Here Comes A New Shelmet

After the long Thanksgiving feast, we were able to meet up with Annabelle and Baby John at Tyler Park so the kids could frolic in nature and the playground. Right away Cheryl tried to run off with all of the kids to live among the trees. That didn't last very long. Next, Annabelle and Zoe, or more accurately Batgirl and Princess Lady, were investigating rocks along the creek. There was some throwing, a little skipping and a lot of splashing, but everyone remained relatively dry. When the kids got tired of throwing rocks into the water, because I could do that all day, we made our way over to the playground. There was a good amount of swinging, some climbing up the slide the wrong way only to go back down and a monster chase or two. They really seemed to enjoy the swings the most. There were some tears when it was time to go, because saying goodbye is always sad, but we leave knowing that there will always be a next time to hang out and play. Can't wait!

During Thanksgiving this year, the weather was nice enough to be outside once we got to Mimi and Joe Pop's. That being the case, Joe Pop was ready to entertain all the kids with tractor rides. Zoe and Harlie seemed to really enjoy just sitting on the tractor. There was also some rides in the trailer. Zoe took a quick circuit around the yard and enjoyed every second of it. I'm not sure Fairbanks thought the ride was that funny, but he didn't seem to mind. As always, it was great to get together with everyone and see all of the kids interacting with one another.

Yesterday the three of us went to meet with all of Zoe's cousins for some holiday pictures. I'm not very good at counting, but there are about a billion pictures. That being the case, I will let them do the talking. All of the kids were really great at the photo shoot and super adorable. You can see these, and a whole lot more, in the set on Flickr. Enjoy!

We made our annual trek out to the mall to have our holiday pictures taken. This year we really lucked out in a lot of ways. The photographer was great and did a wonderful job of taking a nice mix of nice, portrait style pictures along with a number of goofy ones. Some of the nice ones include. Along with those, there were quite a few silly pictures. These elicited the most laughter while the person packaging up the pictures was putting everything together for us. That last one still gets me. We made sure to get these done early this year so we can get our cards out on time. Let's hope that plan works. In the meantime, enjoy this little cutie.

There is a lot to catch up on here, so I will just jump right in. Two weekends ago we swung by Mimi and Joe Pop's where Zoe enjoyed hanging out in the front yard and just acting cute. Cheryl took some video of her singing her pumpkin song (which may get posted here later) but she also took some nice pictures too. Here she is among the decorations and grandparents. After that, earlier last week, Zoe got dressed up to take care of her baby. There's something about her looking in the mirror to see what she looks like with her baby while getting her picture taken that really gets me. Later that day, after the sun had set, the weather was still nice so I decided to put up the screen on the porch for a bit of a movie/television night. Zoe is enjoying the Great Aunt Venture episode of Sofia the First. It's one of her favorites and, because I can't keep my eyes off the screen when she watches it, it is one of my favorites, too. A few days later, Zoe was just sitt...

As mentioned previously, the family was dressed up as the characters from Wreck-It Ralph this year for Halloween. Zoe was Venelope Von Schweets, Cheryl was King Candy and I was Wreck-It Ralph. Before we went to the West Philly parade, we took some pictures on the stoop. Here are a few. Apart from the scoreboard, which Zoe liked, she was also really into the necklace I made. She kept insisting that she made it because in the movie her character made it for my character. It was super cute. On the way to the parade I made sure Zoe was safe and held my hand. She didn't have much trouble grabbing onto my over-sized mitts. While we were there we ran into a group of her friends dressed up as the Three Amigas. They all looked really good. There were lots of treats at the conclusion of the parade. Zoe made sure to bring me some so I could share with her. We parked the car near the end of the parade route because we were heading out to a Halloween wedding. Once we were ou...