Curious George

We spent Halloween in Waterford in the neighborhood where our friends Blain, Sarah, and Trevor live. Their neighborhood is really great for Trick or Treating because most families hang out in their driveway with a fire in a firebox going while they pass out candy, so there is a really neat community feel.

Brandon has been obsessed with Curious George books and the Curious George 2 movie lately, so we thought he would enjoy being a monkey again this year. We even had him wear the same costume from last year. It was a little small but worked out just fine.

And Krzysztof was the Man in the Yellow Hat!

I just put a pumpkin on my belly for my costume. What else can you be with a huge belly sticking out?

Christian (A.K.A. Buzz Lightyear) loved pulling Brandon around the neighborhood in the wagon. Sometimes Trevor rode too.

It didn't take long for Brandon to get the Trick or Treating thing down. He even told everyone "Thank You."

I love that monkey tail hanging out!

In addition to asking for "Donuts and apple juice" everyday, Brandon now asks for candy quite frequently. The other unfortunate consequence of trick or treating is that he can now recognize that all those little packages near store check outs are candy. I guess he was bound to find out eventually! It was a fun Halloween despite those outcomes!

Fall Fun

Here are some pictures of some fun things we have done throughout the fall:

In September we went to Frankenmuth for a night (to use up a free Marriott stay).

We of course went to Zenders for the famous chicken dinner. Fried chicken just tastes better when you are pregnant. :-)

Brandon had fun at Zenders, but our picky eater didn't eat any of their food. He doesn't know what he's missing!

If you seen other recent blog postings, you know Brandon likes to wear our shoes. Well, high heels are included.

The weather was so nice the weekend we were up here, so we walked around the shops a little, and we went to the Cheese Haus, of course.

After Frankenmuth we went up to Au Gres, MI to our friends Mark and Julie's lake house.

It was so beautiful there! The sand was really fine like in South Carolina. And the position on the lake front makes the water really calm and shallow. It was a little chilly for swimming, though.

It almost looks like the Lowcountry of SC to me.

Here are Julie and I with our baby bumps. Julie and Mark have a little girl Chloe who was 10 months old at this time, and she is due with another baby girl 6 weeks after me.

Mark and Krzysztof with one of their dogs Porter. Mark is a fellow homebrewer and has also recently gotten into smoking meat (which KZ is pretty obsessed with lately), so with those interests and having our second babies so close together, we'll probably be seeing a lot of each other.

My mom (Brandon's Mimi) got to visit a couple of times this fall. The weekend she was here in October, the weather was in the high 70's the whole time and sunny! We had a great day at the zoo. Brandon got to ride the brand new carousel at the zoo.

The leaves were at their peak while my mom was here.

Brandon loved reading books and playing with Mimi, which freed me up to get some projects done around the house.

One of the cider mills we have been going to has several little playhouses outside, and Brandon loves to play in them! This led me to search for one on Craigslist, which I found!

He loves to pretend he is cooking inside. He'll bring us all kinds of food that he's cooked.

We had a couple of parties at our house to hang out with our friends before the craziness sets in after the baby is born. One of them was during a Michigan State game. Here are Brandon (Big Brandon...not ours!), Stephanie, and their 2 boys Christian and Tobey.

In order to confuse you a little more, here is Krzysztof with our Brandon and KZ's friend John with his son Brandon. Ready for more craziness? John also has a little girl whose name is Brooke, which is what our baby girl will be named. At this particular party, there was another family there with a son named Brandon, so we had 4 Brandons at one point. We're not trying to name our kids after our friends kids. This was all unintentional by all families!

This is on a hay ride at Three Cedars Farm. It was chilly, but Brandon loved it!

He loved looking at the big wheels on the tractor that pulled us.

Happy Fall!

"Donuts and Apple Juice"

If you ask Brandon what he wants to eat lately, chances are he will reply "Donuts and Apple Juice." Great parenting, huh? Our child at 2 years old knows what donuts are and asks for them daily. We'll it's not as bad as you think. We have been spending a ton of time visiting cider mills in the past 2 months. There are so many cider mills in the Detroit area, and several are just a short drive from our new house. When you visit a cider mill, you get apple cider, of course, but you also have to get a cinnamon sugar donut or 2 to go with it. I'll let Brandon tell you about some of the pictures we've taken at the 2 cider mills we've visited the most often.

This is at Parmenter's Cider Mill in Northville. I'm pretty good at drinking out of a regular cup now!

I love donuts!

Yum!

They have fun things to play on here!

One time my friends came to the cider mill with me! Here I am with Trevor, Tobey, and Christian.

This is at farm that is also a cider mill called Three Cedars Farm.

I really liked milking the pretend cow!

Mimi came with us to the farm while she was here.

They had lots of pumpkins there!

Enough of these pictures! Where are the donuts and apple juice?

July Trip to the Cabin

Another belated post, I know!

At the end of July I gave a Handwriting Without Tears workshop in Greenville, South Carolina. It was funny because the Christian school where I gave the workshop looked so familiar to me. After texting my friend Cori I confirmed that my high school played a basketball tournament there when I was a cheerleader. Small world. I flew to Greenville with Brandon, and my mom met me there. After my workshop we drove to our family's cabin near Highlands, NC where we met up with my dad and spent several days enjoying the mountains and cooler temperatures.

This was on a walk behind the Nature Center in Highlands.

Brandon loves his Papa!

There are few places in the world I'd rather be than sitting in a rocking chair on this porch. It looks like Brandon feels the same way.

A happy boy in the bath!

Brandon loves to be outside, so he naturally loves everything about the cabin because we spend most of the day outside taking walks, playing in the yard, playing in the creek...

Brandon definitely loves his Mimi too!

It was a great trip to the cabin! We are so sad that we live so far from the cabin, and we were sad not to have Krzysztof with us. We'll definitely be back next year!

Our Move to Michigan: July and August

We moved out of our house in Olathe, KS on July 15th.

Here's one last picture of Brandon in front of our house right before we left. We drove from KS to St. Louis to stay for the night. St. Louis is where Krzysztof and I met, and we have so many nostalgic places that we love to visit there. Unfortunately, we didn't have any time to go to any of them.

We did, however spend a few hours at the zoo. Brandon looks pretty excited about those penguins.

The penguin exhibit at the St. Louis zoo is one of best we've ever seen, and the chilled air inside was especially appreciated on this day because it was 95 degress outside. The penguins were just about the only animals in the whole zoo moving around at all.

Here's a worn out Brandon and me with my 22 week baby bump.

We drove from St. Louis to Kalamazoo for the night, and then it was on to Waterford, MI. Our friends Blain and Sarah in Waterford graciously allowed us to stay with them for a whole week until our temporary condo was ready for us to move in. They, along with our other Waterford friends Brandon and Stephanie did tons of babysitting for us while we house hunted with our realtor during that week. I don't know what we would have done without them!

Brandon and Trevor (Blain and Sarah's son who is 6 weeks younger than Brandon) had so much fun playing together all week!

Trevor has a dog at their house, and the boys were very amused by feeding the dog little scraps from their trays. Brandon also found out it is fun to feed Trevor that way too.

This is at Brandon and Stephanie's house. They have 2 boys. Christian is the one pushing Brandon. All of the kids LOVE this car! It is definitely the most sought after toy at this house.

After our stay in Waterford we moved into a small condo in Royal Oak. The Detroit zoo is in Royal Oak, so we became members. They sometimes have evening events for members, and this was at one of them.

Blain, Sarah, Trevor, and Andy and Erica came with us this particular evening. This is inside the polar bear and seal exhibit.

Brandon and Trevor attempting to give each other a hug.

And here they are with the dinosaur masks they gave out to the kids.

This is also at the zoo, on their train! But this is another day when Sarah and I went just with the 2 boys. We really took advantage of our zoo membership! Brandon and I went almost every week while we lived in Royal Oak.

These boys LOVE riding this train!

This is the zoo train on yet another zoo visit...this time with Daddy.

Here's a good indication for you that Brandon is not bypassing typical terrible two behavior. Staying with me when not strapped to a stroller is not his strong suit right now. He often runs off, and he really doesn't care if I follow him or not. On the other hand, he will occasionally just lay down and protest moving any further as you see here.

This is back in Waterford on our friend's pontoon boat.

These boys will probably be driving boats like this before we know it.

There was a neat event for kids in downtown Royal Oak in August. They had all kinds of fire trucks, police cars, mail trucks, tractors, etc. for kids to climb in.

Ok, last zoo picture for a while, I promise. This trip to the zoo was with Kalina (Krzysztof's sister). She was in town with KZ's parents to visit with us and KZ's uncle who was also in town.

We had a nice family gathering with everyone.

We were still living in Royal Oak during the Woodward Dream Cruise, an annual event where people come from all over the country to show off their classic cars and cruise up and down this one highway for a whole week. Our condo just happened to be right off that road, so we were right in the middle of all the action (neat for car watching and people watching...bad for traffic!).

On the Saturday of the Dream Cruise week, the whole area along that stretch of road is transformed with food and store vendors, thousands of spectators on bleachers and risers, stages with bands, and tons more. They had a kid area with things like bounce houses and balloon artists. Brandon love it.

Here's one more picture...this one is inside our condo of our little All Star, ready for a run in Daddy's shoes (with Gigi the monkey).

It's been great to be back in Michigan so far!