Veterans Day

Harrison was born almost exactly nine months after Jeff came home from Afghanistan (pretty funny, huh).  Right after he was born Jeff bought him this little Army uniform.  We only had to wait four years for it to fit, but when it finally did, I knew I wanted some pictures of them together in uniform.  My goal was to have these done by Veterans Day but we were a little late.  My heart can't express what my family and my country mean to me.

 And finally, we had to get one with Leo.  We'll do these same pictures with Leo in a few years when the uniform fits him.

Leo's Adoption Day!

Leo's adoption was finalized on November 18, 2013.  We celebrated his special day by first letting him pick what I made for breakfast.  He wanted monkey bread which he got to eat off of the star of the day plate.

 When Jeff got home Leo got his little gifts:  a tee ball set, Mickey Mouse balloon and new Curious George DVD.  He was thrilled with all of it.

 This video captures how Leo is most of the time, happy, laughing and having fun.

fall leaves

For the last month we have been raking leaves and the boys have been playing in them.  Last weekend we managed to bag most of them except for the ones that are still falling.  There was a lot of playing but they also helped quite a bit.

school picture

I know that I am biased, but 

Harrison is just the most handsome almost four year old preschooler!!

touch a boat

The maritime museum brought in a bunch of different kinds of boats for the kids to look at and explore.  It was a lot of fun.

The Coast Guard boat was their absolute favorite.  They spent 30 minutes on that one and would have stayed longer if I hadn't made them move along.  This boat had the most buttons to push and things where they could play act.

Harrison was on the radio responding to emergency calls and telling Leo where to take the boat and what they needed to do.  It was cute.

One of Leo's favorite things was swinging in this hammock inside a boat and swinging Harrison in it.

excavator

When we left in the morning there were 8 dump trucks, this big excavator and some other miscellaneous equipment fixing the road a block from our house.  When we came back from school they were all leaving.  We quickly ran down to see if they would let the boys look at the excavator.  I have yet to meet a big machine operator who wasn't happy to let the kids examine the equipment and ask them a bunch of questions.

trampoline fun

Preschool and playgroup were cancelled on election day so we needed to find something else to do.  I had heard that this indoor trampoline playground had a special toddler time on Tuesdays so we tried it out.  The boys had a ton of fun with no injuries except for Leo banging heads with his friend Lizzie.  He cried for about 10 seconds and then was ready to go back.

Halloween fun

Jeff drew pictures on all our pumpkins.  Leo wanted the rat from Lady and the Tramp on his.  He loves that pumpkin.  Harrison wanted a firetruck on his.

We went to Colonial Williamsburg for trick-or-treating on the 30th.  I thought it would be something fun and different we could do.  They even had special accommodations for kids with food allergies (the teal pumpkin project).  It was nice not to have to worry about Leo's candy.

I was surprised how many people went up to Harrison and thanked him for his service.  He was confused and didn't know what to say.  We told him to just say thank you.

candy break

Harrison enjoyed being in the stocks... Leo not so much.

Between the preschool parade, playgroup, church party and Colonial Williamsburg, we had plenty of candy.  So we stayed home to pass out candy on Halloween.  The boys loved it!  They loved all the kids coming to our door, all the costumes and getting to put the candy in the bags.  Here's their friend Lizzie who was one of our 40 something trick-or-treaters.