Fall in a nutshell

The month of October really snuck by me b/c we were so busy with fun activities. The first weekend of Oct. we went to Morehead for Jamie's inaugural visit to the NC Seafood Festival.  I have been talking up that festival to Jamie since we met over 10 years ago so I was eager to see what he thought of it.  He was not disappointed.  He LOVED it!  The key is to go on Friday night when it is mostly locals.  I swear I saw more people there than at my high school reunion.  We had a blast trying various local seafoods in between games and rides with Harrison.  I just LOVE small local festivals - especially when this is the view:

Next, we took the kids to the NC State Fair in mid-October.  We went on the canned food drive day (where you get in free with 4 cans of food), which is also one of the busiest days of the fair.  Harrison got to hold a baby turkey, which he loved, and more of the rides.

Jamie and I also went to the UNC/Miami football game in Chapel Hill.  We had not been for a couple of years and decided to find a sitter and go at the last minute.  I think that Jamie is beginning to see why us tarheels are so crazy about and proud of our school!  It is awesome.

The final weekend of October we had 2 Halloween parties and Harrison's first princess birthday party for his pal Wesley.  One of the highlights of the birthday party was getting their nails painted.  Harrison chose green and black paint for Halloween.  On the way to the party we had talked about the importance of not touching anything until the nails were dry and it was hilarious to see him walk around the party with his fingers held up high so he didn't mess up his nails.

I've never seen him sit so still:

and, at the dryer:

Finally, we had Halloween which was wonderful as usual!  Anyone who knows me knows that this is one of my favorites holidays.  I just love how everyone gets dressed up and has the chance to be silly for a day!  It seems to be one of Harrison's favorites too!  We are lucky in that our neighborhood goes all out and several of the houses pitch tents and have spooky decorations.  All year long Harrison has referred to one especially decorated house as "the scary house."  In fact, he decided it was too scary for him to trick or treat there this year.  I let him pick his costume out of a catalogue and he chose to be a transformer.  He didn't know what that was but he thought the costume looked cool!  I chose Anne's costume, a pig, b/c it was ridiculously cute and she's our little chub (or used to be).  Harrison wore his costume to several parties and school festivals but on Halloween itself he wanted to dress in his costume from last year, a cow.  So, we had our farm!  Jamie and I also attended a neighbor's adult party and dressed up as Smurfette and Gargomel from the Smurfs.

decorating and carving pumpkins:

our little farm animals:

the smurfs:

Finally, this past weekend Harrison had another birthday party where he got to ride a pony for the first time - he LOVED it!  This is in sharp contrast to this same time last year where he wouldn't go within 50 feet of a pony b/c he was so scared of it.  He's come a long way!