Turkey Day

While most people have turkey for Thanksgiving, we took it a step further and had turkeys over for Thanksgiving. Colin was not a big fan of eating turkey but he enjoyed having breakfast with them. We were at my parents house in Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving this year and their property backs on to some woods. They enjoy feeding the animals and it is not uncommon that a deer or two are out back. Recently, a rafter of turkeys started visiting my parents. I bet you didn't know that is what a group of turkeys are called. They may be good eating but they are truly ugly, large birds so I decided not to put a picture on the web site. Would you believe there were about 14 birds out back in the morning? Colin was very intrigued.

The rocking chair below was my mothers and apparently I used it as a small tot as well. Here is Colin trying the chair on for size. Colin really enjoyed playing with his grandparents and soaking up all of their undivided attention.

Fun and Games

Since Kristin and I are both working full time, we really try to spend some good quality time with Colin before he has to go to bed each evening. He is often very tired after a long day of day care but he still really wants to play. The games he seems to enjoy the most are just silly little things. For example, these yellow balls were "won" by his dad due to his unique skill at golf. You see, yellow balls might be easier to find when you hit them in the brush as often as I do. They are just little foam balls but Colin loves throwing them or dunking them into the trash can. He can sit in his chair and throw the balls time and time again as we fetch them. Sometimes he even attempts to fake us out with some misdirection throws.

Maybe this is a sign of an early interest in golf. Look out Tiger Woods.

Boustos!

I am a little behind on the blog again. With the excitement of Halloween documented in the last blog entry, we missed talking about our visit to New Jersey to see Nick and Liz DiProspero and their two boys. This was a quick trip up to Northern NJ to spend some time with my college roommate and his family. Colin had a great time playing will all of the toys in the basement. It is hard to say at his age how much he was actually playing with Peter and Andrew. The adults enjoyed Nick's new toy of his movie theater experience. Watch DVD's at home just like the movies with their HD projection system on one entire wall of the basement.

I know this isn't the best picture of the boys, but we just remembered to get a picture at the last minute and Colin did not feel like sitting still. I told the boys to all cry like Colin. Andrew on the left gave us his best fake cry, but Peter was trying to settle everyone down and get things back into control. Thanks for trying Peter.

First Time Trick-or-Treating

Colin had a great time his first time out trick-or-treating! He really took to it like a fish to water. Colin is a very strong willed little boy and he did not want to be carried up to the houses. He wanted to walk up himself carrying his pumpkin just like the older boys and girls. This slowed down the process a bit, so we did not get a big haul of candy, but he did get a lot of attention at each house. Besides he hasn't really had candy and he loves attention.

We visited about 7 or 8 houses and felt that was good enough for him to get the experience and then we went home to see all of our trick-or-treaters. Apparently, Colin was not of the same opinion and he grabbed his pumpkin and headed out for more (by himself if need be). After doing this a couple of times and chasing after him, I finally realized he was not going to call it a night that early so we had to hit a couple of more houses. I think we are in big trouble for the next several Halloweens.

In case it is not obvious from the pictures. Colin went as Pooh's favorite side-kick, the famous Tigger.

Pumpkin' Pickin'

The weekend before last, Colin, Kristin and I headed to the farm to pick out our pumpkin for Halloween. The place we visited was called Ramsey's Farm and they had a number of kid friendly activities. We met another family at the farm and we enjoyed exploring the corn maze. It wasn't too hard to get turned around in the maze but we managed to find our way out. Colin managed to not quite put everything he picked up into his mouth.

Giant Pumpkins

Here is a Bonus Blog post this weekend, so remember that when I miss a week. These pictures are from our visit last weekend to Longwood Gardens for their pumpkin festival. There was a contest for the largest pumpkins and then some carving exhibitions of the aforementioned giant pumpkins. Who knew that pumpkins could exceed 1,000 lbs? The carvings were really quite astounding!

Colin tried to push this giant pumpkin home for his jack-o-lantern but these darn kids would not get off.

Go Steelers!

We have not mentioned it so far this season, but you may be wondering if Colin is still pulling for his favorite team, the Steelers. At his birthday, he received some new outfits from his Grandparents in Pittsburgh to show his support. The Steelers are off to a good start at 4-1 and this week that take on the Bengals. Here is hoping the Bengals continue their losing ways.

Incidentally, we are convinced that he understands "Touchdown Steelers" and knows to put his arms in the air. The Steelers football that sings and talks is a big hit. Tomorrow the Steelers are finally playing again during the day so we can watch the game together.