Mountain Goats and Llamas and Alpacas, Oh My!

After we left the fire station, we traveled south to meet up with our little buddy Will at a farm.

 For a small farm, they certainly had a wide variety of animals! 

 

The kids had fun feeding the goats, although Tessa had trouble getting the hang of the idea that she had to actually open her hand to let the goat eat the feed. 

Picking out the perfect pumpkin...

Fun swings!

Tunnels! 

 Hayrides!

Calder navigates the hay maze one last time before heading home. 

Pancakes and Firetrucks

 We started our Saturday morning off early, with a visit to the local fire department.  They were hosting an open house, complete with a pancake breakfast and lots of fun activities for the kids. 

First, the important stuff...PANCAKES!

Next, hand and face painting.  Calder had a fire hydrant painted on his hand. 

 Tessa was very intrigued by the hand and face painting, but wasn't brave enough to try it herself. 

 

Then, outside to the dalmatian bounce house! 

And finally, on to the fire trucks...  True to form, the first thing Calder did upon taking his seat inside the fire truck was to put on his seatbelt.  Poppa would be proud!

 Tessa checks out the front of the fire truck. 

 Calder was SO excited about the headphones! 

 He kept shouting "Four Alarm Fire!" into the microphone. 

The firefighters were beyond friendly and really took their time to explain things to the kids.  The fire trucks have manual window cranks, and one of the firefighters got a real kick out of Calder asking what it was.  It never occurred to me that he has never seen such a thing!

 A little bit of role play before we left. 

Practice Makes Perfect

All of her practicing finally paid off.   Tessa put her shoes on all by herself yesterday -- and she even got them on the right feet! 

Growing

It just sort of dawned on me that I never made a blog announcement about the impending growth of our family!  Although I'm pretty sure that the small handful of people who read this little blog already know.  Anyway...come March 2011 we will be a party of FIVE!

Of course Tessa doesn't really get it yet...but Calder seems to be excited.  He really wants another sister and initially said he wanted to name her Tessa.  We finally got him to understand that it would be confusing to have two sisters named Tessa, so now he's favoring "Sweetie" or "Cutie". 

And for fun, here's my first "belly pic"...Calder style.  I'd say I'm about 13 weeks pregnant in this picture.  And yes, that's the baby coming out of my shoulder with a giant arm.

Fall Fever

We've got fall fever around here.  Well, at least I do!  Who cares that it was a record-setting 98 degrees here on Friday?  Umm...ok, I do.  Bring on the fall weather, please!!!   Despite the heat, we set out to a local nursery to pick up some pumpkins and mums on Saturday.  It's a great place that also has a fun pumpkin play area for the kids. 

Tessa spent most of the time "cleaning" inside this tunnel.  She picked up every single rock inside and dumped them back outside where they belonged!  One at a time, of course.   (Note to self:  Next time, leave the cute white skirt at home.)

Lots of fun pumpkins and gourds:

Tessa found her pumpkin!

And Calder found his!

Strolling through the pumpkin aisles.

Mommy's little helper.

Despite a valiant effort, she didn't get anywhere.

Tomatoes!

The kids loved chasing after the roosters and chickens that roam the nursery.

Calder checks out our load!

Pigtails and other girly things...

I can't even tell you how excited I was this weekend when, after months of trying, Tessa finally let me put a barrette in her hair!   I bought a bunch of them when she was a baby, and it always made me sad to see them sitting untouched on her dresser.  Until this weekend, she would rip them out the moment I put them in her hair. 

So, this morning I decided to push my luck and see if she might actually let me do something more with her hair.  And....voila!  Her first pigtails!  She sat so still for me -- I was shocked!  Obviously, my technique needs a little work, but I didn't want to push my luck too far by trying to perfect them.  Her curls tend to get a bit frizzy after sleeping on them, which is why the pigtail on the right is a bit wild. 

So, while we were getting all girly, I decided to break out some dress up jewelry that I picked up at a yard sale earlier this summer.  She loved her "bakelet" the best.  :)

Soccer

The fall season is upon us, which means it's soccer time!  We signed Calder up for his first soccer "team" this year through a local youth club.  It's actually not so much a team, since they just meet weekly and spend half of the time practicing skills and the other half scrimmaging each other.  Leading up to the first "game", he was very excited...but once we got there he started having second thoughts.  Ultimately, he decided to join in. 

Go Team Bananas!

Going for goal! 

...And this is pretty much how it ended for him.  The team was scrimmaging and using his ball.  He suddently decided he didn't want to share his ball anymore, so he stopped running and sat down on his ball in the middle of the field.  When another kid got the ball loose, Calder lost it.  Ahh well...at least he made it through almost the whole hour!