October

So we signed Tallan up for ice-skating lessons. It started late September and although it started off great, we seem to have hit some hiccups. Tallan, who is very sensitive about certain noises, is terrified of the buzzer that signals people on and off the ice. He is so anxious about it, he keeps his hands over his ears and watches the clock running down for most of the lesson. Since it occupies his concentration, he seems to be taking steps backwards in skating rather than forwards. But I am still super proud of him and am thrilled to see him on the ice!

He still struggles with some falls...
some worse than others...actually this picture looks worse than it actually is. He fell down and started doing snow angels on the ice :)

But he's getting up like a champ :)


We also took a trip to the pumpkin patch out in Maple Ridge! It was a lot of fun and super toddler friendly. We'd go again this year even if the opportunity came up! Tallan found a farm house with hard animals in it. LOVE. Even Elisa liked it :)


There were lots of wooden animals to play on like this animal train...



And there were also animals to milk....yup, these wooden cow figures actually had rubber teats filled with water so kids could pretend to milk the cows :)

There were wooden characters for kids to pose with...

Perhaps Tallan didn't think they were as cool as I did...

But Elisa was a good sport...

This looks like a picture from the toddler, non-scary version of the Shining...

There were animals to pet - all the usuals and these Emu's!

We took a ridiculously short ride on a tractor...

Oh of course...and the pumpkins!

Don't worry, there was indeed a patch and not just wagons to pick pumpkins from...

Lead the way to the good pumpkins Esa!

Got the best ones :)

They also had a treed area where you can walk through and look at wooden character cut outs.


Arrr - it's a pirate ship and here's our pirate family! Except daddy. Arrr - perhaps he was a bit embarassed of his pirate family.

Then our crazy happy family had some fun carving pumpkins together :)

Ok - so the crazy happy part for Esa was having a lollipop...

And the finished masterpieces....

lights off...

Happy Halloween!