Photographing My Own

Me driving Henry (late) to preschool while talking on the phone to my mom as we do every preschool morning...

Mom: Those pictures of the boys on Facebook are gorgeous.
Jenn: Yeah, they were being {insert plural form of bad word here} so I'm kind of surprised them came out so nicely.
Mom: Oh, they could never be {bad word, plural}.
Jenn: You're right, Mom. Charlie was being an angel. It was Henry who was being a {bad word, singular}. He screamed his face off when he saw I was going to torture him with a collared shirt...
Mom: Oh, that Henry! But it's nice that Charlie is old enough to be so sweet!
Jenn: It's not his age. I promised to take him to Target and buy him something plastic if he'd smile.
Mom: Good plan, Jenn.

I'd say that these were worth the $6 in Super Mario keychains and the tub of Gerber baby cheetos that they picked out from Target after this shoot.

Adorable little stinkers.

Fall Ball

We've got baseball on the brain here lately! My husband is a die-hard Detroit Tigers fan so we have been blessed with some amazing baseball on our TV lately! It's great to see them headed to the World Series!!!

Closer to home, we are spending a good chunk of our weeks watching big man C playing with the Express, his fall ball little league team.

And a few instas from the game:

Chuck's not the best baseball player. Actually, he isn't good at all. He's blessed with a huge brain, is incredibly imaginative and creative and has aspirations to be an inventor when he grows up. I'd much rather raise a Steve Jobs over a Justin Verlander so the lack of baseball skills doesn't bother me. What's important is that even though he's not the best, he still likes to play. When I was an unathletic child, I hated playing sports for the very reason that I sucked. I don't know how this kid keeps finding the nerve to go out every game, strike out, and then play again the next week. But I'm totally proud of him that he does. Perseverance is one of the best character traits to possess. So, in my opinion, Charlie kicks ass at life.

Today Chuck played catcher. Mike gets mad at me for saying this... but when he puts on the catcher gear, I think it's the cutest thing EVER! (Apparently, it's not cute - it's manly - and I'm not supposed to say 'awwwwww!' when he walks out in catcher gear). It just seems like such an important position!! I remember going to my cousin's baseball games when I was younger and he played catcher. I find it so strange to now be watching my son - my baby - putting on a ton of gear and being in charge of catching a pitch.


A really fun part of today's game was that Henry was entertained by a whole bunch of other people. Henry ran to the adjacent soccer field and joined all the other kids playing out there. Score for minimal parental duties!!! I sat in my chair, watched the game and played on my phone (ummmm, heaven!!!!). My kids may not be blessed athletes, but they certainly are social butterflies. Neither of them have ever met a person they couldn't charm.

I turned around to check on Henry at one point and I saw that he had stopped playing with the other little brothers and sisters and instead had found -- a teenager. Yup, my adorable two year old can charm even the older ladies... (Also, let's take a minute to digest how gorgeous the fall trees are right now. Amazing!!!)

Cox Farms, Part I

If you live in the DC area, you've probably heard of Cox Farms. It's definitely one of the very best fall festivals in the area and is hugely popular.

We first brought Chuck to Cox Farms when he was 18 months old back in October of 2005! We lived much closer to the city back then and Mike and I both remember driving to the farm and thinking, "Holy Far Away! Where are we!? Are we still in Virginia!?"

Now, with two kids and a large SUV, we live in the sprawling suburbs -- right across the street from the farm! And since I absolutely love looking at old pictures before moving on to the new ones, here's some shots from Chuck's first trip to Cox Farms. (Side note: oh my god, my kiddo was and still is the very cutest 'lil man! Also, I look pretty cute with short hair -- and also in my early twenties!)

Cox was on a much smaller scale back then with some pumpkins, some farm animals and a few slides. It grows bigger and better every year and is now a HUGE fall experience with hayrides, dozens of slides - big and small, a corn maze, farm animals, and much, much more! Man, maybe I should be the spokesperson??

I have invited several friends to join us at the farm this year (like I said, it's right across the street), so here's a look at our first after school trip with our dearest friends, The Allens -- Cox Farms, Part I.


First stop: The giant barn slide.

Bubble Machine in the little kiddo section!! Chase all the bubbles!!!

Rope Swing!!

And... on to the Castle slide...

And thanks to Jenny, I got to be in a few of the shots, too!!

Up next: the racing slide!

This was a cool addition to the farm this year -- a spin the wheel game to find out where to go next!

So, where did we go next...? The hayride!!!

Again, thanks to Jenny, there is evidence that I was there!! Also, Henry was expecting something to be loud...?

And then the kids were off to the corn maze!!!

Except for Henry, who didn't want to go, so we sat outside and ate cookies in the wagon!

Then we decided it was time for some farm chores! This was one of the kids' favorite spots!

Henry's favorite farm chore?? Scooping up corn and throwing it, of course! I was pelted with a lot of corn to catch these shots! (And also, it hurts.)

And then a stop at the volcano slide (told you there are a lot of slides!!) before we headed over to the goats (spoiler alert: the goats were my favorite). The kids kept waiting at the bottom to high-five whoever was going down! They did this on all the slides of the day and I thought it was really sweet (they really do love each other!).

And, now, the goats. Oh!!! The sweet, sweet goats!! We LOVED the goats! First, let me say that I did not expect Charlie to go in to the goat pen because he's NEVER gone into a petting zoo before. He's never, ever wanted to pet a farm animal. And I also expected Henry to freak out once the goats got close to him. But both of my boys surprised me. They loved it! All the goats were babies and were much smaller than the scary big goats that will knock you over. After we got home, we decided that our Catty McFatty was bigger than most of them. The goat pen was just beyond precious. And Henry loved running around and screaming "gooooooooats!!!"

Henry in action: "Goooooooats!!!!!!!"

Favorite picture of the day:

On our way out, we picked up our mini pumpkins (included in the price of admission) and bought some of the very best kettle corn and apple cider ever. Like, ever.