Ewoks on Halloween

I hope everyone had a safe, happy Halloween!  Christopher and I have never done much.  We usually just go to a friend's house for a quiet evening or hand out candy.  Eliot is too young for candy, so we decided to dress him up and hand out candy like usual.  I couldn't resist the urge to dress Eliot as an ewok.  And I must say that he made a pretty cute one.

Don't worry.  Eliot was only sockless and shoeless for a few quick photos out front in the sunshine.

After some work, we took Eliot over to see his great grandmother Glenna.  Alzheimer's aside, we knew she wouldn't know what the heck he was if we told her that he was an ewok, so I put Eliot's new owl hat on him.  The fuzzy chest and belly worked great as a fluffy owl.  Pretty cute, huh?  I almost can't decide which outfit I like better!

 

Back home to prepare for trick-or-treaters.  Our neighborhood is kind of small, so we only had about five groups come by.  By then, Eliot was getting chilly, ripping his hat off, and more interested in crawling around, so we went inside to watch Return of the Jedi.

I've been thinking lately that our days must seem kind of ho-hum.  I suppose a lot of people might find our Halloween to be disappointing without any parties or late nights.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  I get to spend lots of time with my husband and baby.  Chris and I never really took part in activities that aren't baby-friendly anyway, so everything is just so much more fun with Eliot around.

Parents' Weekend

We got back to Lynchburg just in time for Christopher's parents to come for Elizabeth's parents' weekend at school!  There were a lot of possessives in that sentence concerning parents.  Anyway, Elizabeth's parents' weekend at college actually meant that I got to hang out with my in-laws, which is pretty exciting.

The weather turned quite cold very fast.  Eliot wore his peacoat for the second time and probably the first time that he actually needed it.  We had dinner at Harbor Inn, which is always an experience.

This morning, we all went to church.  I was honestly kind of worried because Eliot is continually growing more and more separation anxiety-y.  When Chris or I leave the room, he cries.  When he catches a glimpse of us, he screams.  Sometimes he won't even stand to let us sit next to him.  That isn't enough; he must be held.  Other times he will just take off crawling to the next room without a second thought and pull all of his books down, happily talking to himself.  It's all a phase, I'm sure, but he did quite all right in the nursery today anyway.

After lunch, we picked up Elizabeth's boyfriend and Christopher's grandmother for lunch.

I look just a little bit crazy here, but that is OK.

We headed back to our house where Chris looked after Eliot and I did some serious work writing out notes for a course.  Then his parents were off back to Woodbridge!  Chris and I headed to Target to pick out a car seat for Eliot.  His current one was driving me a little bit crazy.  I guess he could stay in it longer, but he seemed ready to move out and up into a stage two seat.  Hopefully, it will mean less awkward twisting for me and more of a "big boy" feel for Eliot.  If I could do it over, I would have just gotten him a smaller infant one.  His infant carrier goes up to 32 pounds, but here he is at 18 and half pounds moving on out.

I know that I wrote previously that Eliot was standing more on his own, but here is a little bit of proof for you.  All by himself, no support and no help up!

Tomorrow is Halloween!  I totally forgot.  We need to carve that pumpkin!  Perhaps tomorrow.

Morris Orchard

Christopher and I wanted to find a nice pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins this year.  Last year, we didn't have much luck finding a farm, but we had to do something special for Eliot.  Everyone seems to be going to Layman's this year, but fifty minutes is kind of far with Eliot.  Somehow Chris stumbled upon Morris Orchard, which was just thirty minutes away and very awesome!

The orchard has rolling hills, goats, a donkey, apples, pumpkins, and mountain views.  I wish I could have taken more photos of the farm itself, but it was quite windy and I forgot Eliot's mittens.  Eliot is no fan of winds.

My favorite part, perhaps, was that you could go to the pumpkin patch itself to pick your own.  It was a little bit of a walk, but they even offered wagons to carry the pumpkins and our little guy.  Eliot picked out his own little pumpkin, we picked out one to carve, and we also bought a couple of French pumpkins to cook.

When we went to go pay, we ran into my OB doctor, which was kind of interesting since she got to meet Eliot after providing months and months of prenatal care.  She didn't deliver Eliot because she wasn't on call that evening--or morning when he actually came.

Oh, the cuteness!

Some days I'm ready to pack up and move home to Chesapeake.  Some days I think it'd be better to move someplace in the "middle" so that we are between both sets of Eliot's grandparents.  Then there are the days, like today, when the mountains are amazing and I wish I could own a small farm to grow my food, bake my bread, give snacks to goats, and run a rabbit sanctuary that rescues and rehabilitates bunnies from humane societies.  You can't have it all.  In the end, I just wish we were closer to our families.