October 2011 - better late than never!

I beyond love fall!  The weather cools off a bit, the leaves start to change, and there are soooo many wonderfully fun things to do holiday-wise - especially now that Clay is in the picture.  So buckle up for lots of cuteness, and pumpkins, and my favorite cute pumpkin (that would be Clay, folks)!

Playing with sidewalk chalk.

Granny and Poppa came to town and Granny got to come with us to LHAECHPTA's annual pumpkin painting event.  Clay picked out his own pumpkin this year!  That is pretty cool because I am pretty sure he was still in his baby Bjorn last year! 

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Playing Picasso!

One of my favorite views (the top of Clay's head as he bear hugs my legs).  Love, Love, LOVE this little boy!

We met a few friends from our playgroup at the Arboretum.

Sweet Luna!

Clay and Jack looking out at the world.

Jack and Clay dancing around an umbrella pole....

Clay brushing the sheep!  This was a pretty exciting picture to capture because around this time in October, anytime Clay saw a sheep he would say "Baa!" and he would also, when asked, respond that a sheep says "Baa!"

Yaya came in town a couple of times during October too - such a treat!  We hit up the Owen's Pumpkin Patch and Petting Zoo with our Toddler Play Group.  It was amazing to think how much he's changed since we went last year...

Scoping out the pumpkin selection.

On the hayride with Yaya!

We were happy that Yaya was there for many reasons.  One of which was that Clay would not have fed the goats if it had just been the two of us.  Seriously, goats have the creepiest eyes!  The iris and pupil aren't circles, they are rectangles (something about how it helps them see).  Bottom line, I wasn't going to do it but Yaya was brave and Clay got a kick out of it.

Owen's Farm 2011:  Yaya, Mama, and Clay

Owen's Farm 2010 with Kelly and Megs (in utero)

Clay with his pumpkin

That same weekend, I co-chaired the annual neighborhood Halloween carnival.  It was a lot of fun.  Clay went as Buzz Lightyear!  He wasn't too keen on the costume at first but a week straight of watching clips of Toy Story every day got him very excited about his costume!

Last year I started the tradition of take a picture of Clay in front of the WRE school sign so that we can see how he grows each year.  Above is the pic from 2011 and the link is to last year's!  2010 LHAECPTA Halloween Carnival

Here we are with the super cut Musgrave clan!  Aren't Woody and Buzz the cutest pals?!?  And take a look at that sweet little chick (perhaps my future daughter-in-law?)  

Heather, Jack-the-Gnome, and Brian

Little Lion, Alex (his super talented mom made that costume!!!)

Buzz took a break from running around the gym for a quick pic.

Clay in the bounce house - he was much more interested in sitting than jumping.

Grand Bop continued the tradition of accompanying us to the carnival and Clay could not have been happier!

This is Clay about 1 second away from a sugar crash.  One of the "crafts" was decorating a sugar cookie.  Clay ate his entire cookie... and it was covered in icing... and loads of decorative sugar.

Granny and Poppa came in later that day.  I was co-hosting my BFF's baby shower the next day so we called in the reinforcements so that all attention could be on the shower and Clay could have some quality time with his favorite Lubbock-ites.

Clay helped Poppa wheel the wagon of pumpkins around our neighborhood pumpkin patch (yeah, that's a grand total of 4 pumpkin events in one month but we put every last one to good use AND Clay loved it!)

Granny and Poppa took us to the pumpkin patch last year so we struck a pose at our favorite character cut out.    Check out last year's pic here!

Clay got good use out of his costume.  Here he is at Luna's Halloween party; we had so much fun!

Look at all those cute tots!

Toward the end of the month we met playgroup in Plano at Pump it Up Junior.  Clay had a great time and thanks to our friend, Claire, he finally got into the whole bounce house thing!  I got the bounce house part of video so here are some pictures of him playing on the ride on toys there.  After that, we went to one of my childhood favorites (Napoli's) for some pizza.  

I'll do a separate post with pictures from Halloween night at another time.