Monday, October 31, 2011

Puh-ke Patch

On the weekend of Ryan's birthday, we took a short trip to Richmond with a stop at Carter Mountain Orchard in Charlottesville.  We've visited the orchard every year since 2008 when we first went for Ryan and Bryan's birthday weekend (except last year when we visited their sister orchard).  It's become a tradition for us, and it works out really well because we just combine it with the team picnic for the Richmond team at Ryan's work.  We usually stay closer to Charlottesville, but since the hotel was about $50 cheaper near Richmond and the picnic was near Richmond, we just drove straight to the orchard on Friday and then drove back to Richmond to stay the night.  Parker definitely enjoyed Carter Mountain. 

  
Just ridin' with Daddy (uphill)...poor Ry! 

  
Ryan Appleseed.

 Reaaaaaach...

 Got it!


Just walking through the trees.  Parker kept falling to the side on top of rotten apples and red clay-dirt.  It was not easy to take pictures because I was constantly having to help him up off the ground!

Trying to pick up a "puh-ke". 


Enjoying one of the famous apple cider donuts.  YUM!  Seriously, so good.

Our fam.  I was impressed--the guy that took our picture only took two pictures total, and they were halfway-decent!  Parker's looking at the camera, so that was a win for this one.

Stay tuned for Halloween pictures....there are TONS!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

I'm Still Here!

I don't have much to say other than, "Hey!".  The last couple of weeks have been pretty normal, except Ryan was out of town for a few days and Parker has a new, more intense displeasure with the camera.  Basically, I think to myself, "Wow, I really want to write a post," so I try to take some cute pictures of Parker.  Here's an example of what I end up with:

Basically, I pull out the camera because he's doing something sweet.  I try to get the settings right by taking a couple of practice shots.  Parker sees me with the camera and starts yelling, "noooooooooo!  nooooo!  mama, mama, mama!", and then crawls into my lap, where I cannot take a picture of his face.  It's very frustrating because I want to get more practice with my camera (with him, not objects) and he won't sit still EVER!  It's okay, though, because I'm glad I have a busy, active boy.


Here's what Parker was working on when I was trying to take his picture.  I think it says, "I Love Momma".  He puts all of the letters together on the fridge and starts saying, "R, N, M, O", for each letter.  These are the letters that he "knows", so he just uses those for every letter.  It's so funny.


We drilled holes in a pumpkin this week and shoved a string of lights in there.  I wanted to try it since Martha Stewart did it.  Major fail.  It didn't turn out as we hoped, BUT it's on the porch nevertheless.  I'll have to take a porch picture to illustrate.  I want to try a couple of actual carvings sometime next week.


Last weekend, our good friends Nate and Kim and their daughter, Kaley, had us over for dinner.  Parker and Kaley were so cute--they were hugging and kissing each other in the kitchen right when we got there.  Parker also kept reaching his hand out for Kaley to help her stand up off the floor...my little gentleman!  There was only one "rough" moment when they were hugging each other so tight that they fell onto the tile floor.  Poor Kaley hit her head pretty hard, and they were both crying.  I think it scared Parker more than anything. After that, I didn't see anymore hugs or kisses!  

I wanted to get a picture of the two of them together, but of course, did not pull out the camera before the tile-floor-incident occurred.  I got the camera out when they were playing after we ate dinner, and they were not interested in sitting together for a picture.  Stupid me!  

Nate knows how to reel them in--the iPad gets them every time!  "Hot dog? Hot potato? Elmo?"  He had Parker at "I".  

This weekend should be promising in terms of pictures--we are visiting an orchard for apple picking, going to a work function on a "farm", and it's Ryan's birthday weekend!  I am bound to get a least a couple good ones--right?

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Uncle B

Uncle Bryan came by to take a break from studying and have dinner with us tonight.  Parker loves his Uncle B and really decided that he loved him when Bryan pulled his phone out.  That was all Parker needed to see--he crawled right into his uncle's lap and stayed there until it was time for him to go home.  

Of course, I decided to practice with the settings on the camera in a low-light situation using manual settings instead of just "auto."  Learning to take good pictures with a nice camera is definitely a process that requires patience and time.  I am just trying to take a few pictures each day to really get the hang of changing settings in different lighting and motion situations.  Anyway....here are a few sweet pictures.



Parker kept asking about, "Lulu? Lulu?" 


Parker loves to look through pictures on everyone's cell phones.  He must get that from me!


Like I said..Parker loves his Uncle Bryan.  I think the feeling is mutual :)

Friday, October 7, 2011

First Coloring Book

When Parker and I were in Target today, I bought him his first coloring book.  I have meant to do this for a couple of weeks now but kept forgetting.  I slid it into the cart without him seeing it, but somehow he spotted it during checkout and was very upset that I would not let him have it in the car.  Probably because he saw his beloved friends on the cover.  




Sesame Street Ernie Bert Grover Elmo Zoe Cookie Bigbird ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG!!!


So cute.  The crayons are "washable", so the fact that several crayon marks got on the floor was no big deal.  


He pulled every color out, one by one, to test each one.


I tried to help, but every time I got really into a picture, he would insist that we turned the page.  I forgot how fun coloring actually is!  PS--Sesame Street coloring books are slightly difficult since they all have fur.  Fur=rough edges=lots more concentration.


It's tough work, but somebody has to do it!

Monday, October 3, 2011

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Alright, alright.  I know it isn't Christmas yet, but I really like that song and it HAS been pretty cold outside--especially at night.  We have gradually increased the amount of clothing Parker is wearing to bed because it's gotten progressively colder and he keeps waking up with freezing hands and feet.  Tonight, we broke out the big guns:

Please ignore the fact that this is a less-than-stellar iPhone picture!

Be prepared...if you stare at the picture too long, your heart might melt!  I can hardly handle the cuteness that goes along with wearing cool-weather clothes.  I am prepared with various cold weather clothing items, such as some super-cute jeans, footed jammies, and thermal shirts, just to name a few.  In fact, I have a message for my friend Fall and acquaintance Winter:::bring. it. on.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

19 Months

Parker, my sweet baby--you are now 19 months old.  My little toddler big boy.  Your dad and I constantly talk about how this is the best age, even though we've been saying this your entire life!  You are just so fun to be around and have such a sweet and loving personality.  The pictures were taken while you were eating your yogurt a few days ago.  I took a bunch today that I thought were going to be super-cute of you helping us in the yard and.........the memory card was NOT in the camera!  It was very frustrating, but I was planning on  sharing these pictures anyway.  Here are some fun facts about you right now:

  • It was pretty cool outside today, so you wore your jeans.  Your fall shirts are size 18 to 24 months, and your fall shirts are 2T.  You are wearing a size 8 shoe, but they're not wide anymore.  
  • You are doing really well with feeding yourself with a spoon or fork.  You still prefer to eat with your hands, of course, but we work on using your silverware often, and you love it!
  • Here are some of your most-used words right now: thank you, car, chicken, grilled cheese, moon, ball, milk, bye-bye, hello, hi!, night-night, and everyone's names.  I think your most-used word is "NO!" because that's your answer to almost every question--even if you don't mean it.  Sometimes it's just a short no and others it's a resounding nnnnnnnnnnnnOOOOOOO.  It's actually pretty funny but we try not to laugh.  
  • You like to make a lot of animal noises, including a cat's meow, a dog's woof, an elephant's (noise?), a lion's rawwwr, a chicken's "bock-bock", a sheep's baa, a cow's moo, a bunny's hop (obviously not a noise), a duck's quack, and a bird's tweet.  
  • This week, you caught a virus from one of the kids at daycare.  You threw up a handful of times starting at about 11:30 and did not go to sleep very easily afterward.  I "slept" (hardly) in the floor of your room with you because we didn't want you to be alone or get sick in your crib.  We were up almost all night.  One of the hardest parts of being a mother is seeing your child sick, and this was the second time that this has happened.  I am glad that it was over very quickly and you were back to yourself the next day.  I know that you will get sick again, but I hope it's not for a very long time.

"Cheese!"
  • Something very cute that you do right now is a triple hug.  One of us will be holding you, and you ask the other one to come over, too.  You wrap your arms around both of our necks and squeeze tight.  Then you kind of let go and then squeeze again.  Again, you are so full of love.
  • You are learning how to wink.  Daddy will wink, and then you want me to wink, and then you do it in your own special way.  Another hilarious thing to watch!

Yep, this is the winking.  Laugh on!
  • You are borderline obsessed with Sesame Street.  Scratch that--you're obsessed.  There are many times throughout the day where you talk about Elmo, Ernie, Bert and Ah-Ah-Ah (the Count).  You are mesmerized when they are on TV, and you start mumbling their names when you're laying in your crib before we come get you in the morning.  We have more than fifty books on your bookshelf, but every night, we hear, "elmo? elmo?  ernie?  elmo? elmo?"  because you are really only interested in one book right now:
It's okay, though.  I fully support Sesame Street and am glad that these are your peeps right now.  It could be worse!  

October will be a busy month for us.  We have a very small trip planned in the middle of the month and have started focusing on a lot of house-related projects.  I am planning on doing more things with you outside since the weather will be cooler and the mosquitoes will hopefully fade out soon.  I think Fall is my new official favorite time of the year, and I can't wait to spend it with you and your Daddy doing fun stuff.  Thank you for making every day so much sweeter for us.  Love you!