The Patch

We took our annual tractor ride to the pumpkin patch at Shenot Farm last weekend.  Unlike most grown up people I actually really enjoy the hay ride and the pumpkins... even the corn maze.  I waited so long to have children and now I have an acceptable excuse to go to the pumpkin patch.  What can I say... I'm a dork!

But this year was a little different.  The weather was dreary and cold and it was a bit lonelier than in the past since my sister has moved away.

The boys loved it though.  They are all about tractors and running free!  They were not jazzed about the photo ops, but they did their best to cooperate.  Most of my shots are from behind while they were running away from me.  Some years you take what you can get.

This one almost always has a smile on his face. He is our "life of the party" child.

An unusually stoic face.  I just love his cheeks and those long eyelashes and all that floppy messy blonde hair!

This was the closest thing I got to a smile from James on this day.  It was one of the few shots I got of him at all.

That was it!  The day was cold and we were all anxious to get back down the hill and into our warm cars.  Ironically, we never pick any pumpkins.  No one wants to carry a big heavy pumpkin onto the wagon and then stand in line to pay for it.  We will probably end up buying one at someplace really lame... like Giant Eagle.

Happy Fall!

BFIAR: My Blue Boat

My computer has been on the fritz lately... coupled with some internet issues, I am way behind on blogging!  Several weeks ago James and I spent a week reading My Blue Boat by Chris L. Demarest.  It tells the story of a little girl playing with her toy sailboat in the bathtub.  She imagines that she is sailing through the harbor and out to sea.  She passes big and little boats, plays with dolphins and whales and sails through a storm.  Then she drifts peacefully back home looking at the evening stars. The book has beautiful watercolor pictures, which we compared to the illustrations from Yellow Ball that we read the week before.  Our letter for the week was W for Whale and we also talked about ocean life.  Here are some the activities we completed through the week.

W is for Whale

Sailboat watercolor painting

Whale and dolphin sensory bin

Do a Dot W

Coloring

Ethan always has to be a part of the action!

Ocean life puzzle

James loved this.  Don't be fooled though!  He did not put this together.  I gave him most of the pieces and he snapped them together.

Sailboat snack

It was a fun week!