Halloween Countdown Day 1

I decided to stick to our new tradition that I started last year of doing a Halloween countdown the week leading up to Halloween.  For day 1 of our countdown on Monday I finished sewing Claire's Halloween costume (pictured above) in the morning just in time for our activity for the day.  Claire's costume is Goldilocks and Bryce, Rory, and I are dressing up as the 3 bears.  Later in the afternoon Claire and I went to the Enchanted Treehouse event at the Treehouse Museum with my friend and her two girls.  It was a little Halloween event where all of the kids dressed up and got to play at all of the different exhibits freely.  It was our first time going to the Treehouse Museum and we loved it!  
Claire found this giant bear and wouldn't stop hugging it!  It was pretty cute and quite fitting with her costume ;).

Making pretend cookies with her friend Brielle.

Claire made sure to crawl through every tunnel she could find several times each.

Trying to get a picture with all three toddlers looking at the camera at the same time is near impossible haha!

Playing in the pretend classroom.

Creating food chains in the dinosaur room.

Playing some life size chess.

Claire loves puppies and would not stop hugging and playing with the dalmatian. 
Feeding a baby in the nursery.

Our little budding scientist examining slides.

Exploring the USA.

And one more attempt at a shot of all three girls....haha.

On our way out they handed out a little treat bag with fruit snacks, a granola bar, a halloween cup & mini coloring book to each of the kids.  Claire was getting tired and hungry at this point so she was ecstatic about the treats haha.  We had so much fun!  We will for sure be going back again.  There is so much to do there, its a place you could spend all day in!

Black Island Farms

I've been wanting to go to Black Island Farms for the past few years and we've never made it there until this year.  The only night Bryce had off work was Thursday last week so we decided to go as soon as he was done with school.  He got home around 6 so we didn't get there as early as I would have liked but we still had lots of fun.  It was getting dark already by the time we bought our tickets and got into the courtyard so I didn't get a ton of great pictures, but they work well enough to remember the fun outing.
We played around in the courtyard first and let Claire do the bounce house, tires, slides, corn pit, and cow train.  She loved it and had so much fun running around everywhere.
She would've gone down the slide a hundred times if we let her.  We took her on the big slide with us later but didn't get any pictures since it was too dark.
She thought the corn pit was pretty fun but she did not do well listening to my many many requests to not throw.
Claire and I rode together on the cow train and Bryce sat in the car behind us.  Claire loved riding the train and kept shouting "Woo hoo!" the entire ride.
After the courtyard activities we decided to do the cornmaze.  It was getting really cloudy and looked like a storm was coming in.  I was a little worried about taking Claire into the maze incase we got lost in there and it started raining but Bryce insisted he checked the weather and it was not supposed to rain.  We wandered around for a while and got ourselves really deep in the maze when it started to get really windy.  I started getting a little anxious and keep telling Bryce we needed to get out before it started raining.  Bryce told me to calm down and that we'd be fine.  We pulled out the map and tried to figure out where we were at so we could find a way out.  After a few wrong turns and more anxiety on my part Bryce figured out where we were (at the very opposite edge of the maze from the entrance).  Bryce followed the map the rest of the way and led us out within a few minutes. I was extremely relieved to be back out of the maze.  It wasn't super late yet so we decided to take Claire down the big slide before we left.  I took her down first and then Bryce took her down.  Bryce was taking Claire down the slide a second time and right when they were at the top of the slide it started pouring rain.  They quickly slid down and we ran to the barn area to wait out the rain for a few minutes.  At this point I was even more grateful we got out of the cornmaze when we did.  We would have been soaked and Claire would have been freezing if we were still in there!  The rain died down after a few minutes and we headed out to our car.  We picked up Chinese take out for dinner and headed home.  Despite getting rained out and only getting a short visit there we had a blast.  We are definitely planning to go again next year and hopefully can make a longer evening out of it when Bryce's schedule won't be as crazy with work and school. 

Portrait 42.52

Playing in the leaves.

"A portrait of my daughter once a week, every week, in 2015."

Playing in the Leaves

Last week I started raking some leaves to clean up the yard a little.  Claire had different ideas and thought I was just making piles for her to play in :).  I grabbed my camera and let her have at it, even if it meant more work in the long run for me.
Claire giggled, jumped, and ran through the leaves all afternoon.  Seeing how much fun she had made it far worth it to have to rake twice.  She is my best little buddy, even when she gets sick of me taking her pictures.

Portrait 41.52

Snuggling with Rory watching Room on the Broom.

"A portrait of my daughter once a week, every week, in 2015."

Goodbye Post to our Very First Apartment

We've been living in our new upstairs apartment for about two weeks now and I'm finally getting around to doing a little goodbye post to our first apartment.  Bryce and I moved into our first apartment, a little basement, in March of 2012 right after we were married.  We've lived in it for the past 3 1/2 years and have made so many special memories there.  Here are a few pictures of the apartment I took a few weeks before we moved out:
First up is the kitchen.  This is where you walked into when going into the apartment.  The kitchen was tiny but it worked well for our little family while we were there.  
Next is the dining area attached to the kitchen and living room.  It was a perfect spot for our beautiful dining table Bryce built.

Then the living room is attached to the dining area.  We also had our desk/office area in the corner of the living room.    
After the living room is a little hallway that leads to the two bedrooms and bathroom.  I didn't post a picture of the hallway as there wasn't much too see haha.

Our tiny little bathroom.  I don't think I'll miss this haha!

Claire's nursery is the bedroom next to the bathroom.  I get a little sentimental thinking about her first nursery that we brought her home from the hospital to.  This room is filled with so many fond memories of rocking and snuggling Claire, hearing her little squeals and giggles, and playing with her for hours on end.

Lastly after Claire's room is our bedroom.  We don't have too much in our bedroom other than the basics, bed, nightstands, dresser, and my cedar chest.  I like a more minimalist feel for our bedroom to keep it a calm soothing room.   

I will miss our little basement apartment just a little, but I love our new upstairs apartment and I am so excited for all of the memories we will make here too!