Fall Family Photo Shoot

In October we headed to the grounds of the Indianapolis Art Museum (one of my favorite places) for some family pictures taken by Lexi Smith. She did a great job and was very patient with our sometimes frustrating boys! Here are some of the shots in no particular order... (for family members, if you would like prints of any of these, let me know and we'll get some to you in whatever size you'd like)

PumpkinFest '09

Saturday was dedicated to the celebration of the humble pumpkin at the PumpkinFest! The Country Market in Zionsville has this awesome festival each weekend in October with all sorts of Autumn related activities. Here was some of the fun we had:

Typical family photo. Alex won't look at the camera, and neither will Andrew this time. Nick and I just smile and hope for the best. Sigh. Will we ever get a nice family picture?! AHGAH!














They had pony rides, which thrilled Andrew who fancies himself a cowboy...

What is fall without a good ol' hayride?! Me and Alex cozied down in the soft hay and enjoyed the ride around the farm...

OK, here was my favorite part of the PumpkinFest...warm, fresh, homemade DONUTS. To quote Homer Simpson, "MMmmm...DONUTS." Seriously these were so good I went back for seconds. Here are the boys enjoying the warm little pieces of happiness...

They even have this adorable old timey fiddle music playing, which of course made the kids dance. Here would probably be a good place to explain Andrew's coat situation. We had been working in the yard all day and he had gotten his coat filthy. So I popped it in the washer and dryer over his nap so it would be ready to go when we headed out to the farm. As we headed out the door, I grabbed Alex and Alex's coat and Nick grabbed Andrew and I THOUGHT Andrew's coat. We drove all the way to the farm and realized that we forgot his coat but didn't want to waste and hour driving home and back. Still, it was about 50 degrees, which isn't something for a little guy to be running around in coat-less so we improvised by cinching up Nick's pullover around Andrew and rolling the sleeves up A LOT. So he looks kind of like he has a costume on but really it's just a man's jacket on a child. Nice parenting, I thought. Anyway, here is some video of the boys dancing...

They have these cute cut-outs where you can poke your face through. Which would have been adorable if I could have gotten everyone to LOOK AT THE CAMERA. AGHAGH, again!

The boy's selection from the pumpkin patch...

Instead of a sand box they have a corn box full of dried corn kernels to play with instead of sand...

They have all these really cute little places to take pictures. If only I had a photogenic family! Curses! This one didn't turn out TOO bad, though. You've got to love little boys on tractors...

And I've saved the best for last! The boy's (Nick included) favorite part of the whole thing was this hay slide they had constructed on the side of a hill on the farm. It was really just a long peice of hard plastic that had hay bales on either side but the kids loved it! Here is me going down with both boys...

And here is some video of Nick and the boys going down together. Too fun!

CrossRoads Fall Festival

Last night was our annual fall festival at our church. We couldn't have asked for better autumn weather--cool, clear and the air smelled just like you want it to on a fall evening. Here is a family portrait that isn't too bad for us.




















The Westfield Fire Department was there with all sorts of fun trucks to explore. Here are Alex and Andrew in the hook and ladder cabin.

There are all sorts of fun games for the kids to play--here are Andrew and Daddy working on a tic tac toe game...

When I asked them afterward what their favorite part of the festival was, they both said it was the bounce houses--there was this little one for the smaller kids and a big one for the big kids. Alex bounced for a collective hour, I'm sure.

What is a fall festival without a bonfire?! Here are the boys warming up by the fire after their smores.

My favorite part was the hayride. Of course at this point the boys were so wired from all the candy, cakes, cookies and smores that they were never going to sit still for a nice picture so this was the best one I could get.

Farm boys!

On a whim, I decided to take the boys to Traders Point Creamery, an organic dairy farm not too far from us. The boys were excited to see all the cows and other farm animals--so excited, in fact that Andrew managed to run right into Alex a minute after we got to the barn, pushing Alex down into a puddle of utter nastiness. Picture the very puddle that you DON'T want your kid falling into on a farm and that is what he fell into. Luckily it was mostly his jacket that got filthy so I took it off and we were back on track. (I ran the jacket through the sanitize cycle in the washer TWICE before I let him wear it again!).














Here are the boys by two of the bulls. These bulls gave red-eyed, angry, snorting bulls everywhere a bad name. They were super sweet and even let you pet them and touch their horns! One even licked Alex!














There were also chickens and Alex was facinated by them. Here he is checking out their feeding station...














I don't know what it is about chickens but they just make me giggle! Just typing this is making me smile--they are just so skittish and look hilarious when they run. This chicken followed us all over the farm on our tour, which I thought was really funny. You can even see in the picture that she's trying to look at us without us realizing that she's following us.













Here is Alex during his chicken exploration. I wore him out good by telling him that he should try to catch one. This served two purposes: tiring out my kid for a good quiet time and making me giggle hysterically at the running chickens.

Here are the boys by a pen of baby calves. They were super cute and had those soft brown eyes...the boys and the cows, that is! :)

Waterpark Fun!

Last weekend we headed down to visit Granny and Gramps but decided to mix things up a bit by staying at the Valley of the Springs hotel which has the Big Splash Adventure indoor water park. We all had a great time, water park junkies that we are!

Here is Andrew on these cool water swings they had in the kiddy pool area. They were kind of like bouncy seats for infants but you could swing them into the water as well. Andrew loved it!

After many trips around the lazy river (which was really cool, by the way--lots of neat spray features) Andrew finally got the courage up to go down the waterslide with Daddy holding him. And then he wanted to go again. And then he wanted to go again. And again. And AGAIN. I think we would still be there if we hadn't had to check out!