Adventures of Fall

Despite the fact that Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and we still continue to have days with 70 degree temps, Fall is officially here. Since moving, we've already tackled lots of landscaping, poison ivy, and mosquitoes. I love this time of year, and over the past few weeks the foliage has been beautiful in our neighborhood. We were however, were in denial about how much work this yard was truly going to be. Before I post this and get a call from Jas-the yard is a lot of work for him. Growing up with all brothers, I have mowed a lawn exactly one time. I do participate in raking and shoveling, but my effort and attention span are limited.

Our neighbors are a mix of DIYers and pay someone else-ers. Never, I repeat ever, will Jason pay someone to mow our lawn, and if he had his druthers he would do all home improvements himself. In fact he sent me a link not that long ago for DIY home painting-exterior, not interior. Sorry as usual I digress...

Since the hurricane people are chopping down trees like crazy around here. Some for safety reasons, some just because people hate the clean up-I kid you not. If you remember from previous posts, my husband would have preferred even more trees, and a house in the middle of nowhere. Well this is what we got, and around here you can't let your yard go. We were told pretty early on that people are crazy about leaves around here. In fact shortly after moving in we heard that the previous owners caught some grief for their lack of leaf maintenance. Oh crap! Nearly everyone that does their own yard work around here has a riding mower with uber-baggers and leaf sweepers. We do not have either... and we have .6 acres and lots of trees. In Baltimore we had one giant oak tree, and its massive limbs dropped enough leaves to cover our entire backyard. We had a privacy fence, so raking was an as you felt like it task. No longer an option! Around here people will be out on days with 20-mile an hour winds just to try to stay ahead of the game.

The Beauty and Beasts of this time of year

Our oak-leafed hydrangea. Some of the leaves are more than a foot across. I want to go out and get more shots, but its raining. I was holding Chase when I took these and would like to get more close-ups

My mom and I raked for a bit while Chase napped the other day. I brought him outside to play in the leaves after he woke up. Hence the sleepy-looking shots...

At first he wouldn't put his hands down

Talking to the leaves

Here's the front. Obviously we still have quite a few trees that still have leaves. You can barely see the grass in the backyard!

Wouldn't it make more sense to wait till all of the leaves fell first? Granted at that point our yard would be an additional few inches high. It's rainy today, so I don't hear any leaf blowing right now-this doesn't mean a break in the weather won't bring out the die hard yardies(probably not a word, but I'm going to start using it) We need to stay in our neighbors good graces-after all we could get some snow in a few short weeks, and without a snow blower we'll need all the help we can get. Maybe I should start buttering them up with some treats:)

Perfect Example

This ties into yesterday's post. As we were driving home from dinner a guy in an SUV blocked the left lane trying to make a U-turn. Of course it was on one of the few roads in Jersey that you don't need to take a jug handle to turn left. Jas said, and I quote "What the f***... sh**, damn-it, crap. The ending was when he realized he dropped the F-bomb. Thankfully Chase was full of mac and cheese, and had already passed out.

Clearly we are still working on this- cut us some slack.

3 Little Ones=One Big Mess

One of our friends from Baltimore stopped in for a visit on her way back from a wedding in North Jersey on Halloween weekend. Chase with Caden(age 1) and Alex(age 3), made for a good time. Sara deserves a ton of credit for juggling things -she took the two boys to a wedding all by herself. Her husband had been deployed for over 2 months and she wasn't even able to talk to him during that time. The best part however, was that he was coming home the next day and the boys were going to get to go trick or treating with him:) I don't know how she does it, when Jas travels for only a few days I'm exhausted! I can only imagine Chase x2.

Getting a picture of all of them sitting and looking at the camera proved impossible. Sara, maybe you had some better luck?

I kept telling Chase-"See Caden is a big boy and walking"

It doesn't hurt that he has an older brother to take after.

The best shot of the day was of Caden in the pedal car we purchased at a garage sale. We got it for a steal!

Silly picture of Alex, but he was having fun with the Tickle Monster gloves

Action shot. The one picture of us looking at the camera is terribly blurry-oh well! This is before all the books were off the shelf. Jas had to explain to Alex why he couldn't play with the Ferrari lego car. Once Chase is big enough it will need to be moved to the office. Not really kid friendly. Over a thousand pieces, and it took hours to put together.

Language-Learning all Around!

These days Chase is like a sponge. He mimics things he sees and hears constantly. This is a of course a good, and a bad thing. Way before I was even expecting, Jas and I would talk about the fact that we should start practicing censoring what we said. Working with kids on a regular basis, the words "fudge" and "sugar" were regular replacements in my vocabulary. This means I'm regularly made fun of. Jas however-works with a bunch of sailors. Don't get me wrong I am by far no saint when it comes to inappropriate language. I still surprise myself when I get frustrated around my own parents, and let a few choice words fly...I still expect to be reprimanded:) Jas and I disagree on whether certain words are deemed acceptable. I was raised that "suck and ain't" fall into the category of curse words. We were told we were not from South Philly, and those words didn't belong in our repertoire. While I do agree with Jas that these two words don't warrant the same rating as others, I would still like to continue this upbringing with Chase.

Please don't think we let George Carlin's "7 words" fly on a regular basis, but while driving we are both guilty of letting a few choice words out. I think we have both improved tremendously in this area. Jas and I have grown increasingly conscious of what we say around Chase, and strive to fill his days with a rich variety of language. If you don' t have kids you might not understand this, but once you have them-you label everything-Constantly! He is still on the cusp with repeating everything he hears, so we still have a little time to change our behavior.

As a child we tormented my parents by teaching our youngest brother a word that rhymed with "brickhead". Luckily what little kids say doesn't exactly come out clearly-so when he proceeded to yell it over and over again in a restaurant, my parents were the only ones mortified. The more the three of us laughed, the more he said it. He hates this story because we still tell it. Since Chase doesn't have older siblings Jas and I are those role models.

Where am I going with this post? Well, last night I was on my way home with Chase and got stuck behind an elderly gentleman going 15 miles an hour below the speed limit. This was the second day in a row this happened and it was dark because of the time change, so I was less than pleased to have another delay in getting home. I showed restraint and didn't use any foul language, but I did pull out a word that was much more prevalent in our vocab years ago. Now that I think about it we may still say it on a pretty regular basis, and its so ingrained in what we say its just less pronounced. Sorry there isn't some big lead in here, and the word is pretty anti-climatic- I said "dude". I guess the dozens of times we've watched "Big Lebowski" and living at the beach for a few seasons subliminally caused created this monster. Chase probably here's it all the time, but I ended up saying something like "Dude step on the gas, come on dude, dude the speed limit is 45" a few times. After repeating the word across several minutes, I hear this tiny voice from behind me say it. It wasn't super clear so it sounded like "doo", just like when he says "duck" it comes out "dut", but he said it.

Add that one to the list. I guess it could have been worse:)

Silly Boy...and Daddy too!

Thought I'd share some pics of my two boys from the past month. Hope they make you chuckle a little...

Bedhead! And stealing from Mommy's bag

Very trusting

MOVEMBER! Jason has set up a team to support prostate cancer awareness. You are supposed to start growing a moustache at the beginning of the month, and not really start with a beard. Jas however is determined to look like a cross between Doc Holiday from Tombstone and Sam Elliot's character from Roadhouse by the end of the month:)

Here is the link to support the cause: http://mobro.co/JSwanson

Sliding down the railing with Daddy-oh boy!

If Chase gets impatient while waiting for meals-he sometimes strips. He still hasn't mastered putting clothing back on.

What?

Little man loves watching foosball, and he loves playing too!

Goofing around with Uncle Chris

Even though he looks like he is either screaming or laughing, no sound is coming out. He just makes these ridiculous faces.

Screaming for more food

Showing Mommy that he is finished. So smart!!

Happy Halloween!

We hope everyone survived the crazy weather, and had a wonderful Halloween weekend! Here Chase is checking out his stash, not realizing that Mommy and Daddy will be eating his treats.

Too focused on the spider and web to look at the camera.

We did manage to get a few shots of him looking at the camera after trick or treating!

The day after the slush. People were a bit chilly in their costumes. Jason didn't have much covered with his homemade Tarzan outfit.

Roomies:)

One of the best couple costumes of the evening. If you don't watch "Big Bang Theory" you won't get it. And only those who truly know Woody- know we've been calling him Sheldon for a while now!

"Sheldon and Amy"

Chase chilling with "Amy's" glasses after getting changed out of his costume. Oh and that's his Uncle Kyle as "Khloe K." beard and all!

The best costume of the evening by far....I should have gotten a full length shot. Kyle is 6'4" and that dress was mighty short. He and LJ came as Khloe and Lamar. Perfect costume for two of our tallest friends. Sorry you guys bump into our light fixtures all the time.

The beekeeper and his bee-the first beer pong game in the new house. I thought we'd left it in Baltimore. Nope...

Hanging with the girls

Padden and Julia

Shawn's tools were required twice that evening. Once to attach Kristin's tail and the other time to protect the partygoers from a rogue cave cricket.

Tarzan, Jane, and our little monkey

So my costume was a little less traditional than Jas', but it was wicked cold out. My Jane costume came from the wonderful Jersey store, Joyce Leslie. Yes that is an actual tomahawk in his hand-he has all this random crap from when he was younger. He couldn't find his knife or machete. I suppose this was the least dangerous prop. Speaking of which, I don't think monkeys eat carrots, but Chase decided he wanted to hold something in the pictures too. Daddy's tomahawk was off limits, and will be put away until Chase is a teenager.

Chase and Uncle "Lennon"

Playing with sushi and a laptop. Two of mommy's favorite things.

Taking Julia for a ride

Random shot of Chase while I was prepping food that morning. Putting him in the trike buys me a little time to get stuff done some days:) He decided the bucket was a hat. I tried to teach him how to say "Boo" when he took it off.

Still not a fan of the headpiece. Both the kids were super warm in their costumes though!

All in all it was a wonderful holiday weekend. Chase was quite finished by Monday night, and all he wanted to do was go inside and warm up. We only went trick-or-treating to five houses. It was too cold, and he can't eat the candy anyway! Before we know it it will be next year and he'll be running from house to house.