Johnson's Farm

 On Sunday we went over to Johnson's Farm for a "pick your own" and pie tasting day.  We highly recommend doing this. We had gone to Johnson's last year for pumpkins but it was super crowded and a little over priced when you compare to pumpkin picking at Argos and all the activities you got. So we decided we would head to Johnson's later in the season for their sweet potato, broccoli, cauliflower and corn picking. (Perfect for thanksgiving dinners and i plan on making a sweet potato chili)  We all really enjoyed it! You actually have to use shears and pick and pluck and cut the broccoli, corn and cauliflower right out of the ground! The boys really liked it and it wasn't crowded at all. We also did the Discovery Barn and play area: Play ground, farm animals, go karts, little cabins with pretend play set up. Plus it was pie tasting weekend. We got to taste probably around 30 pies!

So for future reference our Fall places to go will be:
Battlefield Orchards: Apple picking
Argos: Pumpkins and all that fall fun
Johnson's: Veggie picking

Some Photos

Fun at Johnson's Farm

Looking for some good broccoli 

Picking Sweet Potatoes

Didn't want to put his veggies down

Helping Daddy

Pulling the corn right off the stock

Hayride back… loving his produce

playground

pie tasting

Being an animal dr

Workshop

Play farmers market

playground fun

Weekly update

Well looks like I am only good at updating on Fridays 

1) last weekend we met up with Brian's sister and family and took his great grandma out to dinner. The kids were great at dinner and after we went back to great grandmas apartment for some play time. Noah LOVES his cousins!

2) Christmas shopping! I am slowly starting to get in gear. Thanks to some great sales at kohls and some things I have been picking up all year I think Santa is pretty much done with Noah!  I am having a harder time with ideas for Brian and family members though. I'm trying to get creative and give meaningful gifts because our budget is not as big this year.

3) day lights savings time is still killing us over here. Noah used to sleep from 7ishto 7 or 7:30. Now he is waking up around 6 ready to go! I keep him in his room till around 645 but man it's still too early. I can't put him to bed any earlier cause that would just be way to early. Just gotta hope he starts catching on and goes back to getting that extra hour of sleep.  Let me tell you when he wakes up he is READY to play!

This was taken at 7am when everything was cleaned up 5 minutes beforehand

4) iPad games: Noah has recently really liked and has been able to do some iPad games really well.He has some puzzles and some letter games that are great! 

It's a good morning or evening calm down activity cause be will sit for awhile! I f you have any toddler app recommendation let me know!

5) flannel sheets! I think this is the year we are updating our bed and getting some comfy sheets for the winter/holidays. I have my eye on this one from target. They are Christmassy but can also stay on after. And at 24.99 for a king size bed that's not to bad.

Edit: I went to target yesterday and they didn't have the set above so I got these instead. They go great with our comforter and can be kept on all winter! Also if you download he Cartwheel ap there is a coupon for 20% off these sheets so ends up being 19.99!

Friday already?

Another round of "5 on Friday!" this week!  This week actually went really fast!  Brian has "teachers convention" so he was off yesterday and today. But soccer season is still going on so he has has games and practices. Anyway here goes

1) new pajamas! I got the most comfortable "wintery" pajamas from target and they are great! The pants are kinda like leggings and I can just imagine curling up at a ski resort by the fire in then (which we have no plans to do any time soon so the couch will have to do

2) November challenges: I am making myself do a 30 day push up and plank challenge. I started going back to the gym and this is just something easy I can do at home, Noah also likes to do "push-ups" with me and counts with me

3) play doh! Noah has loved play doh lately. I picked up a bucket at kohls that has animal shapes in it and he has been super busy pressing them into the play do and making them! It's a daily a ticket that lasts sometimes an hour! It's great for his fine motor skills and patience (he has started to repeat "careful careful" to himself when taking the animals out of the shape) 

4) November: so far it's looking to be a pretty busy month, in a good way! Here are some of our bucket list items/plans for the next couple weeks: 

Please touch museum

Johnson's farm for sweet potato and corn picking

Disney jr pirates and princess show (going dec 1)

Book club and another round of freezer meal exchange!

Eloise's birthday party

THANKSGIVING

North Pole breakfast 

Really start and organize our Christmas shopping

5) Noah surprised me this morning when he started putting jackets on all by himself! He puts them on the floor, puts his arms they the holes, and then puts it over his head! So of course when you can do that all by yourself it's acceptable to put every jacket and best that we have on

5 on Friday

Ok so i follow a lot of blogs out there and these are the posts i most look forward to from other moms/people. So i figured i would try to keep up with it to. Its a list of completely random stuff and its always fun to see what other people are into and products they recommend, books they are reading, etc etc.

1) This kid got his school pictures back this week. I just cant get over what a big kid he looks like!

Noah- October 2013.  When pic was taken he was 28 months

2) Halloween. If you read my Halloween Post you know how much fun we had trick or treating this year. Here is a look back on the last 3 Halloweens

2011 Monkey- 5 months old
2012 Shark - 17 months
2013 Woody- 29 months

3) Book Club- Last month we read the book 7 by Jen Hatmaker. "7 is the true story of how Jen (along with her husband and her children to varying degrees) took seven months, identified seven areas of excess, and made seven simple choices to fight back against the modern-day diseases of greed, materialism, and overindulgence."  We all really liked the book, and even though i skipped all the religious passages,  the concepts of spending less, saving more, and doing without,  really was inspiring. So this month as a little challenge to myself i am gonna try to go without buying coffee at dunkin or starbucks. It seems like a little thing, but with christmas coming and the hopes of doing vacations and fun outings i am sure that even that little money saved will help :-)

4) Pottery Barn Kids: We got the christmas catalog in the mail last week and i am dieing over all the cute things they have!

i am trying really hard not to buy new stockings this year. But if i did, i would get the grey snowmen, noah the green santas, and brian the red  christmas trees :-)

How cute are these quilts! Next year noah should be in a big boy bed and i think it would be so fun to swap out his normal quilt for a christmas one to get int he spirit :-)  Maybe they will go on sale after the holidays ;-)

5) Thanksgiving traditions: When brian was little they had a tradition that all the kids made a handmade christmas ornament on thanksgiving.(we still have a lot of these ornaments he made on our tree!) I want to start doing this again so i am looking for easy and not to messy handmade christmas ornament ideas for this turkey day. The kids are ages 2-12.

I also like the idea of doing this for everyone but worry about how messy it will be. Each year we could do a new handprint and we write what we are thankful for... could be funny to look back and see what the kids say each year :-)

Halloween 2013

I swear holidays keep getting better and better with this little guy! This was his real first trick or treat that he actually got it. (last year we just went to our neighbors house and he had no idea what was going on)  I was a little worried because when we had our halloween play date he would not put on his costume. But on wednesday his school had their halloween party and he put it on before we left the house no problem!

Then Wednesday night the mall was having their trick or treat so i figured i would take him to practice. He loved it but it was very crowded and towards the end a lot of stores were out of candy. Next year we will go earlier :-).  After the first couple stores he could go up to the salesperson and shove his bucket at them. Sometimes he would say trick or treat and most of the time he would yell THANK YOU when it was over. He also liked dancing on the little stage the radio station set up

Last night was officially halloween and he wanted to start trick or treating around 8am. All day i kept having to say "at dinner time" and that his friends were coming over and we had to wait for them too.  Then we got our first trick or treater around 4 and he liked handing out candy but also thought the candy bucket was "mine". After that he liked looking out the window to see when more kids were coming. Then it was our turn to go out!! Lets just say he LOVED it! He was all smiles the entire time, saying trick or treat and thank you and then towards the end he would say "next house!". It was so much fun seeing him enjoy it and really understand what was going on

Halloween morning he found his bag filled with little "treats". I wanted to do something special for the actual holiday and i knew he would only be getting to eat about 10% of the candy he got.  Sully monster, 3 "monster" hot wheels, and a new Cars cup. Nothing fancy and the entire thing cost about $10.

love this pic... he just looks so proud of himself 

Loving it!