Picking Pumpkins

Noah's Grandma Jean and and her best friend, Eva (a surrogate Grandma to Noah) are visiting us for the next two weeks. Today we all went out to the farm to pick a pumpkin and play with the animals. Sadly, it was a bit cold and rainy, but we had a nice time anyway.

Here they are on the hayride to the pumpkin patch.

Grandma Jean is the one hidden behind Noah in this picture. Eva is in the pink.

Lovely Lilly

Noah and I had some very special visitors today. My friend Maxine and her husband, Fontaine and daughter, Lilly were visiting Fontaine's family in Virginia Beach for the last couple weeks and on their way to the airport to head back home to London they stopped by for lunch with me and some fun on the playground with Noah. I first met Maxine in 1996 when I was abroad in Australia. We became very close friends. A few years later, when I moved to London, Maxine put me up in her apartment for a few weeks before the LSE dorms opened up. But, the last time I saw her was nearly 9 years ago at Darren's and my wedding. Since then, Maxine has been traveling round the world, so whenever we've been in England, she has been elsewhere. She's been back in London for the last year or so, while her husband goes back and forth between London and Nigeria where he works. And, in a couple weeks, they're moving to Bali... Yup, little Lilly has been to 4 continents in less than 1 year of life. Noah has never been on a plane... but that's another story. But regardless, he took to her immediately, and it was great to see Maxine and meet Fontaine and lovely Lilly.

The Garbage Truck

I'm not sure why, but Noah really likes garbage trucks. He is fascinated with the garbage truck when it comes to collect our garbage. He also loves the play garbage truck at school. So, I gave in and bought him one for home. This video isn't the best, but I did like that he sang his ABCs in it. Unfortunately, it's getting harder and harder to shoot a video of him because whenever he sees you with the camera out he starts crying and trying to grab the camera because he wants to either see the pictures or view the video on the camera screen.

Bethany Beach

We spent last weekend at Bethany Beach with Noah's friends Greydon, Sienna and Mia and their families. It was a great long weekend, even though the weather was less than ideal. We did get one decent beach day out of the trip, but had fun the whole time. Unlike last summer, when Noah did not like the beach at all, he really loved it this year.

Here are all the kids and their dads.

And a picture of just our family looking out over the waves.

When it was raining outside, Noah and Greydon enjoyed spending time playing in the house with vacuum cleaners. Clearly vacuums are much more fun than actual toys.

Noah and Sienna enjoyed "riding" the scooters in the garage. What a little bad ass!

But the best part of all was the beach.

Another fun thing for the parents was "picking crabs." Quite an experience!

We can't wait to go back next year!

Greydon's New House

Yesterday, we went to visit Noah's friend Greydon at his new house. Noah had a wonderful time. We went down to a little beach area by the lake near Greydon's house and Noah had a wonderful time swimming in the water.

It was his second weekend out of three consecutive weekends when he'll get to see Greydon, Mia and Sienna. Last weekend we went to Sienna's house (here's a link to Sienna's blog). And next weekend the four families are going to the beach in Delaware.

Some Recent Noah-isms

• Noah has learned to spell his name. He often asks us to write his name on his magnadoodle (he also asks us to write all of his friends' names and our names, as in "write daddy.") So the other night I said, "Noah, can you spell Noah?" and he answered "N O A H." Then I asked him if he could spell daddy, and he answered "D D Y," which I thought was pretty good for a 2 year old.
  
• Noah has started watching Leap Frog DVDs (it's the only kids TV he has seen), and he really likes the Letter Factory one. He watched it a couple times on Sunday, until I was a bit out of my mind and decided no more TV and shut it off. A couple hours later Noah came up to me and said "Watch letters?" and I said "No, you've had enough TV today." So he then said "Watch Morning Joe?" Apparently, MSNBC's morning show is his second choice after Letters. He recognizes Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski... oh my... what have I done??? He also thought Brian Williams was his friend Micah's father once, but that was a while back.
• This morning (as we were watching Morning Joe) Noah suddenly says loudly "Oh my God!" and of course, when I laughed, he repeated it over and over again. It sounded like he was saying it in response to something Tom Ridge said (he was a guest this morning).