Another October, Another trip to the Pumpkin Patch

We hit the pumpkin patch again this weekend, on another warm California October morning. Alli finally braved the pony rides on her horsie named Spinner. Thankfully he didn't do any spinning, and she had an absolute ball!



Both kids had fun exploring the now-familiar parts of our favorite pumpkin patch farm...

Charlie loved the giant orange balls that are pumpkins and was only annoyed by the fact that he wasn't yet strong enough to carry his chosen pumpkin to the wheelbarrow, but he still had a smile to share with us.

Charlie's walking!

Charlie started walking consistently about a week before his first birthday. I've just been so busy chasing him around, up, and down that I haven't had a chance to post it here to tell the world about it!

It is a tradition in my family to get a picture of the grandchild's first steps in the same Stanford t-shirt. My parents have a shrine to their grandchildren with an 8x10 of each of them taking their first steps in this now very well-worn shirt!

Check out the comparison of Alli and Charlie, who both started walking right around their first birthdays:

Charlie:

Allison:

Think they look related?!

Happy 1st Birthday Charlie!

Charlie celebrated his first birthday this weekend. Of course we had to celebrate with a luau!

Here are a few pictures from the celebration.

Celebration dinner at Black Angus for Charlie and Karen's birthday

Playing at the party - always with a smile on his face!

They say I'm about to eat cake, but I'd just rather eat bubbles ...

Oh they're right, this cake stuff's not so bad!!

Oh wait ... I'm related to my sister ... I don't like being messy!

The palm tree bounce house!

The Coconut Cabana Cake!

Alli's new boyfriend

Dan and Alli spent the weekend in Tahoe while Charlie and Karen stayed home (and stayed warm!). A friend of ours that works in construction up in the area helped him with a couple of projects at the cabin, and he brought his 4-year-old son, Andrew, along to "help". Andrew and Alli had a great weekend of hanging out, going out to dinner, sharing pop-tart breakfast, and watching movies... Dan snapped this picture of them watching Cars together... Oh my, they start so young!