BOO at the Zoo!

Our Halloween celebrations were officially jump started tonight by attending our:Zach RAN straight to this pumpkin and stuck his face through the hole for a picture.
He then wouldn't allow us to walk away until we let him peek through Frankenstein as well. NOTE: he has started to chew on his bottom lip constantly, so you will probably see this funny face in many pictures to come. Any tips for how to help him overcome it? Growl!
No, he's not sleeping. He's just really comfortable.
He LOVED seeing all of the pumpkins. He would point at them and then point to himself since he was also a pumpkin.
He thought they were pretty neat.
You just can't tell because he won't stop sucking on that lip!
There were cute little scenes set up all around the zoo and you could follow the whole story.
Zach RAN through the hay bale maze. He was totally excited, especially when he went through a little tunnel and escaped dad for a second. Too bad it didn't lead very far.
Run Zach Run!
He would also run down all of the hills along the path. I'm thinking we're all going to get a great night's sleep tonight.
He found some pumpkin lights that looked just like him!! He was thrilled.
On the way out we stopped to snap a picture with Captain Jack Sparrow, Zach wasn't so thrilled.

All in all, it was a great time. We LOVE the Zoo!!

Felt Board Fun

I've been meaning to work on this one for a while now. Finally, I buckled down and I'm really happy with how it ended up. Zach LOVES this book "Freight Train" By Donald Crews. It's super simple, just describes each colored car and then tells where the train goes. The drawings are very simple but he loves it- he basically loves anything train related. I figured it would be a perfect felt board story so I traced each car on it's respective color and WHA-LA! We now have our very own Freight Train. We are missing the purple box car because I didn't have any purple but I still think it will be a great learning tool for colors.

Once Upon a Time...

OK, I know I haven't been to very good at keeping up with blogging and what not but I'll try to give you a little bit of an update. I had my very first "official" photo shoot with a happy engaged couple. I actually delivered 5 gigantic prints for them this morning. It was really exciting to see my work blown up to a 20x30. I think they turned out great! Someday, I hope to upgrade my equipment so they can be even better but I'm still really happy with the way they turned out. You can see more at my photography blog in the left hand column.
Jason has been setting up interviews for residency next year and while it's really exciting, it's also a little nerve wracking to be wondering where we will be a year from now. For me that has meant a major purging spree. Jason and I have been married for 7 years now and have managed to accumulate a LOT of stuff. I've now decided it's finally time to just let it go. I participated in a clothing swap this last week where I was happy to unload, I mean donate, 5 large boxes of clothes. I have more miscellaneous items packed up and ready to go to good will. I feel like I'm actually losing weight by unloading the excess that has been cluttering up our home. It feels really good. I might have to be careful that I don't start enjoying it too much or I might give everything away!
Zach has grown up a ton. He went through a little texture aversion phase with his food and mostly stuck to milk and juice, but he's finally seemed to grow out of it. Topping his favorites would have to be animal shaped Mac N' Cheese and Brown Sugar Oatmeal, Oh... and I can't forget just straight cheese. For some reason he LOVES cheese! He has figured out how to run and he thinks it's just hysterical to run from one side of the house to the other, screaming and giggling all along the way.

His favorite thing to do is read. I think I could sit down with him and read every book in our house (and that's A TON!) and he would quietly sit and enjoy every one of them. He has even started to read them to himself. He will sit on his little couch and flip through the pages pointing out certain object and talking to himself. (Note: the book pictured here is actually upside down!) He is such a sweet content kid and just loves to cuddle any chance he gets. How did I manage to get so lucky with this one!