Inside and Outside

Another weekend is in the books.  Carter has yet another cold, which was an unpleasant surprise when he woke up Saturday morning.  The weather was cool and rainy all day, and we spent most of the morning inside deciding how long of a trip we were going to make to NT to visit my parents.  We had a few things to accomplish this weekend and I wasn't sure how much of our chaos my dad would be up for since he still can't really participate in it for a couple months.  As much as I hate same-day trips up and down the Thruway, we decided just to make it a day trip.  It saved on packing and gave us flexibility for Sunday.  On the way out of town we stopped at Goodwill so I could scout out some things for Halloween (interesting, but ultimately didn't get anything), and then headed to Buffalo.

My parents keep talking about downsizing sometime soon and moving to Rochester--I am torn, since I'd love to have them here but I worry that if something ever happened to our jobs, we'd consider moving back to Buffalo--and my mom was investigating things in the attic, where most of our old, special toys live.  She had brought down a couple boxes, one with some classic old Fisher-Price toys that I remember spending a lot of quality time with, even though they were primarily John's.  Jacob loved checking them out...

The fire truck, plane, and Jeep (with sleeping bags) were so fun!

Carter took a liking to my personal favorite, the Little People camper.  It came complete with a toilet and sink, boat for the top, and a vehicle for the camper to sit on.  I remember playing with that a lot, and he spent a lot of time just pulling it around the house by its string...

There was also this little kitchen set that I'd forgotten about until a couple months ago when some internet thing did a list of toys all 80s kids owned.  This was one of them:

The burners got red when the knobs turned, the timer bell dinged, there was a pot, pan, pitcher, two place settings, and salt and pepper.  The green gingham tablecloth was actually a bag to store all of the pieces.

Being inside all day was tough for the kids, but the "new" toys helped.  Still, Carter in particular was all over the place.  He drove cars and liked to climb...

Proud but guilty face!

I brought home my old record player and all of my records in case Jacob thinks it's cool.  I still need to hook it up.  I think I practically learned to read with those records with books, and while he's got the iPad for that now, he might find it fun.  I also raided the box of little kid books and snagged all of the ones I have the fondest memories of.  I'm getting bored with Carter's bookshelf (Jacob kept some of the ones we read with him, like his Brady Brady series) so my old favorites will be fun.  Some of them are full of new words and lots of stuff for him to look at, and those couldn't come at a better time.  He's really starting to try some new words--"baby" was a new one this weekend--and I think the more he sees and hears things, the more he's going to pick up.

Sunday was dreary early in the day, and Carter's cold was bad enough that we stayed home from church.  No need to pass it on to the other kids in the family room during church.  I know one of us could have taken Jacob, but quite frankly I was not in the mood to explain to Jacob why he couldn't stay home too.  He's really argumentative right now and I knew that would be a major point of contention.  Sometimes I wonder if the amount of yelling that goes on to get out of the house on Sunday mornings negates the good we get out of going to church.  Some days it's just not good for anyone.  Anyway...the boys played Lego and Carter and I hung out and read some of the new books.  I snuck out to Wegmans during naptime and came back to an awake little boy that really wanted to go outside, runny nose and all!  Luckily the weather was decent by then, though still cold, so we headed out.  I actually snuck out for a couple minutes ahead of time with my camera.  The tree in our neighbor's yard that I can see from our kitchen is so pretty!

Since no one lives there right now, I headed over to snap a few closer shots of the tree. 

 

With that one tree in the background, our house looks extra pretty from this angle...

Carter's favorite toy right now is still the lawnmower, and every time he looks toward the front door, he says his version of "lawnmower", in hopes we can go out to play.  Yesterday he grabbed his jacket and put on a hat, then stood by the door and whined.  At least he got a lot of mowing time today!

I took Carter into the neighbor's yard to see if he wanted to play in the leaves, since we don't have enough in our yard (thank goodness...I had enough of that at our old house to last me forever).

He mowed through them but didn't really want to play :(

Little boy, BIG trees!

Eventually the big boys came out, too.  On a side note, Jacob's tooth is still hanging in there, though it is pretty loose!  The permanent tooth is growing in behind it already! 

The front left tooth is the loose one, loose enough to be slightly out of alignment.  You can see the new one right behind it!

The boys played lacrosse and Carter wanted to get in on the action...

Jacob switched to hockey after that and he liked that I caught him mid-shot!

I'm not ready for this colder weather, but the sun helps!  We've got one more shot to get to a pumpkin patch, so fingers crossed the weather is decent next weekend!