Autumn's Arrival

It really felt like Autumn to me this morning. The temperature was 18 (roughly 60) and it was a skinny jeans and cardigan kind of morning. Arabella and I decided to head to Chapter's to return a duplicate book that we had and when we were there, we decided to pop over to Starbucks. With the rainy, damp and chilly weather this weekend, I was ready for something to warm me up...and Arabella was ready for a pink cake pop! She was very excited...

(she is doing her "CHEEEEEESSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEE" smile in this picture!)
And I was just as exited to see the sign for the Autumn drinks...

All I can say, is that the non-fat, no-whip Pumpkin Spice Latte hit the spot - YUM!

And in keeping with my Autumnal mood, I picked up Martha Stewart's Halloween special publication. There are so many fun things that I want to try from it!

And finally, when we did have some halfway decent weather last weekend, Arabella and I worked on our green thumbs and planted 2 beautiful Mum plants in the planters on the front porch. Thanks for helping Little Bean, they look so pretty!

Thursday's Thoughts

Hearing: The neighbor's air conditioning running (not sure why they have it one, it is the perfect day out) mixed in with the chirp/buzzing of cicadas.

Tasting: Chewy blueberry oatmeal cookies made from scratch and right out of the oven.


Seeing: The blue sky of early fall.

Smelling: See tasting above...I love the smell of the blueberry oatmeal cookies, YUM!

Feeling: Small pangs of sadness...Lori goes home tomorrow, Arabella starts preschool next week and a fight happened that shouldn't have.

Arabella & Giacomo

After music class yesterday since the weather was horrible, Arabella and I decided to head over to Zig Zag Zoo and meet up with a few of our friends. Zig Zag Zoo is a great indoor play area for kids where they can run all round, climb, slide and burn off energy and where mom can relax and enjoy a coffee and girl time with her friends. Arabella loves it, she runs off with her friends and then will come back and check in every so often to say Hi and grab a quick drink or snack and then she is off again. We spent about 3 hours there yesterday and when we left, she was wiped out! Right before we left, she and Giacomo (a/k/a GiGi) decided that they wanted to take a ride on the jeep. It was so adorable and thankfully Cynthia had her iPhone and was able to snap these super cute pics! When I asked her when we were driving if GiGi was her boyfriend (like she even knows what that is) she responded with "Sure", it was so cute.

Fall Clean-up

Since this is our first Fall here, we had no idea what it would be like when we started to clean up the yard in preparation for the snow that is sure to come. And, we have lucked out when it comes to having to rake leaves, unlike some of our neighbors who have tons of trees and have been out doing yard work every weekend now for what seems like the past 6 weeks. Since all we have in the back yard is pine trees, there was no raking that had to be done. And we only have 5 other trees that will drop leaves and they are all fairly close to one another in our front and side yards so it was pretty easy to do all the raking. When the raking was done and the piles of leaves had been made, Arabella had a blast playing in them!

Skating With Dad

Arabella has been doing good with her skating lessons even though she only lasts about 15 or 20 minutes of the 30 minute lesson. Usually she will say "All done, too hard" and we explain to her that it is hard since she is learning, but that over time it will get easier for her. She also asks for Jay to skate with her sometimes instead of me, so this week, he broke down and went and bought new hockey skates! Yesterday, he went on the ice with her and she had fun, but when she was done, she was done.





Hopefully, now that they have the rink up at our neighborhood park and once the ice is ready, we can go up and practice when we want. It still boggles my mind that a town park would take on the liability of having a skating rink that is unsupervised and open all the times on public property...must be the litigator in me!

Fuzzy Friend

While doing fall yard cleanup, I found a fuzzy caterpillar. As soon as I showed it to Arabella, she got all excited and wanted to hold it. When I put it in her hand, he started to walk around and she immediately said, "It tickles", it was so adorable. We made him a home in a large container based upon some research that I did online. That was about 3 weeks ago and we still have the fuzzy caterpillar and he is still alive. We keep his "home" outside by our back entry and every so often, she will check on him. This morning while I was getting ready, she was outside with Jay and she decided to bring him inside and upstairs to show me. She just picked him right up and held it so gently in her hand. It melted my heart when she was holding him and talking a mile a minute about "mine fuzzy caterpillar".

Thursday's Thoughts

Hearing: The sounds of Fall yard cleanup - leaf blowers and rakes in the yard outside (and as soon as I am done with this post, I will out there raking as well).

Tasting: Pomegranate seeds, I love this time of year when they are in season!

Seeing: The hokey rink being put up where the tennis courts used to be at the neighborhood park...I guess that is a sure sign that Winter is coming!

Smelling: Beef stew that I have made for Jay and Arabella from scratch...they will be enjoying it while I am at yoga tonight.

Feeling: That great (at least for me) pain in your muscles when you know you have had a good workout. I love that feeling!

Trick-or-Treat

Tonight was Arabella's first true Trick-or-Treat night. Sure she went last year, but it was only to a few houses. But tonight, she was very excited to put on her costume and brave the 36 degree temperatures in order to round up some candy! Lori (80's Rocker chick) and I (Lady Gaga) also dressed up so we could tag along with our Butterfly Princess! Arabella had so much fun and when we thought she was done and we arrived back home, she wanted Jay to take her out to a few more houses. When she got home, she dumped her loot on the kitchen floor and I would say that she received more than enough candy for a 2 year old and her dad! I am sure they will both enjoy it tomorrow! We all had a fun night and now Arabella is sure to be dreaming of all her candy treats!

Snow & Pumpkins

Last night while carving pumpkins, Mother Nature gave us an early taste of Winter. The rain that we had been having off and on all day had turned into snow, yes, SNOW on October 30th! Earlier in the day, I had joked with Lori that the rain might turn into snow, next time, I am not going to joke about it. It is way too early to be having snow! When we were done carving, we took the pumpkins outside and Arabella was so excited to see the snow. We had to let her play in it! I think she is going to have a fun Winter based on her reaction last night!





Granted it wasn't a lot of snow, but this was still the scene we woke up to this morning!

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween festivities started last week. Arabella has been very excited about getting dressed up and decorating. Last week, we had a really warm day and she helped Jay put up cobwebs around the back door and she enjoyed adding spiders.




Auntie Lori arrived on Thursday to come help us celebrate Halloween. And on Friday morning, Arabella got to wear her first costume at Mom & Tots. We had a fun time at our playgroup and it was so cute to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes.





She has loved wearing her princess dress. We have certainly got our money's worth out of it, she wears it all around house and gets so excited when she puts it on, it just is the cutest thing. She wore the dress all day long Friday, even during her nap. On Friday night, we went to Hudson to take part in their Halloween party. On the way, we saw one of the most beautiful sunsets, it was the perfect Halloween sky.


Yesterday, we baked cookies and carved pumpkins. Arabella had fun making the cookies even if they were just place and bake (I took the easy way out this holiday).



This was the first year that Arabella was able to enjoy carving pumpkins. She helped me draw the face on hers by telling me the shapes that she wanted for the eyes and nose. She was so cute when she was taking the seeds out, she kept using the spoon and didn't really like to stick her hand inside, she kept saying "Yuck"! We had so much fun creating out Jack-o-Lanterns and they came out great!

PUMPKINS!

For some strange reason, I wasn't able to upload this last night so I had to give it another try tonight since it is too cute not to share. Needless to say, Arabella is getting very excited for Halloween!

Pumpkin Picking

Yesterday, we braved the cold and headed to the pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins. I figured we had better go this weekend since Halloween is coming up and I was afraid if we waited until this weekend, there would be no good pumpkins left. It was freezing cold, and I really mean that, it was so cold you could see your breath!! Never, in all the times I have gone pumpkin picking have I seen my breath! I was sure happy that I bundled Arabella and I up. I only wish I had long johns on! The cold ride out to the patch! Nonetheless, we had a fun tractor ride out to the pumpkins and as soon as we were off the tractor, Arabella took off for the pumpkins! There were a lot to choose from and it was nice that most of the vines had been cleared. Usually we are tripping all over them and you have to remember to bring something to cut the vines with. We were able to pick out a few good sized ones and then 2 smaller ones. Arabella was very excited to pick out our pumpkins for us. And today when we got home from errands and such, she had to go out and check on the pumpkins! It was so adorable.