First Snow Day

Today was our first big snowfall of the season, and it really isn't uncommon for us to have snow in October. Even though we got a good 8 inches, it will warm up to 60 degrees by Friday and be gone in just a couple days. A big reason why I love Colorado!

We LOVED going out in our backyard to play in the snow. Patrick loved the snow 100x more than he did last year. This year he left his gloves on his hands so he didn't get cold after three minutes. Well, he might have, but he was having too much fun to be able to tell. He played for at least 45 minutes and it took me a while to get him to come in an warm up.

Here he is "pouncing" on the beginning of our snowman. We never finished our snowman, but we had fun anyway.

I got a good picture of him even though he was all over the place!

He liked to climb on the chair because it was slippery!

Throwing snowballs at Mommy!

Pumpkin Carving

We carved our pumpkin today (also on the first snow day). Patrick was moderately more interested than he was last year. Daddy did most of the work though. We just did a simple jack-o-lantern face with shapes that Patick picked out.

Most of the time Patick was doing this:

But he did help Daddy for a few minutes.

And he was very pleased with the outcome.

He is so quick that I can never catch a really good smile, but here is a silly face.

Pumpkin Farm

We took Patrick to a pumpkin farm for the first time this year, and we had a really fun time. We also took Grandma and Papa and cousin Kellen. The pumpkin farm was a really nice place in Boulder that was *free* and had pumpkins, animals, corn maze, straw maze, tractors, and lots of toddler fun. We went on a beautiful 70 degree day.

Of course Patrick had to try and pick up all the pumpkins. He only broke one. They were "so heavy!"


There were goats, sheep, cows, chickens, rabbits, a donkey, and a miniature horse. The boys loved going from animal to animal and telling us all about them.

Patrick enjoyed the old tractor that were sitting around the farm. He called them train cars and he and Kellen even tried to move one.

Reed took the boys in the straw maze and I think they had a lot of fun running around and waving to mom. It was really cute watching all the little kiddos running around in circles.

We took a wagon out to the "pumpkin patch" and the boys hitched a ride out there.

Kellen was a little upset when we started putting pumpkins in the wagon and he realized that he couldn't ride in the wagon anymore!

We had fun picking out just the right pumpkin. Of course, Patrick thought they were all great, so it was hard convincing him that we couldn't take them all home. I had never been to a pumpkin patch before, so I had just as much fun picking out the perfect pumpkin!

These pumpkins were "hiding in a nest!"

Patrick and Kellen decided that they were going to pull the wagons out all by themselves, which was very entertaining. I was actually really impressed that they navigated out of the field and all the way to the entrance by themselves. It was super cute.

The pumpkin patch was a very fun outing, and I am looking forward to making it a yearly tradition. Patrick is understanding a lot more than last year and is getting pretty excited for Halloween. He loves the pumpkins and the Halloween decorations we have made.

We Have a Lawn!

We (specifically Reed) worked very hard to get our lawn put together before the cool weather sets in. Fortunately, the warm weather has stuck around for a long time this year. We borrowed a rototiller from a friend and Reed spent a weekend and got the whole yard done with the help of a few young men in our ward. We are really lucky to have some great young men who like to come and help and lots of great friends who come help when we ask.

One of the hardest parts was getting the dirt smoothed out and leveled. We had a large trench in the middle of the yard from where we remove the sidewalk, and it took a while to get that filled in just right. I marked out where I wanted berms on the side and Reed put the black edging in. I went to the garden center and bought two trees, an pear and plum, both non-flowering. They are supposed to grow quickly and become good shade trees, so hopefully we will have a little more shade next year!

After the trees were in, we got some friends to come over and help us put in the sod. With all the help, it only took us a couple of hours. The grass looks fantastic and it immediately transformed our yard. It went from barren wasteland to a usable space! Now we have gravel next to house with some paving stones for a walkway, but I don't have pictures of that yet.

We still have work to do next spring, but we can actually go in the backyard to play now. Next year we plan on working on getting shrubs and flowers planted around the fence and get a garden planted in the back corner. We also want to make a cobblestone patio and possibly a pergola. We really need more shade in the yard, and we would really enjoy a picnic table in a shady spot. But we have very pleased with what we got done this year. I am so happy to be able to let Patrick go out and play in the yard now. He enjoys it so much!