Halloween galore!

The other night we were doing a practice run with the costumes.  Lola is apparently auditioning for the role of "the prince" who wakes up snow white with a kiss.  (Poppy thought that was pretty funny.)

Last week we brought these 2 pumpkins to the pumpkin farm to pick out pumpkins!

Poppy was super excited to ride the pony this year.  After picking our pumpkins from the patch, she went for another horse ride, but this time without me holding onto her back.  It was a pretty big deal in Poppy's world. :)

Then the next day we were off to the halloween event at the zoo.  Sam was sporting his pumpkin outfit again, which is always a big hit.

And Poppy loved the adventure of "following her map" to find all the places to trick-or-treat throughout the zoo...

The next morning Sam was still recovering from all of the pumpkin festivities and could barely make it through breakfast before he fell asleep.  How sweet is that little face?  (and please ignore my super sweet bathrobe and crazy lookin' hair)

We've had halloween parties galore this week.  The first one was at ballet class.  Poppy couldn't stop checking herself out in the mirror.  Like, she barely participated in anything during class because she was staring at her costume the entire time!

How cute are they?!

The next day was the party at storytime at the library and then today was her party at school.  Poppy has consumed more sugar in the past week than she has in her entire lifetime.  And she still has 2 more parties to go!

And we have some very exciting news in the Sammy dept.  I think we reached the fussiness peak and as of this week he has been getting sooooo much better.  It's so exciting to actually be able to talk and play with him, rather than just have to soothe him all the time!  And yesterday we busted out the exersaucer!  This thing is super obnoxious and takes up our entire living room, but Sam loves it, so it's worth having to look at it all the time.  Doesn't he look like a tiny little peanut in it?

Now we just have to get him to sleep through the night!  As soon as I'm back to getting a full night sleep, I promise to go back to regular blog posts!

Mary Poppins!

Last night was the much anticipated Mary Poppins musical.  Poppy had no idea what was in store for her, she thought she was just going to see the movie again.  We had a rare mommy and Poppy night to ourselves...

Our first stop was a yummy dinner at Poppy's favorite restaurant, Chef's.  She had been talking about going there all week long.

We finally arrived at Shea's and she seemed a little confused at first, but excited just the same.  I tried to explain what was going to happen, but she still just thought it was going to be the movie.  But when the music started and the first scene began, she sat up straight in her chair.  And then when Mary Poppins appeared on stage, she leaned forward and her jaw just about dropped to the floor.  "Mommy!  It's really Mary Poppins!  There she is!!!"  Throughout the entire musical, every time Mary Poppins was not in a scene, she wanted to know where she was.  And every time Mary Poppins was singing, Poppy would exclaim how pretty her voice was.  By intermission time, she was just plain giddy.

They had so many cute souvenirs and I wanted Poppy to have a memento of her first musical.  I decided to get her the classic Mary Poppins chapter book, figuring we could read it together in a few years.  When I gave her that book, you would have thought I gave her the most exciting toy ever.  She immediately opened it up and pretended to read it.  Everyone sitting around us kept commenting on how adorable it was that she was so excited over a chapter book.

And she was so nervous about missing any of the second half of the musical that she refused to leave her seat for the rest of the intermission.  I even told her we could walk up and look at the stage, but she said it would be starting soon and she didn't want to miss any of it.  Oh, and she held onto the book throughout the rest of the musical.

This was when one of the best musicals I have ever seen, and it was so special to be able to watch it with Poppy.  In the very last scene, Mary Poppins flies over the audience, and luckily for us she flew just a few feet away from us.  It was so neat that I was literally getting teary-eyed!  The whole experience was definitely something I'll always remember.

...........

In other news, this little cutie pie has learned to smile and laugh, which is awesome. (not sure why the coloring is so off in this pic, and although his hair does have a little tint of orange, it's usually not this fluorescent orange)

Poppy has been working on making a new home for Ratty...

We spent Columbus Day at Tifft Nature Preserve learning about beavers...

And Sam is desperately trying to suck on his little thumb.  All day long, if this kid is awake, all you can see are his little hands and fingers flapping all over and he huffs and puffs trying to get that little thumb in his mouth.  And then once he does find it, he lets out this little sigh of relief as if he were saying "Ah, I found you!"

And then once he's done sucking his thumb, he has been known to fold his little hands like this...

Oh, and Sam has a new best friend.  His name is Dyson.  For those of you that haven't already figured this out, Sam is quite the fussy little baby.  He likes to be held by me, all day long.  Which makes it rather difficult to get anything done around the house.  Which is why it is not uncommon for weeks to pass before I can vacuum or clean.  But the other day I just decided that enough is enough and I put him in the swing even though I knew he would start crying, and I just started to vacuum.  Well as soon as Sam heard the vacuum he stopped crying and started smiling.  Even when I turned the vacuum off, he still just sat there staring at it.  So this is now where the vacuum cleaner lives (in front of Sam's swing).

Can you see the look of love in his eyes?  I'm pretty sure he loves Dyson almost as much as he loves me. :)

apple picking

I am sooo behind with blog posts!  We went apple picking a few weeks ago and I am just getting around to finally posting the pics!

We met up with a few families that adopted from Poppy's same agency (one of the families actually owns the beautiful apple orchard and let's us all pick as many apples as we want for free!).  The weather was perfect and Poppy was so excited to be able to pick and eat an unlimited supply of apples!

Notice that she has a half-eaten apple in her hand in almost every single picture.  She was in apple heaven.

Are you wondering where Sam is?  He was peacefully sleeping the entire time we were there!

Isn't this the most amazing property?  I would love to live there!!!

As much as Poppy loved the apple picking and eating, her favorite part of the day was getting to go on this tractor!

We decided to stop and try to pick up a few pumpkins on the way home.  Poppy has been singing this Dora song non-stop lately and after about the 50th time she sang it, I finally decided to try to catch it on video, hence the lack of enthusiasm she had by this point, but still soooo cute!

We have been crazy busy around here lately.  Here are a few random pics so you can see what we've been up to...

Here's a little peek into our playdate Mondays.  We get together every Monday morning with Tony and Natalie, two of my co-workers that are also taking some time off of work to be home with their kids right now.  Such a fun way to start our week!

Yes, that is her baby doll stroller that Sam is strapped into.  (don't worry, Marc was close by to make sure that no infants were injured during this "walk")

It is so sweet to see how much these two truly love each other.  Anytime Sam hears Poppy's voice, he starts looking around and moving his head so that he can see her (and he doesn't do that for mine or Marc's voice).  And if Sam starts crying while we are in the car, we just have to ask Poppy to sing to him and he almost always stops crying immediately.

Poppy's epic train bridge.  These train tracks take over our entire house.

First of all, do you see any similarities between these two?  Clones.  Second of all, Sam is holding the best invention ever.  That is a stuffed animal glued to his pacifier and it basically just helps to keep it in his mouth (which is what I used to have to do myself all.day.long.).

Walking to "ballerina school".  We switched to a new dance studio this year and I just love the fact that it's literally a stone's throw away from our house.  And how cute is her backpack?

Can you even believe how big Sam is getting?!

Poppy's newest obsession is the Mary Poppins movie, and when she tried this outfit on and we told her she looks like Mary Poppins,  she thought it was hysterical.  I'm taking her to see the Mary Poppins musical next week and I can't wait to see her reaction.

Poppy and I stopped by Marc's office for a visit a few weeks ago.  Marc doesn't typically work in his office, so Poppy has never been there before.  She was beyond excited to be able to sit at his desk and play with his computer and then when Marc showed her the big conference room with a huge whiteboard, I thought she was going to lose it.  Here is a video of her playing "teacher"...

Up next - pics from our apple picking adventures...