Christmas in October- decorating and morning.

 While James slept we decorated.

 Sharon brought toddler-friendly ornaments.

 And the tree turned out very cute- slightly Charlie Brownish- but still very acceptable.

 When James woke up he was thrilled with the tree- the lights, the ornaments, that is was just his size.

 James spent the rest of the two weeks pulling ornaments off the examine and play with and then put back on and if the lights were off when he came into the room he'd almost immediately ask for them to be turned on.

 While we all did some work- both outside on apple tree preparation and in the kitchen on Christmas dinner preparation- James had fun with Aunt Tonya in the bouncer.

 Tim had 'fun' working on the apple trellis.

 And then is was time for presents and dinner.

 James received legos, Thomas the train tracks, a warm winter coat, and many other wonderful gifts.

And for dinner we had prime rib, yorkshire puddings, mashed potatoes, creamed kale and blueberry pie with ice cream. (James did not deem the potatoes and kale worth eating but the rest of us thought everything was delicious.)

Christmas in October- picking the tree

 We spent the last two weeks of October up at the farm and Sharon and Tim's sister, Tonya, were there with us for the first week (Tonya works in Botswana so it is always a treat to have her around as it happens so rarely).  We decided that since it was unlikely that we'd all be together again at Christmas that we'd celebrate it early.  So we made plans for a special dinner and then headed up into the Christmas trees to pick our very first one to cut down.  Tim was momentarily distracted by the blackberry brambles and did a bit of pruning with us girls and James looked around for the best looking trees. 

 While Tim was distracted by plants termed weeds, James was thrilled by the very same plants and their wonderful flowers interspersed within the 4,500 small trees.

 Timber finds it a bit challenging to navigate the tall weeds and hills amongst the trees so she waited patiently down at the bottom for us.

 Which one, which one....?

 Tim standing by our final pick.

 One...

 Two...

 Three!

(this was actually a reenacted scene as you can probably tell from the huge smiles- I was too slow with the camera the first time)

 Bagged it.

 Tonya taking charge of the sappy mess and volunteering to huff it down the hill.

 James approves of the choice.

 Taking the tree home.

 James was fascinated with the tree stand and really wanted to help get is set up.

 Though not so fascinated that he'd let go of his flower (James currently LOVES all flowers he comes across- he certainly one to stop and smell the roses).

A very leggy Halloween

 Last year we didn't really do anything for Halloween- James was not even a year-old yet and we were up in NC about to close on the farm.  This year I though James would get a kick out of seeing his friends all dressed up in different costumes and perhaps even wear one himself.  Since he is currently in love with Octopi I searched online and came across a Martha Stewart pattern that didn't seem too difficult or time consuming.  James and I picked up the fabrics before we left for two weeks at the farm thinking I'd have time to sew it while there.  (James picked out the "sucker" fabric himself, choosing a starfish print.)  And while time got away from me at the farm putting up deer fencing and planting many, many apple trees (that will be a separate post) I came home with all the costume supplies still in the shopping bag.    Monday- Halloween- I set up the machine while James was napping and went to work.  Not sure how Martha thought the average person would do it but you were supposed to photocopy the pattern pieces at 400% which certainly would not fit on a standard home printer so I kind of winged the pattern pieces (and somehow ended up cutting double the number of one portion which left me short on another- oh well!).  I sewed as fast as I could as James and I were leaving to drop Grandma (Sharon) off at the airport at 4:30- the clock was faster than my sewing skills and ended up with Sharon doing the last step of ironing on the eyes while I woke James up from his nap to jump into the car.  So the first time James saw Octopus was when I pulled him out at Shelly's house (where a bunch of us were meeting for dinner and group trick-or-treating) and James immediately fell in love- grasped that Octopus by the head and proceeded not to loosen his grip for the next 30 minutes.  I made the mistake of touching Octopus at one point and James fell into a tantrum right there on Shelly's kitchen floor.  Apparently NO ONE was supposed to tough his beloved Octopus and there was also no way I was going to get that costume on James- he hasn't been liking to wear hats or coats these days and putting on Octopus was going to mean he'd have to let go his death grip.

 Atticus and Alison brought cool glow-in-the-dark bands for the kids and James loved these as well.

 Trying to get a picture of 5 kids- not so easy. Piglet, the baseball player, an astronaut, the ocean holding and Octopus (James was all in blue so we decided he was the water Octopus was swimming in since he wouldn't actually put the costume on), and a friendly lion.

 Dragging O down the steps at Shelly's.

 Fascinated by their Jack-o-lantern (our pumpkin which we hauled up to the farm still hasn't been carved, but we did haul it back again so might get to it at some point this weekend)

 Finally James was distracted by the glowing rings, dropped his costume and Tim sneak attacked it on him.  I don't think James even realized he had it on for quite a while.

 For the most part James trailed behind the other bigger kids- not really understanding what the whole deal was with going up to the doors.  He was content to examine decorations for the first few houses.

 Eventually he picked up on that the other kids were consistently going up to the front doors and he joined in.  Usually he arrived after the other kids had come back down and then once at the door he didn't know that he was actually supposed to say anything, let alone receive anything.  So he'd just stand there until I convinced him to come back down.  He did receive about 5 pieces of candy, which is plenty in my mind for a not even 2-year old yet. 

 Eventually he had an inevitable meltdown- and had he been a real octopus there would have been ink covering the neighborhood.  The costume was thrown off, the street rolled in and Tim had to pick up the pieces and give a grumpy Octopus a ride back to the car.

 Octopus has now been sleeping in James' bed at his request and is very much loved.  He will be making a second appearance at James' birthday party in a couple weeks for the Octopus theme.