Happy Halloween!

Yay! It's finally Matthew's favorite Holiday and he is psyched to help Meredith celebrate her first Halloween. He absolutely LOVES everything about Halloween, from all of the spooky decorations-his favorites being hand in bowl, turning skull head, ghost on string, and talking skull head (these are the names he came up with for the props), to trick-or-treating. I'm sure there will be lots of pictures of the kids in their costumes!

My Tooth Fairy

Meredith is cutting four teeth right now-three on the top and one on the bottom! Amazingly, she isn't grumpy and doesn't even have a fever or anything. You wouldn't even realize she was cutting them unless you saw them. What a champ :)

NY State Salmon River Fish Hatchery

Yesterday we took Matthew and Meredith to another, bigger, fish hatchery. This particular one bred Coho Salmon and Chinook Salmon for the Salmon River, which is one of the biggest rivers for fisherman, mainly fly fisherman, to come fish at in the country. It was interesting to discover how they breed the salmon and Matthew of course loved to see all of the fish.

In just one of those tanks there are anywhere from 25,000-50,000 salmon

The Spawn House, where they process the fish eggs and weed out the dead ones, etc

The fence in the Salmon River so the fish are forced to swim into the hatchery for breeding

What would be a day of looking at fish without fishing! The Bean was more than thrilled to throw in his line

This is a video of the fish jumping into the upper tank. There are some huge fish and it was interesting to watch them jump

Here are a few random pictures from the past several days. Matthew decided that the Bumbo seat was the fun place to sit. I'm not sure how he can be comfortable in it and I'm surprised that he actually fits in it, but he thought it was pretty funny.

Meredith is getting better at sitting up unassisted. Yes, she is playing with a pack of wipes. Of all the toys on the floor around her, she felt the wipes were the fun toys to play with

She loves her biter biscuits and I think it's cute to watch her eat them and get it all over herself, like in her hair, neck, face, ears, etc

She was being nice and trying to share with me :)

Matthew is still into Legos. He builds towers, cars, whatever his imagination comes up with at the time.

Merebear

My Meredith is as sweet as can be :) She is currently cutting three teeth, one on the bottom next to her first two teeth and her first two on top. She had an appointment the other day and she looks great. She now weighs 13 lbs 7 oz, which puts her in the third percentile for weight-she is my little peanut! She is a great eater and loves pretty much anything you give her to try. Finally she is sleeping better through the night and she "army crawls" all over the floor. She is just a happy, observant little princess

Carpenters Brook Fish Hatchery

Matt had been wanting to take the bean to the fish hatchery for awhile now, so we decided to take him this past weekend. Matthew learned how fish are bred and saw the stages of growth. He liked adult fish the best because they were the most active when he threw the food in the water. This hatchery had Brown Rainbow Trout and Brook Trout. He liked to wear Matt's polarized sunglasses so he could see into the water better.

Beaver Lake

Matt and I took the kids to Beaver Lake this past weekend for a Fall walk. I do have to admit that I love the pretty Fall colors as the trees change.

The Bean's First Day of School

Matthew had an exciting milestone today-his first day of school! He started a little late in the year due to the fact that we were in NC, but on the plus side his teacher, Mrs. Mason, made a big deal about him being the new kid in class. There were a few tears when I left, but overall it was a positive experience and he is already looking forward to going back on Wednesday.

The Imagination Movers

On out last night in Cary, Grandpa and I took Matthew and Meredith to see The Imagination Movers Live Concert tour. It was the first time Matthew has been to a live show and he was amazed and entertained. Meredith was her usual great self and watched all of the lights and movements and even smiled at the production.

Grandpa got us great seats-Thanks Dad!

The Movers!

The Movers would walk down the isles during some of the songs. Matthew liked that part of it, as long as he was reassured that he didn't have to talk to them if he didn't want to.

He was brave enough towards the end of the show to walk up closer to the stage a little bit and move around with the other kids. It was a super fun night!

Customer in Training

Mr. Electrical Engineer

Leave it to my Dad to get out his soldering tools to try to fix a five dollar flash light stick that Matthew took apart and accidentally broke the circuit board. Unfortunately, he was unable to fix it, but Matthew sure learned a lot! Anyone who knows Matthew knows he loves to take things apart to see how they work :)

Wow, Merebear is 8 months old today! She is almost sitting up on her own. She will prop herself up, like on the side of a toy container, which she loves because she can dig around in all of the toys. Time is just flying by!

Matthew and Grammy made pumpkin pies this morning, which we can't wait to eat tonight-yum! Well, Matthew is claiming he doesn't like them, however he did last year and I'm sure he will discover he does if I can convince him to take a bite....

After all the hard work baking in the kitchen, Matthew made a super comfy "bed" for us on the couch, which we cuddled up in....oh if only I could have slept for real ;)

Hill Ridge Farm

We had so much fun at Hill Ridge Farm last year that we decided to go back again this year. It is such a fun kid place with everything to do from mazes to tractor rides. They even added some new activities this year, such as Bunnyville and Hay Jump.

Matthew liked both the colorful maze and the hay maze. He was so analytical about both of them and would look ahead to figure out the right way to get out.

The Hay Tunnel was an added attraction this Fall

One of his top two favorite activities at the farm was the new Hay Jump. He had a blast jumping off of the bales and diving into the hay.

Taking a break to wet our whistles

So Tall!

Llama

Matthew's other favorite activity was the "corn box". He was a little weary when he first went in but quickly discovered he loved the way the corn felt on his feet.

Last year the 80 foot slide was a little too scary for the Bean, but this year he was amped to go down.

Whee!

Of course we had to ride the train again. Meredith enjoyed the noises and movement from the train

More hay jump. He spent a significant amount of time playing around in here

Showing Grammy and Grandpa how he could jump off

He briefly played in the big sand box, but it just didn't compare to playing in the corn

Riding the tractor to the pumpkins

Matthew really put a lot of thought into which pumpkin he would chose. He had several different ones before he found the perfect one for him

Searching for just the right one

This one could be the one!

He finally found the one he wanted and was super proud of his selection

Grandpa found a great pumpkin too

After the pumpkin patch, Matthew ended his fun day by playing in the corn one last time.