Annual October Trip to Shenandoah

We always go to Shenandoah for my birthday weekend as a daytrip. We mosey our way out to Front Royal for a fall festival and antiquing, and stop at pumpkin patches and farms along the way. On the way home we always stop at Three Fox Winery, which is our most favorite place to relax on a sunny fall afternoon. We had a lot of fun with John Patrick this year- he loved learning to skip rocks with daddy along the creek at the vineyard, swing in the hammocks, ad have a picnic.

Playing in Hay and Apple Picking!

About a month ago we headed out to Homestead Farms for apple picking and fall fun... with about a million other suburban dc families. John Patrick had a ball and went nuts over how many apples were everywhere! At the start of the visit he just called them "balls", but by the end, he learned a new word: "apple"! Now he asks for apples everyday and learns a few new words daily. Some of his newest words: airplane, squirrel, thank you, bubbles, I poop!, monkey, train, bus, choo choo, vroom vroom... so may more I can't remember them all! We are having fun with his linguistic development for sure!

Celebrating Mommy's Birthday

A favorite picture from a few weeks back- celebrating my birthday. More to come after a full night of sleep!

More 12 month portraits.

I really am so behind on family pictures. These are a few shots I took at my sister Linda's beautiful home back in September. She and her husband John have created the most relaxing, lush backyard, and it was perfect to snap a few quick pics of John Patrick! I love the last one with his cousin McKenzie. I think they are starting to look a bit alike! He loves his cousins!! Can't wait for Halloween with the girls this year!

1st Bike ride and fall hike at Sugarloaf Mtn.

John PAtrick is totally obsessed with dogs and balls. Paying ball with this dog at the winery at Sugarloaf was heaven for him!


devouring an entire pear... doesn't even let the stem slow him down!

we bought a Burley Bike trailer a few weekends ago off craigslist, and have been enjoying taking little man out on the beautiful fall days! William is now able to tow him along to the park on their Daddy-Days when they don't have the car. He wasn't a huge fan of the helmet at first, but has gotten used to it!

John Partrick is one year old!

Yes, actually he is now 13 months old.. but I am way behind on the family blog. Fall is busy season for portraits and weddings, so photography has been keeping me very busy! But anyways, I took him over to Glenview Mansion a few weeks back to do his formal one year portrait session, for which he officially decided to ignore mommy taking pictures and destroy his suit in the mud! Maybe next year we'll get some more smiling pictures. But this year, we will just remember his sparky personality and his emerging walking skills, his obsession with anything round, muddy, and gross.

John Patrick is walking!

He has been taking steps on his own since about about 10 months, but it wasn't until yesterday, Sept. 8th, that we saw him actually walk across the whole room and into another room. One year and about one week old! Luckily, both William and I were there to see him in action! Here are a few short videos I took just on the cell phone tonight while he walked the courtyard of our building. He was quite motivated to walk to his girlfriend Ani when she came out to play! She was so excited for him to be walking! Now the real trouble begins!!