October and November

It has been a while. October was busy. I taught at least once a week and often had to go in more than that just to be prepared to teach. Hopefully next semester won't be as bad. I am teaching all the same classes. We will see.

In other news, my kids are cute. And that is mostly what this post will be about. Obviously we did the whole Halloween thing, but I didn't get a picture because they wore the same costumes they wore to King Richard's Faire. I guess it is a little cuter when you have to cover half of their costumes because it is cold outside. Anyways...here goes the pictures.


You will see many pictures of the kids in their Sunday best. I guess it is because they do look quite cute right before church. Don't ask me to snap a picture after. We have 11 am church, so they (and the parents) are quite tired and more than ready for some rest. Anyways, here is one Sunday (in October) before Church.

I love this picture. They look like bestest buddies.

 



Sam's squinty smiley face will be seen many times in this post....Consider yourself lucky!!

For Columbus day we ventured to Honeypot orchard for some apple picking. We pretty much re-created a visit we made last year. This time we parked far enough away that a complimentary hayride was included. My kids didn't want to look at the camera in this one.

Since Sam does super cute squinty smiley faces, Lucy compensates by doing really awkward sideways goofy faces. I have no clue how we are going to get good family pictures this year...

Yes, the apples were delicious!

And here is Lucy looking grown up....sigh...

We also made our annual trip to Pumpkin fest. Despite their being some questionable behavior outside the festival, we had a lovely and non-eventful time. It was actually kind of rainy. We met up with my mom, Poul and Danielle, grabbed some food, did a loop around the square, Lucy got her face painted and we headed back to my parents'. It was a nice weekend to visit my family and a very lovely time to be around Keene.

The hike I did with the kids in September is now one of the kids favorite places to go. So we did the hike again. I got some more pictures of them holding hands and being good at being siblings. I think these pictures will be important later in life when they are driving each other crazy.

Lucy LOVES the bridge that we cross. Here is HER bridge.

Aw.....that cheesy smile gets me every time. Yes, here are some more pre-church pictures.

This is a picnic they created in the kitchen.

And the park. I believe this was just last week. The weather is getting cold, but I am determined to keep bringing the kids outside. For my own sanity and for their need to let out energy.

Instead of giving Lucy a knife we allowed her to paint a pumpkin. I think she did a fabulous job. She even let me participate to add some of my own artwork.

And here is pumpkin Jimmy carved the day before Halloween. He went very traditional.

But my friends, winter is upon us. On Saturday (or Friday) I woke up to snow on the ground. I wasn't super excited. Maybe selfishly because I can't take the kids out as much and also because I like to run outside, but it gets more complicated with snow. I am excited for all the holiday parts of winter, but not so much the cold. That being said Lucy and Sam are super excited. Lucy saw the snow and demanded we make a snowman. She thought it was "amazing!" Here they are trying on some winter clothes. Sam likes to wear hats like dopey from Snow White and the 7 dwarves. The hats hardly stay on his head.

But then there is his smile...

Yesterday we dropped Sam off with Grandma and Grandpa Coop and took Lucy to see a movie. It was a great experience to be just with Lucy. I miss that one on one time we get with her. She is such a good little girl, that sometimes gets the brunt of Sam's tantrums, simply because she is oldest. But yesterday it was all about her. She wanted sandwiches for lunch so we got grilled sandwiches, and she wanted popcorn for the movie, so we splurged and got popcorn. The movie (Big Hero 6) was great, but too intense for Lucy. She sat in my lap for the 2nd half. But in the end it was still a good movie. I think sometimes she forgets there are other movies besides princess movies and Wreck it Ralph. I still think it was a fun experience for all of us!

And here is one last pre-church picture. Lucy looks so stylish in her dress and boots. Turns out this girl has grown out of all her winter shoes. So we got her some church boots yesterday. Next up winter boots for her and Sam. Sheesh these kids never stop growing!

And now we are pretty much up to date. I have one last class on Thursday and then we are home free for the rest of the semester. I am just hoping we stay warm enough. Today we finally turned on the heat in living room.

Autumn

I just love this time of year. I find myself frequently staring at the trees and it is not like I haven't lived in this area of the country before. It is just so beautiful!

With that time of year, brings lots of fun things. Preschool, playing in the leaves, cute kids, hiking, running races...

So here we go again, a photo dump. This is really the only way I can get these things recorded these days.

Sam does the cutest thing when you pull the camera out. You tell him to say cheese and he makes and makes a nose that sounds a lot like humming, but in reality is him saying cheese. And he keeps saying cheese until the camera goes away. Then we get priceless pictures like so...

Jimmy was making the face with him, which looks a little sillier on him...

Poor daddy...

I just love that Lucy can write some letters now. Although that does mean she is growing up. But she is getting really good a writing her name, mom and dad and some letters like H and T, and P. I will blink and she will be reading chapter books.

We had a week, two weeks ago where the weather was amazing, every day. So naturally the kids wanted to be outside. This is where they spent most of their time, in the dirt. I took everything out of this garden bed the week before so the dirt was perfect. I got to read books while they played. It was a win-win. I have read six of the Lemony Snicket books. Cute little books I must say. Cute, dirty little kids.

The last weekend in September we went to a Medieval fair, King Richard's Faire near the cape. I have never been to one, and Jimmy likes fantasy kind of stuff so we went. Lucy rode a pony, we saw some animals and a jousting contest. It was fun, but expensive. So it was nice to go, but we probably won't go every year.

Lucy was a princess and Sam was a dragon. Thank you Costco for a $10 dragon costume. And yes, these are their Halloween costumes. We do recycle!

One of Jimmy's work friends dressed up as a fawn. I think Lucy was hoping he would have a scarf and an umbrella so he could be Mr. Tumnus. But he assured her that it was too warm for those things. They are best buddies anyways.

This is just a cute picture that occurred before church one day.  Look at that cute sweater vest....

And honestly, could these kids be any cuter?! This was right before we went on a hike near our house. Lucy has been very insistent about wearing her princess dress. So it came with us on our hike.

My kitchen looks like this more often than not....oh Sam!

So here is the hike. Seriously this trail is 200 feet from our house. And my kids are holding hands. Precious...

Lucy wanted to know what happened to this tree and was sad to hear that it had lost its bark.

And this is right next to our place. You could probably see our house if you squinted...

I tried to get some nice fall photos of the kids. Sometimes they cooperate. Other times, not so much.

About a week ago, Jimmy decided it was time we do another Iron chef competition. So when he got home, we packed up the kids and headed to the store. Our plan was to get a store flyer, tear it into the different foods, have Lucy pick our secret ingredient and then go and buy only $5 worth of extra stuff to cook with. Lucy picked halibut filets and Jimmy and I both spent less than $4 on extra food. In the end we came up with interesting dishes.

And this random picture is Lucy riding the horse right outside the grocery store.

And these are the dishes. Jimmy made a seafood stew with veggies and I made halibut patties with plantain chips. Both were not perfect, but it was fun anyways. Lucy was our judge and said she liked the patties while she was stuffing her face with the stew. We will call it a draw.

This last week I took to the kids to the Children's museum in Easton. We met up with a bunch of our friends from church and played. Lucy was able to go to a music class while I chased Sam around. I was told she had a lot of fun by one of my friends who stayed with some of the older kids.

I also lived vicariously through my children while they played in the "space ship."

 

I mean seriously, doesn't she look like the cutest astronaut?!

Sam really got into steering this ship.

 

Last but not least, I ran a marathon yesterday. The Hartford Marathon. This was my training schedule, which was not all filled out because I took this picture on Wednesday of last week. I should fill it out some more, but needless to say I made it to race day, and finished. 

Here I am, after the race. Jimmy didn't get any of me running, which is fine. He only saw me at the beginning (miles 2-6) when I was happy go lucky and at the end (mile 25) when I looked very tired and spent. Probably better that he caught a picture when I was done and had a few minutes to recover. It went well. I ran 3:35:02, which was just where I wanted to finish, though I wouldn't have minded if it was 3 seconds faster, then I would have qualified for Boston again.  But really, I was only 1.5 minutes slower than my last marathon and it rained the entire race.  I ran 23 miles very even paced and then kind of hit the wall at mile 23. It took all my strengthen to finish those last 3.2. But I did. And I got a nice medal and some soup and I can walk today. So marathon in the future? You bet!

 

 

So until the next photo dump, happy autumn! Go make some apply crisp and watch the leaves fall. And if the leaves aren't great where you are, at least make the apple crisp. Life is always better with apple crisp. Believe me, I made some today :)