Happy fall! I’m really impressing myself with the fantastic job I’ve done of embracing autumn this year. I often shut down when summer ends since I know freezing cold temps and buckets of snow are just around the corner. But this year I’m practicing living in the moment, and fall has been lovely. October photos and videos in chronological order.
Soren has really fallen in love with Richard Scarry books. He’s had one in his possession for awhile, but it didn’t interest him until recently — I’m guessing it has something to do with the illustrations vs. his favorite books that show real photos of cars and trucks. So now he spends A LOT of time looking at Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. Thank goodness his babysitter knew all about Goldbug and where to find him — Tim and I weren’t quite up to speed.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Soren is both inhibited and an awkward dancer.
Soren and Tim have started attending Home Depot’s great workshops for kids. Soren loves Home Depot for the forklifts, but he came home pretty excited about the ambulance he crafted one Saturday.
Looks like he even got to use real tools!
So focused.
These next two are a little out of focus, but the smiles are too perfect.
General Conference weekend meant we had a rare free Sunday morning. Soren had been talking about going on a nature walk for days, so we wandered around Hammond Pond.
Sunday was also the kickoff of International Babywearing Week, so we busted out the Ergo. Too bad this giant baby refuses to be back-carried.
Oddly enough, Soren really enjoyed conference (the parts he was awake for, that is). He played pretty well on his own and would occasionally shout out words he recognized — “commandments!” “rock!” “Jesus!” On Sunday night Tim and I were in the kitchen and we looked into the hall to see Soren poring over the nursery manual. He was actually kissing pictures of Jesus. We take no responsibility for Soren’s sometimes angelic disposition.
The next week we joined some church friends for a morning at the aquarium. Soren ran all over that placed like he owned the joint.
The penguins are always a hit.
That weekend John and Shauna drove up from Virginia! We had planned to spend the weekend at Butterhill, but New Hampshire’s early winter meant the house was closed for the season. So we made it a Cambridge weekend.
We started with the Longfellow House — really good (free!) tour for anyone interested.
On Sunday we wandered Mount Auburn Cemetery and chased some turkeys.
Climbed the tower, of course.
Soren found a slide.
And a crazy tree.
The next thing we knew, Tim had turned into a monkey.
That face!
Monday was a holiday, so we spent the morning at the park and the afternoon at Wilson Farm.
Soren was REALLY sad when the hayride ended. His love for tractors surpasses all.
This pumpkin wall never gets old. I want to live at Wilson Farm in the fall.
Free apples for all hayriders!
We never made it apple picking this year, but since all we really care about are the apple cider doughnuts, Wilson Farm had us covered. One of the best things $0.50 can buy in this world.
I couldn’t help myself from bringing home overpriced turban squashes and green and white pumpkins and gourds.
This must be a Soren-and-Tim playground ritual, because this video is from Tim’s phone and I’m not sure what it’s all about.
A random day at the park. They’ve been working on this house for the past few months, and it’s provided hours of entertainment for us. We’ve watched from demolition to now near completion. Here Soren was talking about his love for the “telescopic boom” (the large machine behind him, for those of you not up on your construction lingo).
Mass Audobon was having some sort of super sale on their memberships, so we joined and spent a Saturday morning at Drumlin Farm. (Boston friends, the deal is still on through the end of November! Buy now!)
Looks like we picked THE most perfect fall day to go.
Farm life. Picking fresh carrots for our dinner.
A church friend started teaching a few of us weekly photography classes. I’ve had my camera for at least six years but I’ve never quite figured out all that aperture and shutter speed and ISO stuff. I’m still mostly worthless at taking pictures, but I can sometimes manage to shoot in manual! I’ll still probably take 80% of my pictures with my phone, but at least I’m semi-capable of using my camera when I need to.
We practiced outside one day to learn settings for the sunshine.
Soren didn’t mind being outside one bit. Our church building is surrounded by construction sites.
We went back inside and I thought I had everything set just right… but these funny faces might be a little out of focus.
Soren can finally get both feet off the ground when he “jumps”! I’ve been waiting a long time for this day.
Friday night was our ward’s Halloween party. I decided this was my year to begin turning into a holiday mom. I decorated! I made a costume! I even thought about making fun and spooky Halloween treats, but didn’t get quite that far.
On our drive to the party, Tim revealed to Soren that Uncle Ben had an upcoming job interview in either DC or Boston — Ben’s choice. This video shows Soren’s opinion on the matter.
But back to the party.
This is not the costume I made. This costume took zero effort on my part, and I’d like to do it that way every year. My parents provided the vest, tool belt, and tools from their Virginia toy stash,, plus a real Clark Construction hard hat. We ended up using a $1 Target hard hat instead, since it wasn’t quite so heavy. We didn’t have any worker man boots (actually, Soren is down to a total of two pairs of shoes that fit him), but we thought the white trash onesie was a nice touch.
My homemade skirt! I will wear it every year from here on out, since it took two whole naps and one night to make. If anyone is looking for an easy costume, use this great tutu tutorial. Also, buy your witch hat at Target, not Party City. Better quality and $2 cheaper. Black-and-white striped tights are at Party City, though. Lucky for us, both stores are super close by, since we had to make multiple trips when Tim decided he needed a “costume.”
Church door to church door trick-or-treating. Soren was over his costume at this point. The hard hat came in handy as a candy-collecting bucket, because of course I forgot to bring one.
Saturday was the Boston Book Festival. I had checked the schedule a few weeks in advance and was really excited to see that the first children’s event was by Anna Dewdney.
Anna Dewdney was a delight, and I was nearly brought to tears that Soren seemed as excited about the whole thing as I was. I guess nerds breed nerds. Now, whenever we read a Llama Llama book, Soren flips to the back dust jacket flap and says, “Anna Doodey wrote this book!”
Llama Llama donned his famous red pajamas.
We stumbled upon a yoga session in Copley Square. Soren’s imitation of the teacher’s pose is kind of impressive.
The next week we visited the Museum of Science and Soren surprised me by becoming strangely interested in bees.
The museum has an exhibit with live bees, and in the children’s discovery room there is a giant model of a beehive. These two employees spent about 30 minutes with Soren, running through the life of a honeybee over and over again.
We started a new morning scripture routine, where we repeat the same song and scripture every day for a month at a time. Here is Soren’s contribution.
And then, Halloween! On Friday morning Soren did a little trick or treating at his school. Of course I didn’t think about bringing his costume, so he got to wear something from the class dress-up bin.
He was pretty happy about it.
That evening we threw Soren’s costume on as soon as he woke up from his nap. You can tell he hadn’t fully woken up yet.
He was really proud to be a worker man. And we learned that it’s really easy to get him to smile if you just talk about backhoes and bulldozers and rollers.
Driveway photo shoot.
We do our trick-or-treating on Washington Street, along with a few hundred other neighborhood kids. Trick-or-treating at 4 p.m. is fine by me!
We finished off the night at the YMCA for the annual pizza party. Soren ate his weight in pizza and danced his booty off.
So Soren ended up trick-or-treating three separate times, and not once did he ask for any of the candy! At every moment I kept waiting for him to ask to try one, and my plan was to attempt some sort of distraction technique. So I think he didn’t actually know he was collecting candy the whole time. I don’t know if I should be proud that he’s so unaware of sugar, or embarrassed that he’s slow. But I’m happy. And we gave away all the candy to the trick-or-treaters who came to our house, so our night and month ended beautifully.
Tagged: Anna Dewdney, Boston Book Festival, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Drumlin Farm, General Conference, Halloween, Hammond Pond, Home Depot, Llama Llama, Longfellow House, Mass Audobon, Mormon, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Museum of Science, New England Aquarium, Wilson Farm, YMCA
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