They Packed THAT?!

We had heard from quite a few people that the movers would pack anything and everything in our old house for the move. That was part of why we had gone through and cleaned things out prior to their coming.  I was trying to avoid the 'the packed THAT?!' situation when we unpacked in Boston. 

We only uncovered a few wierd items.  Like the red plastic solo cup that I was drinking water from the day that they were at the house packing.  I didn't want to use a 'real' cup (I wanted all of those to get packed), so I just grabbed a plastic one, wrote my name on it with a sharpie and drank my water.  And then apparently left said cup within the reach of the movers.  It was nicely wrapped in newspaper and included in one of the kitchen boxes. How very thoughtful of them.
I thought that might be our winner.  You know, the one silly item that we would talk about them packing.

And then I unpacked this. 

Now, I'm sure you're thinking 'okay, no biggie, they packed a bottle of wine'.  Except that I should mention that I have not drank (drunk?) any wine since we got to Boston.  They packed that bottle, half-full, with the cork just kinda pushed in the top.   Seriously?

A Boston Nor'easter

Our first Boston Nor'easter rolled through over the weekend. I'll admit I really didn't think that our first winter storm would happen before Halloween. :)  It appears as though Mother Nature got her seasons confused.



We got about 5 or 6 inches and spent a bit of time playing in the snow.

All bundled up and ready to head outside.

Her gloves are only SLIGHTLY too big.

She had a hard time walking in the snow, so she ended up like this a lot.  at least she was happy about it.  until her pants got wet and then she was most definitely not happy.

She ended up just sitting and watching us build snowmen.

Dan working on his snowman.

Both of the snowmen have flat-on-top heads.  We're new to this.  Give us a season and I'm sure we'll perfect our technique. :)

"hey. my gloves aren't on my hands anymore."

"i don't know where they went"

"oh wait.  here they are."

wearing her gloves to warm up after we came back inside.

Apple Picking at the Farm

Our first weekend in Boston, we took the opportunity to enjoy the nice weather and ventured out to Smolak Farms, a local farm not far from us.  We spent a lovely Saturday picking apples, visiting with the animals and enjoying some yummy apple cider donuts.

This little lady enjoyed walking around the apple orchards and even got in on the action by picking some apples from the trees!     

                

She did try to carry the bag for a little while, but it quickly became too heavy.

There was a play area for the kiddos and Sydney had a great time.  She was, however, a bit concerned by the paint dot that they put on her hand to show that we had purchased a ticket.

There were also animals.  They had named each animal so that the animal's name started with the same letter as it's type.  So - for example, Fiona the fainting goat. (top right picture below).  As a family that tends to follow this same naming philosophy with our fish (and some of Sydney's stuffed animals), I enjoyed the names. (Frank the Fish is no longer, but we now have Bart the Betta Fish.  Sydney's glow worm has been dubbed Gloria.)

Also, it should be noted that though there were fainting goats, we didn't actually see them faint.  Dan did try to intimidate/startle them, but to no avail.  (After we had moved on and were looking at the other animals, I did hear a man behind us saying "Boo!" loudly, I turned to look and he was also attempting to scare the fainting goats into fainting.  To my knowledge, his efforts were also unsuccessful.)

The Eyebrows

This is my new favorite trick of hers.

Happy Halloween

In keeping with our white Halloween theme, we decided to decorate the pumpkin a little differently this year.  (Okay, maybe that wasn't the real reason.  But after JUST getting everything unpacked and all cleaned up around here, I couldn't really bear to make a huge mess of things again by carving the pumpkins like we've done in the past.  Plus, it was kind of fun to do something different with the pumpkin this year.)

Sydney went trick or treating in the Halloween parade in our apartment complex.  I wasn't sure if she was going to understand or care about what was going on, but she quickly caught on to the fact that people were giving her candy and she would walk right up to them and hold her pumpkin out so they could give her more.

At least she was polite; at the end of the parade she signed "thank you" and then pointed in her pumpkin at the candy that people had given her.  So cute.

Cutest Butterfly Ever.

I wasn't sure if she'd want to wear her costume.  Especially the headband with the antennae.  I thought that would last about 2 seconds, but wouldn't you know, she kept it on the entire time she was trick or treating.  And then some.  I'm having a hard time keeping it away from her.

"Look Mom!   CANDY!!"

So glad that she is 18 months old and doesn't know that her Daddy and I will eat most of her candy...

The park

There is a huge park right next door to our new apartment.  Just a big wide open field.  Perfect for a little lady to run around in.

PS.  Check out the hair-do.  We have enough to make pig tails! :)

A New Chase Baby

There is a new Chase baby around (no, this is not a “we’re announcing that we’re pregnant post”.  :) )

Cousin Evelyn arrived on October 8^th, right before we headed out of Atlanta.  Many thanks to the sweet baby for making her appearance before we left town so that we could meet her!

She’s a cutie.  

We had talked to Sydney about how we don’t touch the baby and that all we could do was blow kisses to the baby.  She was quite content to point and say ‘baby’ and blow kisses then run and play with all of Joshua’s toys.  

We did pull the kiddos together for a group shot with their daddies.   

THIS was the best that I got. 

(at least a couple of people are looking at the camera).