We have had so much Halloween over the last couple of weeks. We went to the Blossey's pumpkin patch and we also went to the pumpkin patch by our house. We went on a Halloween train ride. Tom had a couple of dress up days at school. We carved pumpkins and decorated the house. On Halloween we all walked to a few houses together and the Tom and Eric walked the rest of the neighborhood while Jacob and I handed out candy. Tom was very excited to see what treats he had when he got home. Always one of our favorite times of year.
One of my favorite things about Halloween is carving pumpkins. We had 5 small pumpkins from our garden. And we also got a couple bigger pumpkins from the pumpkin patches, including one really large pumpkin. I couldn't resist putting baby inside to get a picture.
Tom helped my pick out the stencils on the computer. If I let him all of the pumpkins would have been cars. But after some encouragement he decided on Lightning McQueen, Madder, Thomas Train, Mickey Mouse, Elmo, The Count, Kermit the Frog and he even cut a smiley face with some help from me. Tom had a lot of fun grabbing the guts out of the pumpkin for about 2 minutes and then got bored until I showed him the finished product. He is very attached to these pumpkins so it will be interesting to see how he reacts when the start going bad.
We had heard about the Train Rides in Snoqualmie and have wanted to go. We had other plans cancel and the Wheeler's asked us if we wanted to go with them. Tom was so excited. Even just talking about it he was so excited.
The train is a steam train. It is a little challenging to make it onto it with a baby on your back because it is old school steps up. But we made it. We rode in the caboose which was very old. Tom had such a great time. He sat memorized looking out the window for the longest time. The train moves pretty slow, and it doesn't go very far, but it was pretty cool. It went from North Bend and past the Snoqualmie Falls and back. Tom was so sad when we left. And even just seeing these pictures he was so excited.
It is so funny to see what crazy little things Tom does while he is playing by himself. Today he was rocking out with his guitar. He likes to play with the box of music stuff we have. That is when he decides to take a break from his cars or trains. He also likes to play on my guitar a little, although he doesn't quite know what to do. But he likes to hear that he can make sound with it.
Went to Jacob's orthopedist again today. She said his foot is looking good and he can take the brace off while he is awake and only wear the brace during naps and night time. He was very excited to have his freedom today. He rolled around on the floor and even rolled from his stomach to his back which he has never done before. He has also really been trying to crawl lately, but taking off the brace didn't help too much with that. He did jump a lot more enthusiastically in his jumper. He also kept wanting to grab at his feet to check them out. We are very excited for the next stage of his development. Unfortunately she said it will be till age 3 or 4 that he has to wear the braces while sleeping.
We had been given a second hand jump that Tom loved. But it was used outside and was pretty worn and started to rip away from the bar so we had to get rid of it. So we got a new jumper. I wasn't going to, but I read in some of the literature the orthopedist that trampolines can be good for club foot because they stretch out the Achilles tendon. So we decided to get one now while Tom is still interested and then Jake can use it.
Tom loves the pumpkin patch so much that we decided to go to the pumpkin patch right by our house too. We were hoping they would have hay rides again this year, but they did not. But Tom did get to sit on a tractor and get a really big pumpkin. He was also really excited that the train was parked right by our car and he got to touch it.
Tom really wanted to push the wheel barrow. I think it was 65 pounds of pumpkin in there.
Tom has been learning all kinds of songs at day care. It is a lot of fun learning the songs and helping him with them. Some of the are hard to tell what they are at first. At one point he was singing "Ashes, Ashes" and that was all he knew of the song. I finally figured out it was ring a round the rosie. One of his favorites right now is wheels on the bus because he loves everything about cars.
We were on the island and the Great Divide was playing at O Space. We left Tom at home sleeping at Grandma and Grandpa's. We took Jake the night owl out with us to watch. He was pretty mellow. It was fun to get out and listen to some music.
We went out to the Pumpkin Patch at Creek House Farm in Manchester just off the Southworth ferry. It is The Blossey's farm that they have worked very hard to turn into a commercial pumpkin patch. We brought our rain gear just in case. And good thing we did. We drove south around the sound. As we were going across the Narrows Bridge it was raining like crazy. Later we found out that the storm system we drove through caused a water spout tornado off Anderson island just South of where we were driving.
When we got to the farm it wasn't raining and the place was packed. We got out of the car and it started pouring. People flooded out of there. But as soon as the rain stopped the place was packed again. They had set up so much great stuff for young kids. Hay ride, feeding the goats and chickens, arts and crafts, hay bails to climb on, lots of picture opportunities, and of course. Tom had so much fun. specially playing with the Blossey kids. He ran around for 3 hours straight. He was so tired he didn't even want dinner. It took him at least 24 hours to recover from so much fun. I highly recommend going there if you have young kids.
The Dr. gave the go ahead for rice cereal. She said there is about a 50/50 chance it will help him sleep better at night. Let's hope that luck is on our side. He had a little bit, most of it he sort of spit out because he wasn't sure what to do with it yet. But he'll figure it out eventually. Soon he'll get to have all those yummy foods I saved from the garden and are waiting in the freezer for him.
Tom loves looking at family pictures on my computer and especially loves to watch home videos. When I show them to him he wants to see them over and over again. Of course his favorites are the ones with the trains in it. Sometimes it almost seems like he enjoys the seeing himself in the video doing something than the time he did it in real life.
Jacob had his 4 month check-up. He's doing going. More shots. But he took them like a trooper after the nurse was able to pin him down. Good news is they said we could start rice cereal. Yeah!
This month he went to the Mariners and the Fair for the first time. He even got to eat rice cereal for the first time today.
He is becoming an active little boy. He rolls over so much now that I find him on his stomach all the time when he is on his play mat. He hasn't figured out how to roll from his stomach to his back yet so after he is tired of being on his stomach he starts fussing to let me know he is done. He is already trying to crawl. He is doing sort of an army crawl thing. He doesn't get very far but he is trying really hard. I have brought out the entertainer to see if works better than the Johnny Jump Up with the brace but it wasn't a whole lot better. He does like the fact that I can put him right next to all the action going on in the living room. Tom was a jumping machine at this point. Jacob does a little, but I guess he will have some catching up to do once the braces can come off.
Jacob has been teething. He has been a trooper and we have not had any of the big problems like Tom had yet. He figured how to put his thumb in his mouth and is chewing and sucking on it all the time.
Jacob's favorite thing to do right now is probably sitting in my lap while I make funny faces and tickle him. He full on laughs about it. He also laughs when I sing to him or play peek-a-boo. It is very cute.
He still isn't sleeping through the night. He likes to party till about midnight and then some nights he will give me 6 hours straight. But other nights he will wake up in 2 or four hours.
He likes his bath time. Probably because that is the only time he gets a break from his brace. And he hates getting back into the brace, but he appreciate being able to walk and run later on in life.
