Back when the weather was balmy and the kids didn’t need three + layers to stay warm…they sure loved going down the slide at the park all by themselves!

As evidenced by their giant happy smiles….aren’t they growing up so quick!?!

 

 

 

This past Saturday we made plans with some friends to meet up at a local pumpkin patch…… local  being a pumpkin patch that was about an hour away from our home.

Claire & Rhys aren’t really into leaving the house early in the morning especially to drive in the van. The drive out was a bit hectic with keeping a close eye on Claire as she gets car sick and keeping them both distracted from their obvious dislike of our journey. Once we made it to the farm all our spirits were raised and I was so happy and excited to go for a hay ride.

We got geared up with gum boots and warm clothes….it was very cold at 9:30am in the morning. It was spooky too with all the mist in the air. We walked to the front gate and found it closed…I was curious why the parking lot was empty! The pumpkin patch didn’t open until 10am. All was okay though because there was a petting farm at the front gates so we walked around and said hello to the chickens and cows. Rhys was running around squeaking in happiness. He likes making chicken noises 🙂

We finally made it in and quickly got on the very first hay ride of the day. They had live music on each hay ride as we were led out to the pumpkin fields. The fields were so muddy but very fun. We let Claire & Rhys wander around aimlessly. The ground was uneven but soft so Rhys was tripping and falling everywhere into the mud. It was so funny! and he was a good sport about it…. he would jump right up and keep going.  He wasn’t hurt in anyway. Just covered in mud but that is the best when you are little.

Claire & Rhys selected two small pumpkins to bring home. One of which Claire insisted on carrying by herself in a large plastic bag. The bag was as big as her! We heard from our friends that they were outside the front gates in a very long line-up waiting to get in. We were all starting to get cold so we hopped on another hay ride back to the main stage area singing old ‘McDonald farm’. They had some fresh apples waiting for us as we departed the hay ride and we waited for our friends with Claire & Rhys sitting on hay stacks eating their mini apples.

We had a brief visit with our friends who finally got through the crowds then we had to get back home for lunch and nap time.

A great Saturday morning 🙂

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Jimmy captured some more B&W pics of Claire & Rhys:

We live in a beautiful city when it isn’t overcast and rainy…

This is a view of downtown Vancouver from the North Shore

I know we have said this before but there really is so much fun stuff to do where we live.

Now that Claire & Rhys have gone from two naps a day to one nap a day we spend longer periods of time out and about which is really great because a lot of the community programming runs in the morning when they used to nap. Now we can take full advantage!

From Claire & Rhys’ perspective….

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Story time at the library

Excavators and garbage trucks are a huge hit!

Farmers market at the Quay

More excavators to Claire & Rhys’ delight!

Rhys playing peek-a-boo inside a favorite playground train:

Trying on each others their new toques:

Claire trying a french fry for the very first time & liking it way too much -oh-uh! back to our healthy food:

Helping steer a gigantic shopping cart at Home Depot:

The cooler weather is here and Claire & Rhys are embracing the changing seasons and their changing wardrobe (we love gum boots!)…

Boots aside, the days are still dry enough to have adventures that are less prepared and just as spontaneous.

It was raining last Sunday and after a wet mucky visit to a new park in the morning we decided after Claire & Rhys’ mid-day nap that we would go to the library and stay dry.

There is a great library very close to us which we make great use of. The kids area is really cute with a big tree, games to borrow, dress-up clothes and of course lots of books to read.

Claire and Rhys are voracious book lovers! They don’t read yet so looking at pictures and having books read to them is great fun.We love it too – in hopes that they grow up as nerdy as we are 🙂

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Early morning story time at home

Disclaimer – I took the photos this time on my iphone and that is why they are nice and blurry 🙂