The Great Outdoors (Day)

Timmy and I are all about free weekend events for the family.  I heard about the Caledon Youth Outdoors Day from the local paper, and I figured, Why not?  It's free, they give you a free lunch, and if it stinks, we'll just head back home.  We ended up staying there for almost two hours and the kids seemed to have a good time.  Caledon is a natural park in KG with some really cool hiking trails, miles of river front, and an old-school playground complete with fling-the-children metal merry-go-round (the kind that is banned from all regular playgrounds because someone knows somebody who almost died on one).

The latest in riot gear apparel!

honorary sheriff

dugout canoe

I thought this one would be great on the Christmas card, but I was outvoted by all the little people in my house.

mashing corn!

Jason: 11 Months Old

 Jay is getting too big, too fast!  It seems like only yesterday I was shuffling his little body from the swing to the Rock N Play to the bouncy seat.  Now he's crawling at lightening speed, trying to climb stairs, and pulling up on everything.  We had to put the month sticker on his back this time because he spies it, grabs it, and rips it off!  My (not so) little man is growing up like crazy.  I don't have official stats--we don't go to the doctor for his one year checkup until Oct. 22--but he's got to be topping out at 24 pounds or so.  And he's very long and solid!
The numbers:  3 (diapers); 4 in shoes; 18-24 months in clothes; 4 full teeth

pulling up on everything, including Mommy!

 His doctor suggested we go ahead and start introducing a toothbrush so that Jason gets used to it now that he has 4 teeth (and 2 poking out!).  I usually hand it to to him in the bathtub, but it's great for when drool is running down his chest from teething, too.  

proper form--pinky out!

Jason has abandoned all baby food and formula.  He will only use a sippy cup and eat real food.  Tim tried to give him a bottle before bed and he hurled it across the room.  Needless to say, he's made my life a little easier!  And Willow is now his new best friend.

Drop it!  Just drop it already!

Baby, It's Hat Time!

 About a month ago, I was approached (by email) by a photographer who was looking to increase her stash of newborn props for her home business.  She noticed that  I don't have professional photos of babies on my website (yup, Jason doesn't count as a professional baby model when it's staged in my living room) and wanted to see if I would be willing to trade product for pictures.
She had a little boy client who was due at the beginning of September, and his girl cousin is due three weeks later.  I made two sets (pink and blue) of elf hats with diaper covers and sock monkey hats with diaper covers.  I also made the baseball hat and diaper cover set just for the little boy by request for the new momma and daddy.
Erica (the photographer) had her photo session last week and sent me 18 attachments of the following pics.  I thought they turned out great!  I'm not convinced that I couldn't pull off the same results at home with better lighting and a better camera, but I don't have ready access to a 4-day old newborn!  So the trade was worth it.  I was able to make 3 new listings from her photos, and they look very sharp on my website.
I have been swamped by orders lately, and it's getting hard to keep up production when the school year has started.  I find myself watching Big Bang Theory late into the night (sometimes early the next morning!) just to get my orders complete.  I'm going to give myself carpal tunnel syndrome, I can just tell :)  And what are 99% of my orders lately?  Football hats!  'Tis the season!
So please take a moment and scroll through the photos below of my handiwork in action :)

Just a Bunch of Aquaholics

 As many times as I take the kids down the road to Virginia Beach to visit Cammy, Timmy only gets to come along a fraction of the time.  I'm usually making the trip on a weekday during the summer in an effort to avoid the tunnel traffic.  And Timmy has to work.  So it's mostly solo trips to all the fun activities that we do when we're in town.  This time around, I specifically planned to visit Cammy on a weekend so that Timmy could do the aquarium, which he has never seen.  And our fall calendar is filling up fast, so it was the second weekend of the school year or bust!

The outdoor seal exhibit

Seal pretending to be a rock so that Emily will leave him alone.

Learning about turtles....

Quartz

Kimono dragon exhibit

In the aquarium tunnel

This crocodile has a major under bite.  Nothing that a few decades in braces couldn't fix!

Jay and turtles were communicating on a deeper level.

Emily on her "shell phone"!

I gotta take this call!

Touch tank

Otter house