Halloween. . . Cowboy Style

We had a ball trick-and-treating with our little cowboy. We wrastled up some loot from our neighbors and many took pictures of him as he rode his make-shift horse into the sunset. Father's drooled as they realized that we didn't have to carry our cowboy around from house to house. We learned from last year.

He definitely played the part by tipping his hat at many of the little princesses, fairies and some of the mothers too. He rode with one hand resting ontop of another upon the horn of his saddle and was quite serious about his job as a tough wrangling cowboy. What a kid!

Thomasson Farm

Last weekend we met up with our good friends, the Coffmans, and played at the Thomasson Farm out in Enumclaw. This was the best farm/pumpkin patch! There were so many activities for kids and the younger kidlets even had their own Kid Korral. There was a smaller Korn Maze, Redneck Sandbox (an old hottub inserted into the ground filled with sand), slides old farm equipment, & Gabriel's favorite were the saw horses painted and dressed up like a horse and a cow. The horse had a real saddle on it and a rope for ropin' the cow and drawing him in. Then outside of the Korral, they built a Korn Box with bales of hay and filled it with dried corn kernals for the kids to jump and play in. Gabe would jump and come up with a kernal or two stuck in his nose! We bumped along on a hayride and they even made a train with converted plastic barrels pulled behind a tractor. It was SO much fun!

Cloud Mountain Farm

At the beginning of October, we visited my parents up in Bellingham. It's that time of year, that I remember as a kid, where we would pick up apples and process them through our cider press in the freezing cold! This year, we recruited Gabe's help to pick up any fallen apples so that we could bring them home and make cinnamon applesauce. Yum! We also picked walnuts that were not so ripe yet, but we could break them open to show Gabe the nut on the inside. The picture of Gabe sitting in the tree is going to be a "milestone" tree for me. I have a picture of my brother and I sitting in this tree when we were kids. So now, I'll be taking pictures of my kid (down the road kids) each year on this same branch. My parents also took us up to Cloud Mountain Farm where everything is grown organically and open to the public. Gabe got to pick out a pumpkin from the patch, decorate a mini-terracotta pot with paint pens and plant lavendar inside. It was georgeous, cold and crisp. All of these things are so much more fun now that I get to be the parent and watch my son play around my parents' farm, run through the fields, and venture out to the pumpkin patch to choose just the right pumpkin.

Pullayup Fair

At the end of September we played at the Pullayup Fair. The rides created some fun memories, especially when Gabe decided to exercise his independence. He had to sit in an airplane all by himself, and he had to sit on side with the guns. We told him that if he sat on the other side, then he could make his plane go up in the air. His determination to stay put captured some priceless expressions as he found that his plane stayed low to the ground. Mike and I also had the chance to go to the Toby Mac & Third Day concert later that evening. Gabe went home with Grandma and Mike and I were left to our evening out. The concert was amazing. We had great seats, but we took pictures of the big screen to snag a closer shot of both artists.