Fall Adventures

We had a wonderful fall full of lots of outdoor adventures.  Here are a few highlights!

Feeding the ducks at the park

Trying to get a picture of Grace on her rocking horse, the start of the "I don't want to smile or have my picture taken" phase (we are still in this phase, grrr.)

The state fair came to town to the park behind our neighborhood in September and we took Grace on bracelet night so she could ride unlimited rides for one price.  She had a BLAST!  We were able to ride the merry go round with her and get her started.  She really enjoyed all the rides and was far braver than I expected.  She also enjoyed the petting zoo, it was her first time seeing animals up close and personal.Her favorite ride was by far this awesome slide where she rode on Daddy's lap as he slid down the slide on a burlap sack.  They did that 8+ times and she could have gone longer if it wasn't already past her bedtime.  She also, being her Daddy's girl, LOVED cotton candy.  She wasn't a fan of how sticky it made her fingers, but she loved the taste.  I fed her most of what she ate to keep her hands clean.  We will absolutely be going back next year.  In case you're wondering, we did bring Timothy, but he mostly just chilled in the stroller.  :)

Hooray for the Merry Go Round!

Ship Captain!

Merry Go Round, again (and again, and again, and again!)

Flying Dinosaur, she wasn't so sure about this at first, but loved it at the end.

David's folks came up to spend a weekend with us at the beginning of October.  It was a beautiful fall weekend and we took the opportunity to head up to North GA and go apple picking.  Grace enjoyed it and caught on fast that the good apples were still in the tree, not the rotting ones on the ground.  :)   Timothy slept on my chest the entire time as he had his shots and was feeling really bad.

Picking Apples with Daddy

Helping Mama put them in the bag

Timothy seems to do everything sooner than Grace.  It's hard for me to pinpoint when her personality started to shine out, but his was around 2 months.  Here are a few shots of him one night after he started to be really expressive.

Sweet Tim - we love all his expressions!

love this one!

We headed back up to North GA at the end of October to go to the pumpkin patch with the Drehers.  Grace had a blast playing with the little "punkins" and trying to pick up the big ones.  It was another beautiful fall day and we had a lot of fun.

Pumpkin patch!  Grace loved the little "punkins"

First official family photo, a little sad since he was 3 months old...

Grace loves her baby brother

Mommy & her babes

Mommy & her sweet Timothy

For Halloween, we took Grace to the safe kids event at the park behind our house where we did a hayride and David took her in her first kid-rated haunted house.  She wasn't terribly excited about it, but did great (much better than I would have I'm sure!)  Then we took her to a party at a church near our house where she got to play games and trunk or treat.  She LOVED it.  For Halloween I just took her to a few friends houses and she enjoyed it.  Timothy stayed in with Daddy and helped hand out candy.

Ready to trick or treat!

Tim stayed home to hand out candy with Daddy

Tyler stopped by, they are such good buddies!

Waiting on the hayride

A few more bonus shots that were just too cute not to include...

Sweet time with Daddy one day after work, love those big smiles!

Grasping and pulling into his mouth for the first time

HUGE smiles!

Our 1st Zoo Adventure

I still owe lots of catch-up posts, but I had to share these photos from last weekend. Mama & Papa gave Gracie a membership to the zoo for her birthday/Christmas gift this year.  We went for the first time on Nov 6, and we had a blast!  It was a cool sunny day, perfect for an outdoor family adventure.  Seeing Grace experience animals like that up close and personal was so much fun and Tim enjoyed the great outdoors, sleeping the entire time.  Grace absolutely adores monkeys and elephants and I think she could have watched at the elephants all day.  We explored about 1/3 of the zoo which was just about perfect for her and leaves more new animals to see for the next time.  Here are a few pictures from our day...enjoy!

First stop - the Flamingos!

Timon in the flesh!

My little cub

Taking in the Silverbacks

Grace was scared of all the statues

Looking at the elephants (or "Ellas" as Grace calls them)

There's lots of room to run at the zoo.

My obsession with Bamboo continues, I love how it photographs.

This has to be one of my favorite pictures...

She had a wonderful time and we can't wait to go back!!

North Georgia Fun

I'm a bit behind, as usual, on the posting here but I'll try to catch up this week since we don't have much planned and I can breathe a little. :)

On Oct 15th, we had a wonderful time up in the North GA Mountains. It was a gorgeous fall day and we hit Bert's Pumpkin Patch and R and A Orchards.

Grace had a blast and enjoyed playing with all the pumpkins, HUGE and tiny alike, at Bert's.  The Dreher's met us up there and we had a good time goofing off, as usual, and took a usual load of pictures.  The last time we went (in 2008) there was hardly anyone there...this year it was PACKED out.  It was hard to get good pictures because of the sheer volume of people. Anyway, we did end up with a few decent shots and we're planning to hit another farm, (hopefully a smaller one where the line for a hayride isn't over an hour!) and we'll get more pictures and our pumpkin there.  I couldn't decide which pictures to post, so I decided since this is my blog I'll post all the pictures I want and not think twice about it.  Enjoy!

Love, Love, LOVE this one!  That grin is just too precious!

There was this beautiful tree and wildflowers by our car so I wanted to take a picture of Daddy & his girl. She kept trying to show him the leaves so until he looked up, we didn't get a good picture. She is so funny. :)

I just love this picture.

Our next stop was R and A Orchards. We've been there before and they have the BEST caramel apples. It's not like you think. They actually let you pick an apple, they slice it, put it in a bowl, then POUR caramel over the top until the bowl is half full. It's dreamy. I don't even want to think about the calorie count, but once a year, it's all good. :)

We opted not to pick apples this year since the options for picking weren't apples we were interested in, so we just bought a bushel of Fuji apples (yummo!) and then headed into the orchard for some photos.  Bethany actually got a pretty good shot of all of us looking at the camera...a near miracle with an almost one year old.  :)

Grace was very excited about the tractors at Bert's, but there were lines to do everything there. This tractor outside the store at R and A was the perfect size for her. She loved getting up on the seat and then standing up to reach the wheel. 

With Baby Dreher due in just over a month, we took the opportunity to take a few maternity pictures. We got a few good ones...

Ally wanted to get in on the action, so she stuffed a pumpkin under her shirt and we took a few silly shots. :)

Love this one...

A pretty good picture of all of us

We are certainly blessed to have such good friends!