Pumpkin Farms Galore

October was the month of the pumpkin farm for us as we hit one in Missouri and 2 in Arizona with friends. Ellie was in the carrier on the photographer for these adventures so she is missing in the photos.

First we went to Tolmachoff Farms with our friends the Johnsons and Higgins. This is the first ride Willem has gone on without Jason or I. It was the mark of his newfound independence. He was 100% comfortable and loved every second of it.

The obligatory pumpkin picture. Willem loved playing in the pool of corn kernels, going through the corn maze and jumping in the bounce house. We had a great day although it was at least 90 degrees. Oh a wonderful fall in Phoenix!

Here we are at Schnepf Farms with the Vance Family who we spent a week with. They had a large wooden train the kids could climb on and needless to say, that was a winner with Conductor Willem.

Willem's 2nd ride without us in one month. By now he is a pro. This ride went up and down and in circles and he could have stayed on it all day.

October 2010

Ellie discovers the hair accessories:) They only stayed on for a few minutes but the picture was priceless. Ellie loves sitting up in the Bumbo and looking out at the world.

So smiley and yet later this week we learned you had flu a & b. Who knew? Luckily no fever or outward symptoms except waking at night, so you did great.

Our first adventure at Jump and Shout and Willem was sold. He loved climbing in the tunnels and going in the bounce houses with his friends.

Willem at 2 and a half.

Dad's 1st train park adventure with Willem and Ellie alone. They made the rounds as usual and Ellie enjoyed the train ride and watching her big brother play at the train shop.

Willem has realized now that Ellie is here for good and is very interested in helping take care of her. He likes to imitate everything he sees us do. He wants to help change her diapers, take her on walks and sing to her when she cries. He has started coming up to her in a high pitched tone and saying, "Hello Princess, Hello Beautiful". We are getting a taste of what we must sound like to him but it is so sweet:) (to this day he still does this multiple times a day)

At the end of the month Willem got his haircut at his favorite place while watching Thomas and of course playing with trains afterwards. It doesn't matter that they are the same trains we have at home, it is so much more fun at the hair salon:)

Also in October...

-Ellie has found her hands and is chewing up a storm.

-As of October 29th Ellie is 24.5 inches long and 13 lbs 5oz

-On October 30th Ellie rolled over for the first time! Opa and Lita were here for Halloween and were the first to witness this feat.

2010 Halloween

We had a wonderful Halloween, filled with parties with friends and special time with our family. The night of Halloween, we went to a few houses on our street and met some of our newer neighbors. Willem was tentative about going up to peoples homes but liked the candy aspect. Ellie, our ballerina, was along for the ride.

After trick or treating we headed over to Gigi and Paw Paw's house and had a low key evening concluded with roasting marshmallows. This was the first time Willem's done this and he was quite studious and loved eating the marshmallows raw like his Mom.

October Family Vacation at the Vances

Jason was able to take a week off for the 1st time since Ellie was born for some time with the family. We ended up spending the first part of the week with our cousins, the Vance's who live out in Gilbert and then ended the week with the Opa and Lita coming to town for Halloween.

Ellie's first trip to Jump and Shout. She chilled with Daddy while Cassady and Willem bounced until they could bounce no more.

Decorating pumpkins was a blast! Willem loved having so many other kids around all week. The Vance home was the best resort we could have taken him too. Here Aunt Betty is helping Willem color his pumpkin.

Ellie helping her big brother.

Willem was in heaven being able to run out into the backyard and get onto the trampoline whenever he wanted. He also loved getting to see the horses from afar:) Spending time with his cousin Cassady was great for Willem. They giggled and played so well together, she really encouraged him to talk more and be silly. His favorite line learned from Cassady is "That was funny". Not a bad outlook to have on life.

One day Daddy went to preschool with Willem as the Daddy Helper, Willem was thrilled! He sat on the star mat and was the classroom helper for the day, but most of all loved Daddy being in class with him.

The following day with the Halloween Parade, so we all watched as Willem, the conductor, walked with his class in the parade.

September 21-Oct 4th Trip to Missouri

This fall we flew back to Missouri to see Grandma, Tia Julie and the rest of the Watkins side of the family. Dad had to stay in Phoenix for work but we enjoyed telling him about our adventures on the webcam each night.

Willem took the flight attendants words seriously when she told us to study up in case of an emergency. Willem was quite pleased as this was the first flight where he had his own seat and got to bring his carseat. He loved the built in cup holder. Grandma was on the flight with us as well for this first venture out with the kids outnumbering Mom and all went well. Willem who had been talking about going on this trip for over a month and was so excited about the flight, announced "I'm all done with this plane" before we had even taken off. Still, he was quite patient during the flight and entertained himself nicely.

This was Ellie's 1st plane flight and she was an excellent traveler. She didn't sleep a ton but she cuddled with Mom, nursed and observed her brother. We were lucky and had an extra seat next to us, so she even was able to stretch out a bit. Thank goodness for Southwest Airlines!!

We went retro with Ellie's bed of choice for the trip. After years of hearing stories about my aunts and uncles sleeping in dresser drawers and so forth while traveling, we got innovative and made her a cozy suitcase bed. Big brother was in the pack n' play and she's moving enough I didn't want to leave her on the bed unattended. She seemed to feel cozy and it was fun to see people's reactions as Willem would tell our friends and family how his sister sleeps in a suitcase.

Knowing that Grandma was moving out to Phoenix, we did the rounds of our favorite St. Louis sites with the kids and of course the Zoo was at the top of the list. Willem was in heaven as he had his cousins Emma and Rose as his adoring fans. This was the first trip where we stayed in St. Louis the whole time and we were so blessed to have family come and visit us there so we didn't trek across the state. Juju and Emma even came from Ohio to visit for a few days which was fantastic!
Ellie's 1st Zoo ride. She was quite content as always and then as you can see below, took a nice rest as we checked out the monkeys.The Zoo is Tia Julie's favorite place to go in St. Louis, I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, her or Willem.Keeping with tradition, we visited the Kirkwood Farmers Market for the 3rd year in a row during this time of year. It was fun to see how much more Willem could do this year. He loved the tractor and loading corn into the wagon. He also loved the tub of corn kernels and was so busy working in there I failed to get one non-blurry picture.Ellie put up with this adventure, but wasn't really old enough to appreciate spending time in the cold for these festivities. They both put up with our annual picture taking but in keeping with tradition, we didn't get one great picture where they are looking at the camera.We took Willem on a walk to show him my middle and high school, yes, I have become my Mom! He loved the baseball field, it was right before school got out so the gate was open and he went to town playing in the dirt. He kicked off his shoes and felt right at home. I'm sure the baseball players were wondering what had happened to their perfectly manicured diamond with these small tiny footprints throughout.Ellie loves riding with Mom in the Baby Bjorn. She enjoys being outside on walks and comfortably dozes in and out of sleep.

Ellie relaxing with Grandma Rose.

Willem felt right at home at Grandma's. We hadn't been back to Missouri in 9 months but he remembered elements of the house and of course from webcamming the first thing he looked for was Grandma's train set.

With two kiddos, the picture taking has gone downhill, other things that happened on our trip:

-As always Willem was in love with the trampoline, could not bounce enough

-We all met baby Allie for the first time, Beth and Jon's daughter. We laid her and Ellie side by side and they cooed at each other and held hands.

-We went through a lot of Julie and I's childhood toys and schoolwork as Grandma is preparing to make her move out to Arizona. I'm excited to read Willem and Ellie some of my favorite childhood books. Ellie was a big helper, laying on her playmat or in her bouncy chair.

-Sleeping was rough, especially with Ellie, being away from home so one morning Grandma tried to take Willem to Lone Elk Park to show him the animals and let us sleep in. I heard the door close and then I heard the car alarm went off. Apparently the car battery had gone dead due to a light being left on. So Willem was able to witness the car being jump started and to do this day, anytime we hear a car honk he asks, "Mommy, did their car battery die?". At least once a day we talk about the time that Grandma's car battery went down.

We had a wonderful trip but were excited to get home to Daddy. Flight home started out with a delay and I quickly learned that flying at night with a 2 year old does not equal them sleeping and me reading a magazine. Yes, I was the Mom who the flight attendant and another family at the front of the plane were trying to help so that there wasn't a told mob from the noise we were making. But hey, we made it home in one piece and we can survive anything for a few hours.

Next flight we are bringing drink coupons for our fellow passengers:)