Fall

I love Fall and basically in Arizona, Fall means that the temperature drops to about 80 degrees. It is lovely.

We have had an interesting couple of weeks. On October 5th, Truman turned 3 months old. He now wears size 6 month clothes and weighs 15 lbs. He is a big boy.

In other news, Avalon lost giraffe.  Actually, we think he was stolen.  We were in DI looking for snow clothes (I have gotten a little carried away thrift store shopping to find snow clothes for Christmas in Idaho.  I am so excited for Christmas in Idaho.) and giraffe was riding in the cart.  When we got to the car, he was gone.  We searched the store for an hour. Then Aaron went over and searched the store for him after work.  Now, if you haven't noticed, giraffe has been in all of our family pictures lately.  Giraffe goes every where with Avalon and so I was very upset to loose him.  I think I was more upset than she was.  I was in tears and she was just sitting there.  I took her to the store to get her a replacement.  She picked out another giraffe, but it just wasn't the same.  She was just melancholy for several days.  I felt so bad about it that I got online and searched for another giraffe just like her other one.  It turns out that giraffe is made by Ty and is now a collectors item.  I found one for around $60 with shipping which was a good deal considering giraffe is going for up to $95 dollars and is really hard to find online.  I can't believe I spent that much on a stuffed animal, but Avalon is really happy.  She seems to know it is a different giraffe, but doesn't care. 

Anyway, I spent several days telling her giraffe was coming in the mail and she was pretty excited.  When giraffe finally came, she handed me the replacement / temp giraffe and told me to put it in the mail.

Avalon has been really funny lately.  Her latest phrases are "I hab an idea!" and she ends every question with "right?"

She also gave up her binki.  She told me one day that she was a big girl and didn't need it anymore.  Since then, she hasn't asked for it or gotten it for herself.  It is amazing.  It was much harder to get Sterling to give up his binki.

Sterling has been busy with school.  He is getting much more interested in academics which is really what he needed.  He is also enjoying soccer.  Sterling is very excited for Halloween too.

Saturday evening we went to a Fall festival. Basically, it is this little farm that has a jump house, some carnival games, a barrel train, some animals, hay maze and a corn maze. We had a lot of fun.

The kids milking a pretend cow.

The cow barrel train.  It scared Avalon, but Sterling loved it.

 Playing carnival games.

 The bouncy house.

 We loved the corn maze.  Every year Aaron and I do a corn maze.  Usually we get lost and wander around in the corn for a couple of hours. (I don't think Aaron likes it much.)  In fact, one year we went to a corn maze with Halee and Mark.  They finished the maze in about 30 minutes and we took a couple of hours.  When we went to the fall fair, we weren't going to do the corn maze because we didn't want to drag the kids through the corn for a couple of hours.  But, when we got there we realized that the corn hadn't grown this year.  Notice the picture of Aaron with the corn about waist high.  All of the corn was short and we could spot the check points.  It was great.  The entire maze only took us about 20 minutes. 

By 7 p.m. it was about 80 degrees and Sterling was freezing.  He told me that he should have brought a jacket.  He is going to die in Idaho for Christmas.  In his defense, though, it was 30 degrees cooler than what he had been used to.

 Truman had this look on his face for most of the corn maze.  I think the paths were a little bumpy for him.