Is it really already mid-November?

I guess the old adage is correct... Time flies when you are having fun. Here's a little bit of what we've been up to lately.

Here's Elliott at the apple festival (which was lame!) but wow, they had really big tractors! Elliott on Daddy's slightly smaller tractor.

"Helping" Dad rake the leaves, a childhood rite of passage, right?

Another picture, in case the first one wasn't adorable enough for you.

After doing some hard work, we all deserve a little downtime.

Elliott pushes Mr. Frog in his "manly" stroller - "manly" as in less girly. It is almost impossible to find a stroller that is not babydoll pink... not that Elliott would mind. Pink is his favorite color.

Making alphabet cut-out cookies during the Nor'easter. Elliott really liked the sprinkles part.

And yes, the "Z" is backwards. Elliott did that one all by himself.

And the best part about making cookies is eating them! Well, not really. Elliott apparently thought they were too pretty to eat. Bizarre little child.

And that pretty much sums it up.

Gymnastics!!!

Elliott has been doing gymnastics since September - just a playgroup, no actual organized instruction is involved. As anyone can imagine, he loves it! So, I finally got around to getting some pictures (it's kind of hard to get pictures of Elliott while I'm supposed to be keeping him safe around all kinds of dangerous (read: enticing) apparatus, but Bret was able to come with us when these pictures were taken.) These pcitures are actually a couple of weeks old... with Halloween and stuff, it has taken me a while to post them!

On the trampoline... it is very hard to get pictures "mid-air."

You can't really tell, but he is in the air!

Bret joined in on the fun. (He's just a big kid himself.)

Little monkey man!

Bock, Bock, Hooray for Halloween!

Despite having a fever of 101.5 on the 30th, Elliott rallied and managed to have a very full Halloween, with just a couple of minor changes to our original plans. Our Halloween actually started on Thursday with a party at music class. To his dismay (and our delight!), Elliott wore his chicken costume. For the first time in Kindermusik history, Elliott sat on my lap and looked pretty much miserable until we plucked him of his feathers.

Ok, in this picture he doesn't look so miserable, but shortly after this photo was taken, he remembered he was supposed to be acting miserable and came back and sat on my lap. "Doggone ball, distracting me from my misery!!"

We were very excited that Bret was off work and could join us at music class!! (Still miserable.)

Unfortunately, on Saturday, Bret did have to work, so pumpkin carving duties were passed on to the Momma. I think we did ok. Not surprisingly, Elliott refused to touch the pumpkin (1. Ewww, slimy and messy (clearly my child), and 2. pumpkin looks a lot like a vegetable.) But I did manage to get him to pose with the finished product.

The weather here was like 80 degrees on Halloween, making the chicken costume even less appetizing to Elliott. However, he tolerated the costume yet again for our costume playdate at Caleb's house.

By the time night came, I was feeling pretty sorry for Elliott (it was still 74 degrees at 6:00). So, I quickly whipped Elliott up a new Halloween costume - a basketball player!! He (happily) ran around the neighborhood with a small basketball and was still adorable.

Please note: Chicken costume - $20. Basketball jersey - approx. $1.25 and a Sharpie marker. Sigh.