October trip to the Pumpkin Patch

This is the second year that Mama has taken us to the pumpkin patch during her fall break. It was a bit chilly, but the sun was out and we all had a great time!

This was the tractor ride out the pumpkin patch. They didn't bother telling us that the only pumpkins left in the patch were split and yucky, so we just walked around and didn't pick any.

There was a fine selection of pumpkins pre-picked. Jordon got to ride in the cart. It's amazing how much heavier he is to hold when he's wearing an extra pair of pants and a jacket!

There was an apple orchard there too. Brandon liked looking at all the apples that had fallen on the ground. He also really liked watching them bottle up apple cider!!

Uncle Rob's Visit

Rob was able to visit for a weekend. Brandon and Jordon enjoyed playing with him.

Notice how Brandon is charging at Rob.

We'll see if Brandon ever grows at tall as Rob. He's taller than most kids in his class, but only time will tell if he's got the Smith height genes!

Brandon hammered this bird house together all on his own. It's part of this really kit that Home Depot offers for free on the first Saturday of everything month. This was our first time going and we'll definitely be going back. Brandon got an apron, which he called an apricot. He couldn't wait to come home and paint it all green.

He's a very careful painter. He covered it with a dark green and bright green and now displays it proudly in his room--too bad birds!

Happy 1st Birthday Jordon!

He sure did a good job destroying his cake; however, he was a little too full to eat any of it. Yep, that's right, he didn't taste one bite of the cake-just tore it apart.

(it's carrot cake with raisins in case you were curious)

Brandon wrapped up a drum and gave it as a gift.

I think he likes the truck!

He couldn't decide what toy to play with...the drum or the truck..both so fun!

I think we all agree that it was a great birthday!

a visit from Nini

A sing-a-long. If you look carefully they all have guitars and were all singing loudly!

Brandon loves working on projects with Nini. She came for Jordon's birthday and got to stay a whole a week. Turns out, Brandon is a great painter. He helped us paint some bookshelves and did a very careful job.

A lesson in planting bulbs.

It'll be fun to look for the blooms in the spring. Nini should be back for a visit right about the time they are starting to break though, so that should be fun for them to see together.

Jordon is getting pretty good at walking with his little hippo toy. He is so proud of himself when he walks. He'd much rather walk "by himself" with the hippo than walk while holding on to people's hands. I guess he's an independent explorer.

Big Dreams from a Little Boy

The quality of this photo isn't that great, but to me it's priceless. This was how Brandon fell alseep for his nap. So cute. He is so excited about baseball right now and so this photo certainly captures him at this stage of life.

First day of Preschool!

I just love this. I told Brandon I wanted to take his picture so we could remember the first day of Preschool and this is what he did. (It's his baseball stance.)

This was his next pose.

He went right in his classroom and started playing with play-doh. (Perfect ploy to get them in the room.) His teacher is Mrs. Haas and she's very nice. He will rotate between the three pre school teachers to learn Language Arts, Math & Science. And another teaches Music & Movement. He's going to be bored when he gets to Kindegarten!

Our weekend at the Beach!

This was our only family picture that we had taken on our long weekend to Union Pier, Michigan. We went with our friends The McClure's who have a boy Brandon's age and a daughter who's 6 months old. We had a great time at the beach and hope to do it again next year.

Brandon loved the sand. He frolicked in it all day long!

Throwing rocks was a course one of the highlights as well!

Jordon's biggest 5 mintues!

This was Jordon in his hospital gown and little footies. We had to wait in this little room for quite awhile before they took him back to get tubes in his ears. I guess that turned out to be a good thing, because I was assuming that it would be difficult for me to turn him over to the nurse when it was time to go. But as it turned out, I was actually relieved to hand him over. Keeping a 10 month old happy can be difficult when he's not allowed to do anything he normally does, like crawl everywhere and explore. Pete and I just kept passing him back and forth trying to give him as much action as possible while still in our arms.

The surgery was only about 5 minutes long. He was gone from us for a total of 20 minutes. That included the time for the anesthesia before the surgery and the recovery time afterwards. So all in all, it was a very quick and smooth process. So far we can't see much of a difference in him, but that's fine. I'm just glad to have it done before another cold/flu season starts.

He won over all the hospital staff with his hilarious hair that morning.

I didn't take any photos after the surgery because they are mostly of him sleeping and eating. In fact, one nurse commented on how she's was impressed at his skills to be both eating and sleeping at the same time. That's our boy!!!!

Jordon with a banana stuck on his head.

You can't start chores too early!

Brandon actually offered to take the last bag of trash out to the curb last week. I certainly didn't turn down his offer and I hope to encourage his helpfulness by a little deposit into Mr. Piggybank.

A lot of time and events have happened since our last post. Unfortunately all the pictures of our travels have been with another camera and those files are a bit big for this blog. So it'll take me awhile to have the time to resize all the photos, but I hope to do that as soon as I can. Until then, I will post some photos of things happening around here so far in the month of August.

Brandon was so proud to be helping Daddy. He knew it was extra special when he saw me taking his picture! He also was real excited to have grass stained shoes like Daddy too!

Too cute!

Today Brandon and I went to the dentist. He did so great!!! The doctor counted his teeth-10 on top and 10 on bottom. And he got them polished. What a big boy!!

This was at a special library program called "Forests and Fairies". We went to the library and a fairy read us several books. Then we walked across the street to the nature center and built a house for forest fairies to live in. (So much for teaching reality-based concepts to our child!) The assignment was to look for natural things in the woods and to build a house out of that. (Of course we were told not to really go into the wood b/c of poison ivy, so we went to the piles of sticks, pine cones and raffia that they already had laid out for us.) Brandon did a great job using his imagination. The pine cones were chairs and he built a fire for the fairies to keep warm at night. He used a piece of moss as the carpeting. Nicely done!

Happy 3rd Birthday Brandon

Here is Bob the Builder decked out with his new hard hat and tool belt. When he's wearing this, he doesn't respond to "Brandon" because he IS "Bob the Builder". If you call him Bob he'll happily respond to you and fix anything you need!

This was his birthday party. Everyone sat down and had a lovely lunch together...hotdogs and juice boxes of course!

One of Brandon's favorite gifts were these squirt guns. (Notice Ella's amazing dress!)

Jordon didn't get jealous of Brandon's gift because he was entertained by this piece of ribbon.

I got these images a bit out of order, but they are more squirt gun shots!

We had our friends, Brad and Sara, come and play guitar and sing kids songs with Brandon and five friends for his 3rd birthday!!

This is Brandon's guitar cake. He was so excited about this and it was certainly the perfect cake for his musical themed birthday party!