School Halloween Parade

Happy Halloween everyone! Today Christopher and his school had a morning Halloween parade to show off their costumes. He was very excited to wear his Erik costume to school to show to everyone in his class. All the kids seemed to be really enjoying their parade. Here is Chris smiling for the camera. Actually, he is making a penguin sound which is why his smile looks a little goofy...

Fun in the Leaves

Well we finally have big enough trees again to make pretty significant leaf piles! Here is Chris having some fun in the leaves...

Hope all you east coasters are hanging in there with the storm. Please stay safe and keep us updated. Hopefully you will have power long enough to be able to read this!

Baby Mia

Christopher has a new love in his life and her name is baby Mia! The Eakins came over for dinner tonight and shared their beautiful little girl with us. As you can see, Chris has at least one hand on her which is why we had him sit on the couch on lots of pillows and we all stood close by. He was very happy to hold this little one and spend time with his buddy Tristan!

Waterfire

Last night, we headed down to the Plaza with Grammy to see Waterfire, an outdoor celebration of the arts in Kansas City that included a beautiful display of fire pits that lined Brush Creek. Even though it was past Christopher's bedtime, he sat and watched and listened to everything beautifully and really enjoyed what he saw. One thing he kept noticing that was not part of the show was the continuous flow of "big long cars" (limos) that went by us on the road across from where we sat. It was a very cool event and we would definitely do it again next year! Here are some pictures of the creek and one of the bridges that had a stage on it...

Trick or Treat!

Christopher had his first trick-or-treating experience of 2012 when he got to raid the halls of Daddy's office. A bunch of floors at the American Century building were giving out candy to the children of employees and they had their offices decorated too. We armed Chris with an old school candy-collecting advice: the pillowcase! We don't mess around with those little cutesy pumpkin baskets anymore. Chris is playing with the big boys now. Fill 'er up! Here he is helping himself...

After we hit about 7 floors, Chris took his stash back to Daddy's office to evaluate his goodies. Obviously, he didn't know where to start...

Hey, Daddy, hands out of that bag!

Kindermusik Halloween Party

Today was Christopher's fourth annual Kindermusik Halloween costume party. This year Christopher has chosen to be Erik the penguin from Happy Feet 2. (I know that will come as a big shock to everyone who knows how obsessed our boy has been with this movie since July!). Here he is with Luca and Kenyon before the party...

After the kids danced and sang some Halloween songs, they got to open their treat bags to see what kind of goodies they got. Here is Chris donning the pumpkin glasses we got for the kids in his class...

It was a fun morning and you can bet that Chris was majorly excited about the abundance of sugary treats!

Powell Gardens

The weather this weekend was absolutely beautiful so we took advantage and spent just about the whole time outside. Today we trekked over to Powell Gardens, a beautiful botanical garden a bit east of Lee's Summit, Missouri. It was a great spot! And Christopher kept telling us over and over again how "wonderful" he thought the place was. He was very happy there and as we left he said, "Mommy I wish we could stay here longer. I wish we could stay for our whole lives!" Among other things, we visited the waterfall and perennial gardens, the Marjorie Powell chapel, and a fantastic complex of vegetable gardens that included the entire story of Peter Rabbit which Chris acted out twice. Here are some pictures of the boys from today...

And here are some of my favorite nature pictures from this beautiful place (blogger is only letting me choose two so here they are!)...

Laughing boy

I hope your weekend brings this much laughter...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UAOfCUruI0

Cool T-shirts

Last night, Brian and I went out to Lawrence for dinner and to watch some KU volleyball. While we were in town, we stopped in this great used book store where they also sold shirts with story characters from some of the books Chris likes. Here is is donning one of his favorite stories, "Harry the Dirty Dog." We also got a "Frog and Toad" shirt. So fun!

KC Pumpkin Patch

We picked the coldest weekend in recent months to make our third annual trip out to the KC Pumpkin Patch in Gardner, KS. It was nothing a little hot apple cider couldn't fix though! And the good thing about going on a cold weekend is that there are no lines for any of the rides. Christopher had a great time doing all the rides and activities he has done in the past and was very excited to take the hay ride out to the patch to pick his very own pumpkin... First, here is Christopher on the barrel train!

He was the only kid on the train! If you look back to blog posts from the last two years, you can see other pictures of him on this very same barrel train. Brian and I were reminiscing about the first time he rode (when he was two) and we were afraid he was going to climb out of it while it was moving. Now he climbed in and out on his own (when it started and finished of course!) and enjoyed his ride. Chris also played in the corn and rode his tire horse again.

They even had a "real" train for the kids to ride and Chris enjoyed this one the most because he got to be the conductor.

What visit to the pumpkin patch would be complete without jumping on the giant inflatable pillow? Usually the line for this activity is the longest but this year Chris was allowed to jump as long as he wanted because no one was waiting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbBMDWehbAs

At the end of the morning, we loaded up our pumpkins and had our picnic in the warm, heated car before our drive home. Chris is very happy with the pumpkins we picked out (one for each of us) and can't wait to carve them and roast the seeds!

Our morning

We had a very nice morning and early afternoon today. After a fun music class, Chris and I went over to the hospital to visit Mary and her little baby, Mia. Little Mia is so cute! Christopher did a great job staying quiet since she was resting with her Mommy. After our visit we got to have lunch with Daddy. Back at the office, Chris was decorating the white board with a portrait of his father!

Check out how flexible Daddy is! I think he might have to keep that one up for his next meeting... Anyway, it was such a beautiful day outside that Chris and I made a stop at Loose Park on the way home to run around in the fields and climb some trees. There are all kinds of great climbing trees at the park with big, low branches. Here is Chris on one of them...

And the most exciting news of the day (drumroll please!) is that Christopher can now swing all by himself!!! Woohoo! This is a victory for all of us, believe me. It was amazing to watch him pump his legs and pull with his arms to make himself go on the swing. Recently Grammy took Chris to the park and said he started to do this so thank you Grammy for working with him on it! There was a little kiddo swinging on the baby swings next to Chris so I think that gave him incentive to show off a little. Here is a video of the man in action!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCSWm5IL2PA