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| Riding in the cows at Cornbelly's. |
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| Wether especially enjoyed this ride. A few times I lost track of him and he would be making a bee-line for the cows. |
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| On a hayride. |
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| This was a very jerky ride but Wether wanted to sit between his brothers and not on my lap. Holden and Marcus are holding his hands to stabilize him. |
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| Our pumpkin scarcrow. The boys don't like the "mad" eyebrows. |
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| Marcus, Holden, and Mason. |
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| Marcus, Mason, Holden, Wether, Kjell, and Anna. Wether was scared of the scarecrow. |
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| Painting pumpkins. I'm in the background nailing together a cross to support the scarecrow. |
Autumn is here. I took the kids to Cornbelly’s on Thursday. We jumped on the “pillows” (like a trampoline), rode in the cows, rode big-wheel tricycles on the sand through a course, went on a hayride through a cornfield, raced rubber ducks using a manual water pump, climbed on hay bales, went on slides, and enjoyed the warm October sun! Wether couldn’t get enough of the duck racing (he was mesmerized). Hopefully, we’ll make one more trip up to Cornbelly’s with Kjell before Halloween.
On Saturday, we painted pumpkins with our neighbors Aryn, Mason (3), and Anna (21 months). I choose an ambitious project to build a pumpkin scarecrow with the kids (actually, it turned out to be simple). I saw a bunch of scarecrows up at Cornbelly’s and it brought back fond memories of building them annually with my mom and J.P. for a contest at the New Canaan Nature Center. The kids enjoyed helping us build the scarecrow (especially eating the marshmallows) but Aryn and I had the most fun. I hope to make it a tradition. I found the overalls in my costume box, although J.P. wore them in high school (check out the Phish patch) and then I took them over and wore them too!
In other news – Marcus got very nice reviews from his teacher Mrs. Sumsion during parent/teacher conferences. She said that his is always happy and obedient and a peacemaker among the other boys who tend to be more dramatic. Marcus loves recess and computer time. He and I read a new book every night and he’s making progress in the reading and sight word department. He’s got 2 upper molars coming in.
Holden is officially potty-trained. This has been a frustrating 4-month long process (I’ll spare you the details!) but sometime last week he decided that he was ready and he hasn’t had an accident since, day or night. Hallelujah. I’ve mentioned before that Holden loves puzzles, especially his “America puzzle” that contains each piece in the shape of a state. Not only has he mastered this difficult puzzle but he knows the names of the majority of the states and the location of all of them. Recently, we bought him a Europe puzzle and he’s in the process of learning all of the countries and their locations as well (it’s not a bad refresher for me either!) We’ll strongly encourage Holden as long as his interest of maps/geography/puzzles continues.
Wether loves trucks. He has a truck book that he looks through several times a day on his own. When he decides that he wants you to read to him, he’ll bring you a book and say “book, book” over and over while forcing himself into your lap or the book into your hands. His determination, independence, and strong will have not diminished in the least, nor have his intense tantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants. I often hear him singing songs, especially “EIEIO, moo, moo” or something to that effect. He’ll play for hours outside, sometimes crawl into his stroller and yell until I’ll push him, and continues to have a healthy appetite. If you here him say “Steins” he’s requesting to watch Baby or Little Einsteins.
My pregnancy is going well – I’ll be entering my 3rd trimester this week. Kjell has been working tirelessly on our sprinkler system, which is now completed. Top soil and sod are next on the agenda and then we’ll take a break from landscaping until the late winter at which time we’ll plan and purchase the shrubbery to be planted in the spring. Until then, we’ll be shuffling rooms around to make room for baby boy and we look forward to visits from both of our parents.
