Candy!!!

I posted this picture earlier tonight, to show how much Halloween candy we bought for the trick-or-treaters that were supposed to come to our door...

















My initial plan was to later post an after photo, showing how little candy we had left.  Unfortunately, we got a grand total of TWO kids who came to the door.  Isn't that pitiful?  We live on a major city street, across from a major city park, and nobody came to our house!!  That means that I've got to figure out what to do with all the sugary goodness that is sitting on my dining room table.  I think I'll take it to work with me this week and see if the professors want to eat it. 

Sigh.

Next year, I'll probably just leave the porch lights off.

This is what happens...

 ...when you leave your dog at home with a box of cake mix in the kitchen.




















You'll notice that there's almost no mix left in the bag.  Yuck. 

Monkey Baby

I really didn't teach her this.          





















It's just further proof that it's in the genes.  (Right, Meghan?)

Cookie!

We passed a new milestone today - Ella's first cookie!  We were at Babies R Us looking for baby gates to put on the staircases, and I found some Gerber Biter Cookies that were supposed to be for crawlers.              





















She LOVED them!  Both hands, straight into the mouth...

She always looks so surprised when she tastes something new.

It's so much fun to watch her experience new things.  Even though they usually make a huge mess.

Tutu Much!

I've seen a lot on the internet about tutus, so I thought I'd show the gorgeous one that my Aunt Crystal bought for Ella.  She got it over the summer, but until now, it's been too big to stay up on the baby's almost nonexistent hips.  However, I pulled it out this fall to see how it fits now.

It's perfect!!

Of course, the first thing Ella did was try to see how it tasted.















Then she pouffed it out and took it for a spin....er....crawl.

 What a thrilling new toy!

She felt so pretty in it that for once, I didn't have any trouble getting her to pose!

 Of course, like she does with all her new toys, eventually, she decided to show it to the other child in the family...Max! 

I don't think he got the point, though, because he got up and walked off.

Undaunted, she went back to primping for the camera...

Autumn Colors

Once upon a time, I lived in Charlottesville, Virginia for four whole years.  Every fall in Charlottesville, a miracle happens, and it becomes the most beautiful place in the world.  Like Japan in cherry blossom time, God works an amazing feat of nature, and the trees paint the world with colors that are more vivid than anything you could imagine.  In C'ville, this takes the form of yellow, orange, purple, and red leaves on the trees that make your eyes ache with their beauty.

I no longer live in Charlottesville.

Sigh.

Normally, I don't miss it, but during October, I dream about it.  And so, in order to fill up the mysterious void in my soul that simply won't go away until I've seen the trees change colors, I pull out my camera and go hunting.  Saint Louis is no C'ville, but it does have some treasures if you go looking for them. Here's what I found...

This one is in the park across the street.
 



















These twins are three blocks west of our house...

This guy peeps over the gate at the south entrance of Tower Grove Park...

This fella is on the far end of our block, across the street from Megan and Chad's house...

And this guy, a couple blocks south of us, is still in the beginning stages of his transformation.  I'll probably go check him out again next week.





















How are things lookin' where you live?

Pumpkin Patch

Ever since the weather started to cool off a little bit at the end of September, I have been on a mission.

A pumpkin mission.

I wanted to dress Ella up in her pumpkin dress (courtesy of my Mom) and take her to get some pumpkin patch pictures.  There was only one problem - where to find the patch?  In St. Louis, we have pumpkins galore, but since it's a city, there aren't a lot of pumpkins growing in the non-existent middle-of-the-city fields.  A week ago, we drove WAY out into the country to find a patch that I had located on the internet, but when we got there, it was disappointing.  Despite their grand online promises of pumpkins galore, they were actually more of a corn maze with a small pile of pumpkins on the side.

Boo.

Well, this past week I was delighted to find out that the Prouhet Farm, where we buy our fresh vegetables each weekend, had a pumpkin patch!  YAY!  Sunday afternoon, we headed out there for pictures.

The Prouhet Farm is awesome.  They'll even let you pick your own stuff if you want, which I love.  It's been there since the 1800's.

When we got there, I was excited to see all the pumpkins...

Here's a picture of James in the farmstand, where they sell the pre-picked stuff.

They also had some pretty mums for sale.

This fella was pulling the hayride cart.

The spinach was piled high on the counter in baskets...

And this guy was giving pony rides.  Too bad that Ella was too little, because she was fascinated by him!  Maybe next year.

She was also fascinated by this big red tractor.

This was her reaction when we didn't let her climb on the tractor...

...which of course cracked her up...

A picture of her pretty smocked pumpkin dress, which her GG bought for her!

Then we played with the pumpkins!

Ella was trying to figure out what these big orange things were.

 Then we went into the patch to find a good pumpkin for our house.  Ella liked this one.
 



















"Hey, Daddy!  Can I have this one for my room?"
 

She decided to hitch a ride in the cart with the pumpkins on the way back to the farmstand!

 So cute!

What a fun day!

Squirms

What happens when you squirm in your high chair while your mama is trying to feed you? 

Well, you get some of this...

...in your left eye. 

And then you go from a happy baby...

...to a confused baby...

 It's probably better to hold still, don't you think?

Of Puppies and Princesses

Since we had the baby, lots of people have asked us how she and Max are getting along.  Max is notoriously barky and jumpy, and he does not like other four-legged creatures around his house.  How would he handle having a baby crawling on the floor?  Well, he's doing pretty well.

Today, I came into the living room to find him finishing up some work on my laptop...

 

Which, of course, wore him out!

Ella crawled over to see what he was up to.

 Hey man, what's up?

Wanna hang out?

Max isn't so sure about this.

Hey wait a minute, puppy.  Where you going?

Oh well!

That's right, folks.  Our 65+ lb attack dog is afraid of our 14 lb baby.  Fully old world, isn't it?