Fall!

(Everything in this post has already been on facebook, so if we're friends on facebook, you may have seen all this before. I just wanted a new post in case any of our ward members stumble across this blog--nobody has mentioned it yet, but I figured they should have something besides my little "what a jerk!" rant from my last post to read if they should find me here. On the other hand, maybe if the person in question somehow finds it and recognizes himself, he'll be a better visitor in the future!)

My mom, Bekah and I took Forrest and my two nieces, Abby and Megan, to a pumpkin patch a few days before Halloween. It was a lot of fun.

The kids especially loved the little corn maze and insisted on going through it a few times. Abby was our fearless navigator.

There was also a pretty cool little antique tractor display, which made me feel a little nostalgic for Iowa. How sad that the first picture of me and Forrest with a tractor was taken in Utah, not Iowa!

It was right about at this time that I realized my camera's settings were at an ISO of 1600 and set to dim indoor lighting, despite it being an incredibly bright, cloudless day . . . whoops! This was also the moment that Forrest realized THERE WERE WHEELBARROWS IN THE PUMPKIN PATCH.

He thought that little wheelbarrow was pretty nifty, until he abandoned it for this one:

A MAN'S wheelbarrow! He was getting so angry that he couldn't push this one, so we tried giving him a ride in it, instead:

Surprisingly enough, this did not go over well . . . I think he was just mad that Bekah could get it to move when he couldn't. He got shown up by a weakling, 80-pound girl with the upper body strength of a newborn kitten. He was also not happy with Bekah when she plunked him in the middle of this row of pumpkins and he couldn't get out. I wish you could see his face better--it was priceless. PUMPKIN FURY!

I'm sorry to report that he really did not have a great time at the pumpkin patch--he had fun for the first 20 minutes or so, but one frustration after another piled up (I CAN'T LIFT THESE PUMPKINS! THE GROUND IS UNEVEN AND I KEEP FALLING! THAT D@%* WHEELBARROW IS FREAKING HEAVY!) until he had a total meltdown. Poor Goobs. But you wouldn't ever know it, because look at the cute picture we got together!

I was so happy to see that this picture turned out well--I really don't have many pictures of the two of us, and I'm glad he could bottle up his tears for a moment to pull out a smile for this shot.

I also got a cute picture with Bekah, and realized that we look, in Bekah's words, "kind of exactly the same." 

People have always told us we look alike, and we've never really seen it. But every once in a while, in a photo, I have to admit that we do look really similar. I think that's bad news for Bekah, and good news for me, since I'm okay with admitting that she is the cuter sister.

Forrest was Batman for Halloween, and Jeff was Robin. Classic! I didn't get a picture of the two of them together, so we'll need to have a re-do this week. Forrest's costume was completely last minute--I had been planning all along to do a Firefly theme (Jeff as Jayne, I'd be Kaylee, and Forrest as Mal of course), but that fell apart when I couldn't find myself a jumpsuit. It was a tragedy. Maybe next year. But since Jeff already had a Robin costume for work, we pulled together a teeny Batman costume for Forrest. He was pretty darling.

 

And, last but not least, a few shots of Forrest playing in the autumn leaves (which are now covered in two inches of snow--I'm playing Christmas music right now. I'll be cursing the snow in a month or two, but I do love the first one!)

(This blog sure has gotten lame lately, hasn't it? Sorry. All my blogging energies go into this one.)

In non-baby-related news:

Jeff graduated from Palmer about a month ago! A few days later, he found out he had passed all of his boards, which was a HUUUUUUUUGE relief, because you can carry around your chiropractic school diploma and feel like a fancypants and still never work as a doctor if you don't pass your boards. And those boards are hard stuff. I'm very proud of him--it was a lot of hard work, and he did such a great job and loves what he does.

I didn't fly to Iowa for graduation with him--it would have cost well over $1000 for both of us to go (do you know how many pairs of shoes I could buy with that money?!), so I'm very grateful to Janel for taking plenty of pictures for me! That picture is Jeff and his 3 best friends from school--Jane, Will, and Josh. We sure miss all of them already.

After considering a few offers in the area, he took an associateship at Peterson Chiropractic, the office he worked at during his internship, and he loves it so far. He'd love to open his own practice in the future, and working with such a successful practice now will help him learn how to do it on his own someday.

I've been very busy between Forrest's shenanigans and keeping up with orders at my etsy shop . . . I actually had to take down all my non-pattern listings for a week because it was getting so busy I didn't think I'd be able to keep up. I've briefly entertained the notion of hiring a crochet assistant, but I just don't think I could send out something made by someone else. Although Bekah has pointed out that the name is MAYBE Matilda . . . like, hey, maaaaaybe I made it, you never know. Not misleading at all! 

Even though the number of orders I was receiving was getting a little insane, I am incredibly grateful and happy that my shop has been doing so well--it really is important to me to have something purely my own to stay busy with. I hate to say that I don't think I'd be happy just playing with Forrest and doing housework all day, but, well . . . I don't think I would. I do love being home with my little guy, and I feel so lucky that circumstances so far have made it possible for me to stay home and focus on him, but I'm so glad that I have my own thing, you know? Something apart from mothering and diapers and homemaking that makes me feel fulfilled and rewarded. And it sure doesn't hurt that I'm making money off it, too. Holla!