My Favorite Time of the Year

I love the fall when the leaves start changing colors, the weather is perfect (although it's been an extremely warm fall this year), the fun festivals, and of course football season.  This year we took a lot of fun field trips with the boys.  We went to several orchards to pick apples.  Hillcrest Orchards was our favorite because it had so many things to do such as a petting zoo, a huge slide, pig racing, tricycle and wagon rides, and live entertainment.  The boys loved this place.  If you ever go, the apple fritter and apple cider donuts are to die for.  With my mom's group, we took the boys to a dairy farm.  Carter really got into this.  He saw his 1st cow get milked, learned all about where our milk comes from, and watched a dog herd the cows.  On Halloween, we took the boys to the pumpkin patch.  We had our very own private hay ride through the farm and got to feed the catfish in the pond.  The fish were huge!!  We may make this a tradition on Halloween because there was nobody there so we didn't have to fight the crowds or wait in line for the hayride.  For Halloween, Carter dressed up as a race car driver and Bo was a lion.  We attended our neighborhood fall festival and then went trick-or-treating with a group of friends.  Carter loved spending time with his new friend and neighbor Hamilton Jansen.  They led the pack of kids through the neighborhood.  They knew exactly what to do.  After every house, Carter would yell out "mommy, look what I got."  He was so excited to have a bucket full of candy all to himself.  Bo was the perfect lion.  He'd see people on the sidewalk and growl at them as they walked by.  He was too precious and had no problem at all wearing his costume.  I think he enjoys dressing up!!!

For Thanksgiving, we had Gary's dad Mike in town from Oregon.  The boys loved having him here and got a lot of quality playtime with him.  He was great with them and very patient.  For whatever reason, they enjoyed roughhousing with Mike and every time you'd turn around, they were punching him in the leg or belly.  We are very thankful for him helping Gary finish some of our final projects we wanted to do before Parker arrived.  Gary has about 8 more hours worth of work on building an outdoor storage shed and then everything will be complete.  I'm sure we'll think of another project to add at some point.  In another post, I'll have to put before and after photos of our latest projects.  We got to spend a few days at my parents house in Dublin over the Thanksgiving break.  It was great to be in the country and just relax.  The boys did a lot of hunting.  Carter went hunting for the first time with Gary.  They saw a few turkey and squirrels, but no deer.  Bo's favorite word at the moment is deer.  Whenever I mention my dad, Bo says "papa deer, pow."  It's funny that this is what he associates my dad with.

Parker is growing well.  I am now 35 weeks.  The dr. said that since I've been early with my two previous pregnancies, then I could go anytime from 35 weeks and on. Hopefully, I have another few weeks for him to grow and be 100% healthy.  I'm feeling great with the exception of being tired.  The last week or so I've been ready to crash around 7:30 or 8pm.  The nesting has definitely kicked in because I"m constantly cleaning, organizing, and redecorating.  The boys are getting super excited to meet their brother.  Carter really gets it this time around and is asking a lot of questions.  I think he's going to be so helpful and a great big brother.  Bo knows there is a baby in my belly and gives him kisses, but I'm afraid he doesn't know what's coming.  He's definitely been more clingy than normal so I think he knows there are about to be changes around here.  We started him in his big boy bed 2 weeks ago.  The 1st week, he did well but was getting up every morning around 5 or 6am.  That was tough, but now he's back to normal and getting up anytime after 7am.  We're so thankful for a fairly smooth transition!!  Well, I think I've covered most of the happenings in our lives.  I wish I was better about updating more frequently so I could be more descriptive, but for whatever reason, blogging is such a chore for me.  Hopefully, I can continue it though!  Here are a few pictures from the fall: