Halloween 2010

We had a fun Halloween day starting with a trip out to Mechanicsville to meet Baby June.  June belongs to our friends Matt and Sarah from Durham and Sarah's family is from this area so they hosted a little "meet the baby" party.  It was a beautiful day and there were several other little ones there to play with Charlie.  We had a great time and loved seeing Baby June and her mom and dad.

After a good nap, Charlie was ready to put on his lion suit to go "trick-or-treating" which involved ringing on one doorbell then strapping up to head down to Hanover Ave. (our tradition) to see all the crazy decorations and costumes.  Charlie seemed pretty wowed by all the commotion... as evidenced by his "holy cow" look the whole time we were there.  He made a pretty un-scary lion based on the reactions of everyone who passed by with their "oohs and ahhs" :)

The back-up plan in case the lion head was unacceptable to Charlie

Getting dressed

"roar"

"roar"

Strapped up and ready to stroll

A taste of what we saw... the Flinstones...

A pirate ship...

A dragon with this following behind...

Pretty cool (couldn't get it in one shot)

The fam

Captain snugglepants

Back at home trying to turn the TV on... one of these days he might figure it out

Playing in Leaves

What does a city boy do for fun in the Fall?  Play in leaves on the sidewalk of course!  While we are short on a yard, we are "blessed" to have several leafy trees out front that are beautiful this time of year.  Charlie has had so much fun crunking, throwing, kicking the leaves and every week it just gets better and better as more fall.  This week, I snapped a few pictures...

A Fun Outside Day

The weather here has been gorgeous and we are spending as much time outside as possible before winter sweeps in and we are stuck inside.  Today we went to a pumpkin patch and then to the neighborhood park.  I had big ambitions of taking Charlie to one of the fancy pumpkin patches where we could do a hay-ride and see some animals too but upon looking them all up and realizing how far they were from us, we decided to stick close to home and just go to a regular old place that sells pumpkins... that counts as a "patch" right?  It just seemed wasteful to spend an hour in the car when we could go down the street.  I'm glad we did too because Charlie was a little grumpy too.  You can see in the pictures that he was content to be there but he didn't crack a smile for me, little buger.  Same goes at the park.  He kept checking out a little girl how was playing not far from us so wouldn't smile at me.  I guess that is how things will go later in life too so I should get used to it :)  Any way, below are some pictures from our day...

"This..."

"...pumpkin..."

"...is so heavy!"

Where is Charlie?

Browsing

Found the ones his size

Made it to the park

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeee"

Spotted a honey

Showing off his skills with a dump truck

And riding a horse with a serious look

"I am too cool for this slide"

Kind of cracking a smile

Can't resist the fun of peek-a-boo in the tunnel

Thanks for the Visit!

Grandma and Grandpa Grover came for a fun several days this week.  We didn't take too many pictures but got this cute one just prior to them leaving.  As usual, they got a host of house repairs done, we ate some great dinners and Charlie got to spend a fun couple days at home during the week.  They enjoyed the beautiful Fall weather outside at the park, on walks, gardening and drawing on the sidewalk with some new sidewalk chalk!

(of course not wanting to loose his favorite "toy")

Happy Birthday James!

The big 33 (gasp!)

Trip to the Apple Orchard

Two years ago, James, my mom and I stumbled upon Carter Mountain's apple festival on a day trip to Charlottesville .  It was a fun time with lots of apple goodies so we were excited to go back and take Charlie this year.  The weather was gorgeous and everyone else in Virginia had the same idea unfortunately.  It was so packed that it really dampened the fun... took forever to get up the mountain, the apples were well picked over and the lines for food were long.  We didn't stay very long and by the looks of these pictures Charlie didn't have the best time either :)  Oh well, next year maybe we'll go during the week instead to avoid the crowd.

Done picking apples and done with this darn hat

A little milk helps matters

"Charlie, look at Mommy" Check out the hats matching their eyes :)

Mmmmm, Black Beans!

State Fair!

Not by design, but the majority of Charlie's toys and books have some sort of farm theme.  So imagine my excitement when we realized that the State Fair was in Richmond this week!  We saw every variety of farm animal and he even touched a few!  Below are the highlights:

Piggies!!! Just before this we saw them all drinking from their mommy.

Goats!

Little boy in a big tire

Weeeee!

On a tractor

Happy Farmer!

Serious Farmer! (hence the black and white)

On the way back from the fair we stopped at Bass Pro Shop for lunch.  James read that it was one of the "Top 5 Activities for Toddlers" so since we were in that neck of the woods, we stopped in to check it out.  It was pretty cool... if you are in to guns and dead animals.  They had a cool waterfall that Charlie liked and then...

Going through his mind... "Holy crap Mom, what is that?!? Walk away slowly."

Totally sacked out after exactly 1.5 minutes in the car on the way home in the middle of "Touch and Feel Pets."

Back in business