Pumpkin Festival

Thanks to John and Buni Jakala for inviting us to their house before the Edina Pumpkin Festival! We had so much fun walking down to the festival, trick-or-treating, going for a horse drawn wagon ride, and seeing so many kids in cool costumes!



Of course, we had the cutest little Care Bear, Witch, Spider, Chicken, and Lady Bug around!

Apple Orchard Fun

It's fall! Which means fun fall activites like the apple orchard! We went to the Minnetonka Orchards with our neighbors Nick, Jen and Lily, and with Jay, Erin and Kendall. Lucky Ben, he always seems to be the only boy surrounded by cute girls :) (I don't think he fully appreciates that yet). The orchard had all sorts of fun things for kids to do.

"Hey, let's get this thing moving!"

"Whoa, how do I get to that car?"

Ben sized ponies!

"Hey Kendall, do you see what I see?!"


"There's goats on the roof of the barn!!"

Our little pumpkin.



"HAY - Get us down from here!"



"Ewe! Girl germs!"



"Look at me, I'm 2 1/2 feet tall!"

"Riding" the tractor with Daddy.

What a great family fun day!

Eastman Nature Center

Although we've lived in Maple Grove for over 6 years now, we've just recently discovered how cool a place the Eastman Nature Center at the Elm Creek Park reserve is - only a couple miles from our house, free, and the perfect place for a little boy to explore.

Ben and I went for the first time just a couple of weeks ago, along with our friends Nicole and Ethan. They were having a special "Family Activity Day" and had fun activities, like making your own walking stick, seed art, live reptiles to check out, making cider, and an obstacle course. Those little boys were in heaven!

Can we have this Pumpkin Mommy? Please?

Live animals!

Ben and I had so much fun that first weekend, that we decided to bring Daddy back with us the next weekend. This time we explored the hiking trails behind the center.

Ben got to put his new walking stick to use.

Mommeee, Daddeee, come on!

What's that Daddy?

Shower Downstairs

Ben seems to do something everyday that makes us shake our head and think 'How old are you?! Your not even 2 yet!

For example, not expecting a response, I asked Ben how he was feeling after his first day back at daycare after being sick for two days...he surprised me by answering "I feeling better Mommy". He also shocked us and made us laugh when he asked the waitress at dinner on Saturday night for some more water! How grown up!!

What's really cute to see is him taking a shower. He's decided baths are out, and the shower "downstairs" is in-he relates taking a shower to downstairs so that's what he says when he let's us know he wants to shower and not take a bath.

Such a little guy, taking a shower all by himself!

He even wears a towel like one of the big guys!

He's growing up way too fast!!