Awesome Autumn!

I love, love, love fall and the weather has been pretty stellar! Sunday, Bo and I carved and decorated our pumpkins. David helped Bo use the little saw pumpkin knife to carve the big pumpkin. Next year I can see Bo being able to carve all by himself! 

Bo scooping out the pumpkin.

The finished products

Ava had fun watching the craving. 

Yesterday, we lived it up outside. Since Ava is walking and is getting around pretty good, we can all go outside and have fun! It was neat to see how you don't have to teach kids to jump in a pile of leaves. I raked some leaves up and both Bo and Ava flopped right into them. 

Bo flopping in the leaves

Ava's first time playing in the sandbox.

She loved it!

"I'm not eating sand! hehehe"

Just a'swinging!

I finally found a trick to get Bo to smile for pictures - tell him to say, "Hi" to Naomi Manthe. That gets him to smile every time!

It's Good to Be 1!

On Tuesday Ava turned one. So far, from 1-2 is my favorite age. They start doing all kinds of fun things and are interested everything, without the terrible two's tantrums. 

We started out birthday girl's day with a little morning lounging. 

Bo trying out Ava's sunglasses. 

Ava sneaking up the stairs. She saw me coming and gave me this look. I love it!

Good morning birthday girl!

Ava has been taking more and more steps every day. Last night she was almost walking across the living room!

Ava's smash cake

LASHES! 

 My camera's lens is broken, so it will only work in manual focus (which is really hard to shoot in). My uncle who is a professional photographer stepped in and took the rest of these great photographs. He was a lifesaver! 

Just starting to dig in

"This is pretty good!"

Shoveling it in

"Do you want some?"

Ava did a number on her cake

She couldn't wait until it was out of the box to ride it!

 We had a great time! Thank you to all of our family who helped us celebrate! 

A Jacket and A Budding Photographer

I've been obsessed with sewing lately and I found the CUTEST patterns, one of which was a motorcycle jacket for Bo. It wasn't too technically difficult but it was my first time cutting out and using a pattern (all by myself). I need to work on finishing, but I think for my first attempt it turned out pretty good! 

Front of jacket. I now know why the Amish don't use zippers - they don't like  sew them in! Just kidding! (kinda)

A lot of the work was the stitching details. 

Lounging in his jacket

It's good for riding a "cycle"

You can also laugh in it

And do some work

Ava watching brother's photo shoot

Long legs

 The next couple of photos were taken by Bo. In exchange for posing for photos, he got to take a few. He did a pretty good job!

A finished Pinterest project!

I've done several Pinterest projects, but this is the first one I've taken pictures of as I worked on it. This was supposed to be a necklace holder (and still may) by adding drawer pulls, but it turned out so pretty I don't know if I can bring myself to poke holes in it. I like it enough to hang it on the wall as art! Which wall I'm not sure but I'm sure I could find a place. 

Old cardboard print with gold frame from a garage sale. 

I had all the supplies on hand (that's the main reason I choose this project). Scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, paint, scissors, and paint brush. 

I painted it black. It covered well after 2 coats. While the paint dried, I cut out the paper pedals. 

I laid the design out and moved it around until I liked the way it looked.

I Mod Podged the whole thing. The paint was flat and the Mod Podge glossy, so I covered the whole thing. If I were to do this again, I would put Mod Podge on the back side of the pedals before covering the front to decrease wrinkling. 

The finished project!

Omaha and Misc.

We took a short trip (left Saturday morning, got back Sunday afternoon) to Omaha to visit the zoo. We got to Omaha on Saturday morning and went straight to The Durham Museum. It was a train museum in the old Omaha union station. Bo LOVES trains so I thought he would really like it. They had Sue the T-Rex on display, which was neat. I didn't think Bo would like it, but he actually thought it was really cool. The museum also had several train cars that you could go inside of, plus a model train. Overall, it was not as neat as I thought and I think next time we will go to the Children's Museum instead. We still had a nice time though. 

Bo loved the model train

Riding in the train with Dad

Can you tell how tired Bo is?

The next morning we got up and headed to the zoo. The weather was AMAZING! It was overcast and nice and cool. We got there when they opened up and there were still a lot of people waiting to go in, but I'm still glad we went in the morning. By the time we left at 1pm the ENTIRE parking lot was full!

There were a lot of animals that Bo really liked but I think his favorite was the bears. That was the only animal he wanted to see before we went and that's the favorite animal he says he saw. 

Bo was more interested in the kids climbing than taking a picture. 

This gorilla was really close and as he moved toward Bo, he got a little scared!

The polar bear and the penguins were probably Bo's favorites of the whole day. 

Again, this bear was really close. Bo loved it, but was a little unsure. 

Ava enjoyed riding around and spent some time napping. Next time we go I'm sure she'll stay awake the whole time. 

Bo riding on a turtle

Bo and mommy going across the rope bridge in the rain forest.

Here are just some random pictures from recently. 

Big boy with a big boy haircut!

Playing 

Sis

The older they get, the closer in age they look

Ava's first pedicure