pumpkin patch

it's finally our most favorite time of the year!  

you know how we feel about fall!

last year's pumpkin patch visit 

we just love the fall and we love spending time outside with our boy.  we recently took daxton to the pumpkin patch so that he could ride the choo choo and pick out a pumpkin.  he'd been a bit under the weather, but he made a recovery in time to get in our most looked forward to annual trip to the patch. 

we got dax out of the car and he began saying things like "oh cool", so we figured he was getting excited.  we strolled him through the line and his eyes opened wide with all of the activities going on.  he loves checking everything out and taking it all in.  we first tried to let him play in the corn bin (a giant gazebo full of dried corn kernels) but he was only in there for about 10 seconds before he was removed for breaking the rules and throwing corn.  we moved on.  the train was calling.

we hopped in a short line to wait for the train.  we got to watch it go around one pass and daxton squealed with excitement every time it whizzed by and choo chooed.  he was over the moon when it was our turn to get on.  once he was firmly in his seat he just looked all around in amazement.  when it fired up and started to roll he was in heaven.  he sat quietly with a smile until he'd hear the choo choo and he'd scream out "choo choo"!

after the train ride we all said "bye bye choo choo" and headed over to the hay ride.  daxton was convinced that this was just another version of a choo choo, and so he was in good spirits.  we all boarded the hayride and took the journey over to the pumpkin patch.  dax, again watched all of the sights as we bumped down the trail.  once we got to the patch dax was ready to take off like a little rocket.  we had a hard time keeping up with his unpredictable darting, but luckily there were two of us and only one of him. 

once we wrangled him in we attempted to get a couple of pictures of his sweet face in the pumpkin patch.  he didn't want to be still, so it was a little challenging.  daddy had kettle corn, so we decided to bribe him to sit still for a moment on a pumpkin while we dangled kettle corn at him.  he'd sit still for about 2 seconds and then he'd bounce up (with his mouth still full) like a jack in the box to grab another piece of kettle corn.  this was clearly  not going to work.  so, i just let him run and took pictures of the fun he was having.

we played at the pumpkin patch for about an hour.  dax ran all over checking out all of the pumpkins.  he was drawn to the ones that were greenish, had a large blemish, or were completely rotting out.  boys.  he found one he liked and he could carry, so we let him take that one home.  it's small, a little misshapen, and has green spots.  (i love that he picked that one.)  it looks adorable on the front porch.

after we took the hayride back to the fun park area we let dax play in a hay bale maze, hide in a tee pee, and swing on the swings.  he had loads of fun just getting out all of his energy.  we loved watching his smiling face trying new things and running all over.  when they were about to close we opted to get a family caramel apple and see what he thought about it.  mommy took a bite and then gave dax the option to taste and he turned up his nose.  then daddy and mommy shared some more of the apple and dax decided he may be missing out on something so he decided he would lick it.  he figured that wasn't too bad, so he would take a bite.  his first bite was solid caramel.  he was sold!  we then finished the remainder of the apple together, taking turns taking bites.  i would say dax thought it was pretty delish.  we'll definitely have to put that on the list to try again next year!

we're excited to be taking dax on his first trick-or-treat experience this thursday, celebrating dax's birthday this weekend, then looking forward to thanksgiving at our house with his namaw and poppie, and christmas with my folks in virginia.  it's going to be a busy family fall!

growings up

a big - sad - hard thing happened today.  today was daxton's first day of friday daycare.  the daycare is wonderful, the lady who runs it in amazing and has a background in early childhood education, the other children who attend are dax's age, it's only one day a week, and it's not very far from home.  so, why is it sad - bad - hard - and every other terrible word you could imagine?

well, for me its partly unknown (the tears are just a flowing) - but mostly its the fact that dax is growing up.  we knew this was happening, but somehow by him staying here with me i can keep him a baby in my mind.  then, when the thought of taking him to daycare entered my periphery it wasn't until we were introducing him to the idea yesterday that  it hit me like a ton of bricks - this is the first of many sad, bad, hard things to come.  

things like the first day of pre-school, the first day of kindergarten, losing his first tooth, the first day of middle school, the first day of high school, learning to drive a car, seeing him accept Christ as his Savior, going on a date, sending him off to college, watching him fall in love, seeing him find his passion in life all seemed just a little bit closer to the forefront of life.  time goes by so quickly and we yearn for them to learn, grow, and change - but at the same time we want to keep them our little babies.  

dax has already grown up so quickly.  when we go back and look at his newborn pictures its hard to remember him ever being so small.  i've tried to stop the clock by taking thousands of pictures of him at every stage in life, so that we'll always have those reminders to look back on, but still the time keeps passing and he keeps growing up on us.  will vividly remembers the first time he was running in the grass and he looked back and saw how far he was away from him, yet he smiled and continued running the other direction - all a part of his growings up.

so, it is a terribly sad, bad, hard, awful day for me, but i am glad my baby boy will have a loving home to spend his fridays in. we're thankful he will have two little other two year old boys to play with.  we're glad his updates are just a text message away.  and most of all we're glad when the work day is done and we can go pick him up.

all a part of our growings up.

23 months

twenty-three months.  how did we get here?  2 years old is looming and party planning is underway.  hard to believe that the time goes by so quickly, but people warned us about this.  i never imagined how right they were when they told us that these little ones grow up so fast.

me, great-granny, husband, and dax

daxton loved his recent trip to the beach.  we went with my mom's side of the family for a week to the outer banks.  while there we rested, relaxed, and got a little wild.  dax had great fun unwinding and spending a lot of time with his mommy, daddy, and relatives.  we took him to the park, walked on the beach, played in the pool, and spent lots of time playing legos.  dax loves playing in the sand and even enjoyed putting it in his hair and attempting to do some taste tests.  while there we celebrated his great-granny's 90th birthday.  we had a great party and dax had a new found appreciation for cake!  what are vacations for?

lately daxton's favorite foods have consisted of popcorn and clementines.  when we pull a clementine out of the fruit basket to give it to him he either shouts "oh yeah" or "there you go!"  - like people, you finally got it right!  other than those two items, he is pretty inconsistently liking anything else right now, so we just work with our old usual standbys and attempt to sneak veggies into every meal in some capacity.  sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  he's still growing, so we assume he's fine.  this month he surprised us by tasting noodles out of my pho bowl and actually liked them, so we gave him about half of my noodles.  next time he is getting his own!

 daxton is still talking our ears off while he is awake.  lately his favorites are still "here you go", "there you go", "gotta go", and "choo choo".  after he says "gotta go" we always ask him where he's going, but he just smirks and keeps on trucking! the choo choo came up this weekend at the park where dax noticed the train that runs around the entire perimeter of the park.  he watched it for about twenty minutes while swinging.  i told him it was a choo choo and after we left the swings he exclaimed "choo choo!" so we went and got tickets to ride the choo choo.  he loved every second of the 5 minute ride and we cannot wait to take him on another train at the pumpkin patch in a few weeks.

after he just woke up from his afternoon nap.

dax is showing us all of his talents lately.  we are proudly reporting that he no longer attempts to get on the coffee table, and now he amuses us with things like putting a ball in a basket, putting cups inside one another, singing along to music in the car (just sounds not words), feeding himself with his spoon, taking bites off things instead of having them all cut up for him, building with legos, throwing everything into the sink, brushing his own teeth (after daddy fights the cavities), skipping around, jumping when asked, sitting still on the sofa if he knows a really good show is on, pointing up and saying "up" when he wants to go up stairs, when hungry goes to the pantry and opens the doors, showing us his belly and feet, counting "gold doubloons" on jake, grasping our necks with his bear hugs, and showing us his sassy eyes.  

daxton and his cousin ellie playing on the beach.

the craziest thing we both witnessed this month was while we were grocery shopping at Harris Teeter.  inside the door there is a dragon ride (that costs a rip off of fifty cents)!  however, we instated a policy that if dax was good for the entire trip he could ride the dragon - so of course he was a champ and we got him on the ride.  the dragon sings while it gently rocks back and forth and in its song you can faintly hear something about "H-A-R-R-Y" the dragon.  both of us - plain as day - heard dax repeat "H-A-R-R-Y"!  we nearly fell over.  this kid is picking up what we're putting down!