October-ness

We love fall and Halloween, and everything that comes with it.  As you know from following this blog, we always get pumpkins, dress up, and generally just love the month of October.  This year was no different!

We went pumpkin picking a little earlier this year and the weather was hot! It's now much colder outside, but I honestly couldn't adjust to how warm October was.  For pumpkin picking I put Waverly in overalls and in the pictures she looks like a little tomato with her cheeks all rosy from being so hot!  I was dying of heat by the time we got done.  The heat aside, we had a great time!  We went with some close friends and ventured about 30 mins from our house into the country to Ashland Berry Farm. I went there with my family growing up and have fond memories of strawberry picking at this farm.  It's a really nice farm and had a ton of pumpkins. We rode the hayride out the pumpkins and Waverly loved it.  She threw her hands up in the air and clapped while yelling and basically having a blast.  We let her toddle her way through the patch and look at the pumpkins.  Then we picked out 4 (one for Cole!) great pumpkins…Nick got stylish and picked out a green one, which turned completely orange by Halloween. Ha.  All of our friends got pumpkins and we had a fun morning at the farm!  

Our pumpkins sat on our steps all October and almost everyday, Waverly and I would "check on the pumpkins".  She loved them. When it came time for carving, we got fancy this year with a kit!  It was intimidating at first, but actually turned out to be pretty easy with the sawing tools in the kit. I still carved a classic jack-o-lantern for Waverly's first pumpkin.

Ashland Berry Farm

"what the heck is this thing?"

Hayride fun.

the kids:  Sophie, Lawson, and Waverly

ahhh…the perfect pumpkin!

there's a peanut in the pumpkin patch!

girlfriends!

$20 for all you can carry!

and there they sat for a couple weeks...

Waverly's 1st pumpkin!

Onto Halloween. If you remember this time last year, Hurricane Sandy had just slammed the East Coast and devastated the state of New Jersey.  We were out of power for a week with a 8 week old baby. On Halloween night we were freezing our asses off around a fire, huddled in the living room watching Ghostbusters on our laptop with some neighbors.  There were no trick or treaters…in fact Halloween in New Jersey was officially cancelled.  This year couldn't have been more different!  To make up for last year all 3 of us dressed up…not just Waverly!

Nick and I love to dress up and we've decided that we'll always be those adults/parents who dress up for Halloween!  Kids love it when you answer the door dressed up and it just makes it more fun!  We had a family theme going on this year...Waverly was a bumblebee for Halloween, so Nick and I were a beekeeper and a Queen bee.  Very easy, cheap and fun.  I have Casey and Matt to thank for my cheap costume inspiration.  Of course I loved being the Queen bee for the night…even though I am every night! ;)  

Waverly was the cutest bumblebee. Ever.  I got her costume off Amazon and my mom made a few adjustments to the feet and legs.  I made her a hat with some antennas that ended up being too small on the day of Halloween!  Lesson #1: try it on way ahead of time.  I basically just took a hat that already fit her head and covered it black felt, but when I did that it tightened the hat and gave it zero room to stretch.  Even after loosening the stitches, it wouldn't budge over her noggin.  So with 1 hour till costume time, I tore off the felt and made the hat black with some permanent marker. Then I glued the antennas I made directly onto the hat.  It fit!  Even if she kept taking it off over and over.  She was just so darn cute with the costume and hat on…toddling around as a little bee. My parents came over to see her dressed up and we were dying.  It's nice to have Nana and Granddaddy nearby for these occasions!

We went to a neighborhood get together and met up with some neighbors and their kids.  Then we all trick or treated at a few houses on our street.  She loved following around the big kids and even had her first kit kat and lollipop.  The girl loves to eat and candy is no exception.  

After some successful trick or treating, it was dinner and bathtime which almost became meltdown time…Halloween is a lot for kids!  We got our little bee to bed as the doorbell kept ringing with trick or treaters.  This was the first time Nick and I lived somewhere with kids!  We were so psyched to open the door and hand out candy.  It was pretty fun and the kids were so cute.  I don't think Cole enjoyed Halloween though.  He got excited at every doorbell ring and never got to greet anyone. Hah.

a little fall decor

bee hat in the making...

"get this thing off my head!"

my sweet bee!

and she's off!

It was a really fun night and a great way to end October. Now onto November, my birthday month! Booyah.

Love from Richmond!

Happy Halloween.

Happy Halloween from this little froggy.

Disclaimer: This was for a squadron fundraiser and it isn't a costume - it is a raincoat.
Disclaimer #2: Before you pass judgment about the raincoat, move to Japan during rainy season with a furry dog.

Oktoberfest.

Last weekend I had a truly unique experience – I went to Germany’s Oktoberfest in Japan.  Apparently for a couple weeks in October every year, Yokohama turns into little Germany.  Inside the makeshift chalet they had over 200 different beers – everything from local Japanese beers to pineapple ales to chocolate vanilla stouts – a German band, and so so much German food.  It is just starting to get chilly here and feel like fall – perfect weather for enjoying a nice crisp beer.

Here are a few pictures that I shot before my camera died.  And it is a good thing that it died when it did because there might have been some karoke later in the evening;)

The purple kitchen.

I realized that the only pictures that you have seen of our house are ones without furniture in it.  Since I don’t want you to think that we are still living on beach chairs and air mattresses, I thought that I would give you a little room tour.  I’ll post pictures of the house over the next couple of weeks, but I’ll start with the best room in the house: the purple kitchen.

I’ll be honest; I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of purple, but with all my moves I have learned that you just have to embrace the different.  And guess what happened, the kitchen turned out to be my favorite room.  It is such a bright cheery space and it makes me happy to be in there making breakfast in the morning or pouring a glass of wine at the end of day.  Here’s to making lemonade out of purple kitchen tiles…

PS. I have to thank my parents for helping with the kitchen from afar.  They sent me the rug and my mom made the beautiful curtains.  

Clearly I am very concerned with keeping my menu calendar up to date.

VA State Fair and Butterflies Live!

We have been loving the fall so far this year!  Despite the heat which has finally decided to take a backseat this week, we have been doing some fun fall activities.  I have to say that I am so happy to have family and friends here to enjoy all these things with us. Our weekends are really busy and fun.

Recently we went to the Virginia State Fair and the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens Butterflies Exhibit. This post is mostly about the pictures, but I'll tell you a little about each.

We went to the Virginia State Fair with our good friends Jessi & Nic and their 3 kids, Lydia, Samuel, and 3 month old Sarah (so sweet).  It was a crazy with 4 tykes in tow, but we had a great time.  I went to the State Fair every year growing up and remember it being huge and also a tad scary at nighttime...it's so interesting what you remember as a kid.  It was actually neither!  As a kid I also loved seeing all the animals (mostly the puppies and piglets) plus getting funnel cake was always a treat. These parts proved to still be true. So we went and saw tons of animals, some very close up!  Waverly seemed to really take it all in and we named every animal we saw.  We rode the carousel which she didn't love, saw a Grizzly bear, and ate some nice greasy fair food.  The evening was topped off with funnel cake and a hot air balloon sighting on our way out.  We stayed in the kid section most of the time, so I would love to go back next year and see more of the main part of the fair.

up close and personal!

southern fair food

this face...

carousel! Waverly is not so sure..

girls chillin.

baby Sarah!

sunset at the State Fair!

I am in love with these curls she's getting.

kids running amok.

love.

Funnel Cake - Elephant Ears - Fried Dough...yum!

The VonBanks

blurry pic, but a sweet pic of us...we have been friends since 6th grade!

The following morning we went to Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens...our wedding location and a beautiful year round garden.  They have lots of events throughout the year and we love re-visiting our wedding spot during these visits.  We went with my parents to an exhibit called Butterflies Live! My mom LOVES the gardens so she was excited to go with us to this exhibit.  The greenhouse had been turned into a butterfly habitat.  It was a very warm and tropical environment with different varieties of butterflies flying everywhere.  It was so neat to see.  Waverly loved them and watched them fly above her head.  She loves butterflies!  This started with the butterfly mobile above her crib, and then the book, The Hungry Caterpillar because I make a big deal about the butterfly at the end.

After a stroll through the gardens we went out for Sunday brunch.  Despite a noisy 13 month old who likes to throw food on the floor, it was a nice way to end the weekend!

you can't touch the butterflies but she tried!

she loves her Daddy!

flying everywhere...there were so many butterflies.

this guy hitched a ride on my Dad for a while!  A staffer had to remove him before we left.

My mom, Nick, and Waverly in the humid mist

beautiful day at the gardens

Conservatory

Love from Richmond!