Fun November visit and Christmas?!

 My parents came down for a few days to visit recently and we had such a good time! (parker loves to stand in the carts at whatever store we go to)

 making a k'nex pirate ship

 Parker's favorite place to be (held by gong gong)

 my two little monkeys

 and...yes, already putting up christmas decorations?! how can this be? :)

santa's little helper

Catching up

I haven't been that great at posting regularly on the blog lately, so I thought I'd at least post some pictures of what we've been up to lately!

 visiting a cute pumpkin farm with good friends

 enjoying hot chocolate (payton's favorite drink! even though it was not that cold this particular day)

 picking a pumpkin to take home

 Woody, the cowboy, and the alien! (getting ready to do the trick or treat path)

 the alien refuses to wear his costume!

 costumes, round 2, Tigger and Eeyore with Rapunzel, getting ready to do libertyville trick or treating.

 visiting Shedd aquarium with friends. We had a such a great time! really a wonderful place

 Parker LOVED the kid's water section

 all wet (I was trying to get a picture of him with the dolphins in the back, but he kept running towards the water stuff... :)   )

Payton (dressed as a penguin), enjoying the penguin playground slide.

 Costume parade day at school (With his best girl- friend)

 With his best friend at school

Parker's latest favorite thing to do, play in the pile of stuff that we recycle. I did not place him there, he has learned to climb in.....

Trick or treating with friends on halloween!

Walking

At 14 months, Parker has started taking a few wobbly steps (first video). Second video is of Payton/Parker playing with a box...

Parker's First Birthday

I think I have said this almost every month of Parker's first year....How is it that our baby is already 1!! A few weeks ago we celebrated his first birthday! The weather was just perfect that day, sunny and in the 70s so we were able to enjoy great weather and great company and food! Here are some pictures that captured that day (in random order)...

foyer decorations showing the monthly Pooh pictures

Party favors for the kids

 a partial picture of the "new to us" swing set mike built recently (fireman pole, ladder, swings, climbing rope, etc..)

 Payton with some friends playing in a tent outside

 the other half of the swing set mike built

 enjoying weather outside

 elmo and cookie monster cupcakes (elmo is one of parker's favorite characters..)

 smash cake

 he is very interested....

 until it actually gets on his hand.....

 not to sure about this....

 the icing on his face, I confess is from me...trying to get him to go for it...notice the smash cake in corner of picture is not at all smashed... :)

 family photo

 I made way to much food as usual, and forgot to take a picture of everything!

 big brother eating his lunch... with all the excitement mom and dad did not remember to make him eat real food....

 parker surveying what all the kids did to our house... :) he loves it!

 some food tags...

thanks to everyone for coming! it was such a special time for us to celebrate with everyone our baby turning one!

11 months old!

Guess who is 11 months!! this month, it has started to become difficult to get photos of parker looking at the camera AND smiling at the same time....

11 month photo with pooh!

monster sized carrot from our garden

Payton in his favorite spot. He Still Loves chess!

Garden Update

Even though we've been having some crazy weather here, we've still enjoyed gardening! most of these pictures were taken a few weeks ago, so now, things are probably bigger or possibly dead (like our snow peas which do not like hot weather...)

carrots, parsley, and pepper plants in square foot gardening box.

beets! (my first attempt this year, and surprisingly, they ARE very easy to grow and delicious when roasted!)

tomatoes

zucchini

raspberries

kohlrabi (sp? this grows very easily, and tasted like broccoli stems basically)

snow peas

parker is getting into all sorts of things these days. Here he is at one of his favorite spots, our indoor recycling bin...

One of Payton's daily activities this summer, his kindergarten/first grade book. I meant to buy the "preparing for Kindergarten" book, since he still has another year before kindergarten. However, I apparently bought the bridge to first grade by accident. Too bad I didn't notice until he had done about 20 pages and I was thinking that they sure do expect alot of kindergarteners (i.e. subtraction, reading stories and answering questions, calculating money from coins, etc)! oops!

green onions (sorry photos out of order)

payton posing with his bunny sign. I would like to note, that since the sign has gone up, we have not seen any bunnies...

payton's favorite part, picking harvest from the garden!