**My clapping, rolling, sitting, dada and mama saying, popsicle eating, stroller/carseat loving, shoulder biting (mine-not hers),Yo Gabba Gabba watching, nutrigrain bar loving, 6 toothed ALWAYS LAUGHING favorite baby in the world**

CURTAIN CALL.....

on Canandaguia.

Since the weather is rapidly changing into fall out here, I need to purge my computer of all our summer outings. So with that, we bid adieu to the beautiful lake "resort" that we fell in love with during our first summer here in New York.

Where Jaisa perfected her 'mud pies'....... and her tan. Where Tyson dabbled with his architechtural skills...... and became quite good at building sand castles, dungeons and barking orders at his little sister "assistant".

Where Shawni would sit for hours and 'people watch'.....

or relax in the perfect weather.

Where my little girl who never falls asleep in the car...would fall asleep every time during the 20 minute car ride home. **Not a second before her 'you played nice at the beach' frosty was gone-of course**

And where Todd and I marveled at the beauty of upstate New York.

while watching our kids explore and have fun!

Until next year......

These party animals are dressed and ready for their very first princess birthday party.

Oh wait....not quite ready. Jai insisted on wearing her 'pripress fur coat'. Not fur coat wearing weather, but doesn't she look so princessy(?)

"Only on paper" does not mean "only on paper" to a 2 year old.

Washable markers are not really washable.

Yes......I am that cool. Cool enough that I chased a frog around outside while in my pajamas and picked him up just so my son could 'have a pet for a minute'.

I must say that he was pretty impressed {as was my husband} with my frog catching skills. I knew Todd wasn't going to do it. He was fine standing on the sidelines waching his wife run around on the grass and climb under cars.

But....it was worth it.

We had a pet. My interpretation of a pet: something that dwells in our around our home only long enough to be named and have pictures taken. Then......"it" must be on his way.

So, this is our pet frog Jonny. **No offense to my little sister who's baby has the same name-at least we spelled it different** Tyson finally agreed to hold the frog when I told him how cool it was. Unfortunately, that was the exact same time the frog decided to 'relieve' himself - grossing Ty out and getting tossed onto me. After washing up, we took pictures of Ty with his pet number 4834720 and set him free.

AAAAHHHHH!!!!!!! IT'S COOOMMMIIINNNNGGG!!! BOO! {the 'happy screech' would scare you too} Who knew a game of tag could be sooo fun for an 8 month old?

Ooh la la. Somebody.....is sooooo close to crawling - kind of. Though she is 8 months old, she is still stuck in the upper-body-off-the-ground-only pose. She rolls around and pivets on her tummy to get where she wants to go -slowly. But, she is still the 'happiest baby on the block' and never stops smiling. And, she looks absolutely fabulous in the new dress my sister sent her. Thanks Steph!

The pool is closed. We're sad. That means I'm going to have to figure out some other way to keep the kids occupied all day and make them extra tired for bedtime....

One of the best parts about walking to the pool, is the beautiful trails through our neighborhood. The kids would often chase the rabbits, squirrels, ducks and frogs along the way. But we are so excited to experience the fall in upstate NY. We hear it is absolutely wonderful.....

Someone.....has waited 5 1/2 years for this to happen. It finally did and he couldn't be more excited!!! We have our very first Kindergartner. I was nervous to put him on the bus and planned on driving him myself. But bright and early this morning (3 hours early - in fact), he was dressed and waiting by the door. He actually wanted to ride the bus "just like my friends do Mom". After realizing it was more a fear of mine to send him on the bus without me, than a fear of his.....we walked to the bus stop. And boy, did he look handsome! He graciously posed for me....a terrified mom sending her first born to a real school. It was all fun and games for this little one...... until she figured out what was going on. Tyson stepped on the bus ( I still can't believe it), and yelled "bye" to her out the window...smiling the whole time (Did I mention I still can't believe it??) And thats when the tears began to flow......and flow.......and flow. She cried for a good 10 minutes before I was able to settle her down - or shall I say before the chocolate chips were able to settle her down.

LABOR DAY.....WITH US

I am so thankful that today was a holiday! Todd had a work party that he and Tyson attended all afternoon on Saturday while I stayed home with Jaisa (who had a fever and was very grouchy). Sunday, he was at the hospital from 7am-7pm for his anesthesia round. Quick story: He ended up putting to sleep a woman who got attacked. Not just any attack. She got attacked by her house cat!! She needed surgery to repair her arm that was shredded to the bone......by a house cat!!! Crazy eh? So luckily after a very busy weekend, he was able to spend a whole day with us. The kids were super excited - they always are when Todd is home. We took the kids to lunch, after which I suggested we stop by the Halloween store.>

Quick reminder.....2 year olds are deathly afraid of Monsters. They don't think that they are funny {like my 7 month old}, or know that they are fake {like my 5 year old}. They don't want you to hand them a fake rubber arm, pretending that it is yours {in my defense, I thought she would laugh}. They don't want to see big fake rats, scary clowns or huge spiders.

They only want to be in the 'happy - section'. You know princesses......cute little animals...

Right before Jaisa went to bed, I asked her if she saw a lot of princesses today. She said "yep" and then said "scary - like this" as she put her hands over her eyes. I hope everyone has happy dreams tonight {including me}.

This is how we do Target. We meaning Tyson and Jaisa. Yep......they followed me around the whole store like this. **They are the reason I carry my camera in my purse at-all-times.. and I'm so glad I do**

DURAND PARK

During one of our explorations a couple weekends ago, we happened upon Durand Park. About a 20 minute drive from our house. As we parked and got out of the car, we noticed that just behind the bushes in front of us was Lake Ontario. What a nice surprise! We walked the path and across a huge bridge....right into the greenest forest I have ever seen. The kids had fun pretending to hide from "bad guys", while Todd and I took it all in. It's not often a Vegas girl sees trees and greenery like this