort.

But OF COURSE you load up your wagon with blocks. And a sippy cup. And a plastic orange. What else would go in a wagon?

I love 1) Dex checking to be sure all his blocks are still there and 2) Buddy looking on, wondering when he's going to get run over

Our highly unsuccessful attempt at capturing the glow-in-the-dark BOO shirt. Needless to say, photos without flash + small child = HUGE DISASTER

Cutest pumpkin patch I have ever seen. Actually, maybe the only pumpkin patch I have ever seen. Did we go to a pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins when we were kids? Or just to the grocery store? I have no memory of either.

Dex picked this fab green pumpkin. Cuz green rocks.

Then he kind of also picked this one, too. You can see he's super psyched about it.

But he still wants to try to carry it home.

The hay ride was way more entertaining in theory than in actual reality.

Thanks, nice person at the pumpkin patch, for a nice fall family portrait. Also, note John's new "I'm totally ready for winter - now I can really FEEL the cold" hair cut.

Ummm. Yeah. Dex not thrilled about hay ride. John's given up trying to cheer him up.

The pumpkins are 40 cents a pound, but it doesn't say how much we have to pay for the small child...

It appears we went home with about 55 pounds of cute today, though. Dex weighed in at 30 pounds at the doctor this morning (he went for a possible ear infection, that proved to be not an ear infection. Yet.), so 25 pounds of pumpkin is currently sitting on our front porch. That's a lot of pumpkin seeds.

Dex is not going trick-or-treating tomorrow night, but will get re-dressed as Pooh and can help answer the door for a while. Or, alternately, he can be dressed as Pooh and can run screaming in terror from the door when people ring the door bell. Or maybe he'll just play with his trucks. Any way it goes, he'll be dressed as Pooh. For maybe an hour.

Also, the news from the neighbors (I just met the nice neighbor husband this evening) is that Halloween here is NUTS. Like kids are trucked in on hay wagons and stuff. Nuts. Sounds like fun. We should have enough candy. Unless I continue to eat it all between now and tomorrow night...

Trick or Treat!

Fall

It's definitely fall around here, although it didn't feel like it this week. But now, just in time for Halloween, the weather has turned colder (supposed to be in the 30's at night this weekend! Where are we, Massena NY??). And the leaves are changing. And there's pumpkins galore. And mums. And a super cute child. Here's some pictures of fall from our little neck of the woods. Enjoy!

A few shots from Longwood Gardens, where we went three times last week. It's looking very fall-like there, although the leaves aren't quite changing yet. We'll have to go back this week to see if they've turned yet:

That's Dex signing "train" because he heard the train whistle from the very cool model train exhibit.

Mums. And wicked cool trains.

Nice pumpkin display at the outdoor children's garden

Pumpkins make good chairs

Pictures from our house:

Looking down the road from our deck.

Neighbor's yard. Their maple trees are pretty.

Small child. With balls. And pretty trees.

I think that maple is technically the neighbor's. But the leaves fall in our yard, so we'll claim it for now.

More cute child. More balls. Pretty much the same trees.

And shots from our daily morning walk around the block:

Just across the road. Not quite changed yet (neither are the maples in our yard)

But some have changed and left pretty leaf carpets

A little further down the road there's flashes of color

And then you turn the corner and go around to the other side of the "U" and it's a whole different season over there.

Maybe it's from all the cow manure washing down to that side

I never quite realized til this week that a HUGE cow farm is DIRECTLY behind these houses. No wonder it always smells like silage.

Still the other side of the "U"

And speaking of fall... Dex took a tumble at the playground on the last day of Fair Hill. He scored himself a nice fat upper lip. He was only traumatized the day of the injury. John? I think he's still traumatized. Poor boy.

You should see the other guy...

Not Nearly the Drama. But Still Damn Cute.

Remember last Halloween? When Dex was decidedly displeased with his Mickey Mouse costume? Which resulted in the BEST. PHOTOS. EVER? Except for, maybe, his trip to go see Santa? Remember that? Yeah. Me, too.

So I thought it might be a good idea to do a trial run of the Halloween costume this year. Let him get used to the idea a bit. So we had a play date here today with our MOMS group. A Halloween party play date. Here's how it went:

The first picture is always the best. Love the classic "WTF, Mom?" look.

Pooh makes the best of a bad situation and plays with some balls. Balls make everything better.

Wait. What's that I see? A hint of a SMILE?

OMG CUTE

YAY!!! Pooh made a tower!

Our friends arrive, and the Dalmatian rides the rocking horse

The Lion gets a turn, too. Pooh was fairly content to just push the horse's ear to make it make noise...

Bless Buddy's heart. He puts up with a lot at these play dates. As he gets a head lock from the Dalmatian.

Pooh is TIRED. It's a lot of work hauling around that big belly full of honey!

But he rebounds to go play with trucks with Buddy.

Don't mess with this fierce Lion

I didn't get a picture of all three kids together, but they were cute for the hour they kept their costumes on. Halloween prep - DONE!

Fair Hill

It was nice to work again. For five days. Although John says I am not allowed to call Fair Hill "work" as I don't get paid for it. But, hey - Was I physically tired from pounding in 600 feet of snow fence? Yes, yes I was. Was I required to use my brain, problem solving skills, and social skills? Yes, yes I was. Therefore, I call that WORK. Paid or not, I worked for five days. And it was nice. Also, I am tired and really need to kick this very sudden coffee habit.

Anyway. Fair Hill. I am the chick in charge of Special Events. Which meant organizing four different dog demonstrations, a Kids Corner (which thankfully someone else runs, cuz I would completely tear out my hair if I had to deal with that many kids all day long), Mini horses, a puppet show, a falconer (dude with birds of prey), and some Pony Club Games. Oh. Right. And also some ridiculous Shetland Pony Races. That one was dumped in my lap a week before.

So. BUSY. Thankfully someone helped me with dog events, as I had five billion places to be at one time on Saturday and something would have seriously slid through the cracks if I didn't have her. We were graced with great weather over the weekend (after a cold and wet first day of competition on Thursday), lots of people came out to watch the three day event, and plenty of people took advantage of all the special events. Which always makes me feel better. Nothing sucks more than inviting someone to come do something and not having anyone there to watch.

Dex hung out with Nonna and Grandpa during the week, and stuck close to his Daddy over the weekend. He seemed to have plenty of fun. Nonna has way more energy than I, and actually plays with Dex the whole time. While I am more like "sweet, Dex is playing with his train, I can wash dishes in the other room."

Here's some photos of the weekend:

Buddy came to Fair Hill for three days. Besides some puking in the car, he was a very good boy. People loved him, and he sported an FHI shirt for a day.

Standard poodle doing agility

Friday dressage day

Saturday morning cross country. John took this photo - he, Dex, and Nonna came out for the morning.

It was chilly

Little girl enjoying bubbles during the puppet show

Little little palomino horse doing the three star. His little belly was skimming the tops of jumps.

Tiny mini horses. Large person.

Terrier racing was funny and drew a pretty good sized crowd.

Ridiculous Pony Club kids just run along next to their ponies then jump right on. Crazy. But, their ponies are short...

Always crazy how close you can get to horses on course during cross country.

I usually don't watch this fence. It's insane. Like a five foot drop.

Cute Pony Club pony

The Falcon Guy. And his bird. Someone said he looked like Benjamin Brat's brother. Hmmm. Kind of. He was cute and nice and people liked him.

More Pony Club Games. Baton hand-off.

And some cute classic cars. It was a nice day on Sunday to hang out, watch horses, and look at car engines.

And that was Fair Hill! I've missed it - I haven't been involved for the past two years. They definitely missed me. Because I. Am. Awesome.