Words of Wisdom

This evening I turned the State of the Union address on briefly (on mute), and Calvin immediately pointed to the man on TV and said "Turn off!" (We did).

I love being a mommy

This morning I woke up to the sound of Calvin singing through the monitor. When I went in his room, he had all his stuffed animals lined up in his crib, and he said, "Animals singing!" I said, "Oh, what are they singing?" Calvin said, "Amazing Grace!" and we proceeded to sing it together.

Connecticut

Calvin and I tagged along on Todd's first business trip to visit Sikorsky in Stratford, Connecticut, in September. Todd had to work some long days while we were there, but we did get to go out to eat at some amazing New York-style pizza places most nights! During the days, Calvin and I drove around and found a few parks we had all to ourselves, much unlike the parks in Gilbert that are teeming with toddlers and mommies this time of year!

I was hoping to see some of the East Coast autumn colors I miss, but we were a few weeks early for that. I did spot a few colorful leaves though!

Sticks in hand, as always...

No, he does not have static electricity in his hair; it just grows like that!

This park was built around a homestead from the 1600's!

According to their website, they are a popular place for weddings. I can see why!

This was such a relaxing afternoon. We drove around until Calvin fell asleep in his car seat (look in the rearview mirror), and I got to watch the waves and windsurfers and do some reading while Calvin napped.

Day at the zoo - here is Calvin ignoring the pheasants wandering the grounds while he hunts for sticks and leaves.

Another empty park in a prime location

I thought the seashells might interest him, but of course he only wanted to find sticks...

This was taken right before he fell in the water and we had to hike back to the car to change into his bathing suit!

Looking south toward Long Island

On our way back to JFK airport, we drove around Long Island and did some sightseeing. We saw some of the old mansions on the north shore that inspired The Great Gatsby, and we stopped by President Theodore Roosevelt's home (Sagamore Hill National Historic Site), below. We were hoping to tour it, but unfortunately it was closed because they had no electricity due to some powerful storms the previous night.

Our growing boy

I have so many pictures from recent outings that I don't even know where to start! Usually this is what triggers my extreme procrastination in updating this blog, because it is so much work to weed through all our photos (I have over 13,000 pictures on my computer). I really do want to share them with you all though, so I will try to just pick a handful to post and stop overthinking it!

I joined a mom's group recently, thanks to my friend Molly's prompting, and we have been making new friends and going on lots of adventures and enjoying the beautiful weather! Here is Calvin at the "POCK!!" as he would say (park).

Getting ready to go down the slide (with our friends Ashley, Logan and Mason waiting in line)!

Calvin loves to read! I love when I find him sitting on the couch with his carefully-selected reading material all by himself.

At Jump Street - a great place for kids with lots of big trampolines. Calvin's favorite part, however, is the arcade games.

It was so nice to be able to spend some time with my mom when she was on fall break from teaching! Here she is trying to encourage Calvin to try the trampoline, but he wasn't quite brave enough to try it by himself. He just enjoyed bouncing while I jumped around near him.

This thing is huge! They have several of these inflatable slides for the kids. I actually can't believe Calvin is afraid of the trampoline but not THIS!