October wrap-up

October was both weirdly warm and quite cool at times. We had primarily moved into our fall clothes so the warm days were not as welcome anymore. We have been loving opening the windows and doors and airing out the house without the air conditioning and heat on. What a great time of year!

We've spent tons of time outside, particularly at the neighborhood park. So have a lot of our neighbors and Eleanor has especially loved always being able to find a kid to play with there. Jane is now climbing up the slide and stairs to the slide by herself.

Eleanor has been very into riding her bike this month and has gotten pretty decent at it. We had one incident that was pretty scary for me though. We have these big drainage ditches that line the roads in our neighborhood and some of them are quite deep and paved for better water flow. Eleanor rode her bike to the side of the road when a car was coming and basically rolled straight down the side into one of the deepest ditches in our neighborhood. Thankfully she was wearing a helmet because her head hit the ground pretty hard but she did have a nasty bruise from her pelvis onto her stomach from slamming into the front of her bike. We have mostly forgotten this incident now and I am trying to teach her not to ride all the way to the grass but just to the side of the road now. And as a side note, I fixed the tire on my bike so we were operational again this month.

By coincidence we ran into some friends in Colonial Williamsburg one day. Do you remember this picture of the four babies born last fall? Three of them were there so we took another picture just about a year after the first!

We've occasionally been going to story time at the library, which Eleanor has enjoyed.

One of our little friends turned two and had a birthday party that was locomotion themed.

Jane moved into her big girl carseat and therefore, Eleanor got a new carseat, too.

Here's a random picture of Jane with a friend at church when she got moved up into the big nursery one Sunday.

Eleanor is loving to read these days...

Clifford from Katie Stratton on Vimeo.

Eleanor insisted on coming to "grown-up" church one Sunday. She lasted through about one song before she wanted to go back to her own class.

Jane's hair is getting long enough for pigtails these days!

One of the sweet babies Jane was born with last fall turned one and had a bonfire birthday party. It was such an awesome outdoor party for the kids.