fall activities & thanksgiving

one of the highlights of the fall was ben and william attending the byu vs. san jose state football game with the harricks. first stop the tailgate and meeting cosmo. 

they stayed through half time and william made four new best friends with the harrick kids.

we've made a few trips to the park and william learned the joy of throwing leaves. he's also perfecting how to say 'cheese'.

of course lucy has kept us busy, but overall she has been a fantastic baby.

for thanksgiving we hosted the forrest family. it was a full house but we enjoyed a great meal and wonderful company. 

thanksgiving afternoon we all ventured down to monterey for the night and spent the following day at the monterey bay aquarium.

lucy at 1 month

since i tracked williams monthly development over the course of his first year i feel obligated to do the same for lucy.

for her first month lucy has pretty much been a dream baby. she sleeps and eats well and when awake is happy. she pretty much goes with the flow. and so far william has been a great big brother. he's not to interested in her but does like to kiss her head and tickle her hands.

here she is with her elephant which will track her growth. at her one month appointment she weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and 20.5 inches, growing nicely!

we love lucy and are so thrilled to have her in our family.

life with two

the first month with two kids went better than expected. lucy pretty much sleeps and eats and we had a lot of help from family so we were still able to get out quite a bit. grandma shafer stayed with us awhile and took william on endless walks and bike rides.

grandma shafer also accompanied us to filoli gardens where we found williams bench again.

another warm day we went to lemos farm in half moon bay. william loved the train ride and pumpkin hunting.

he didn't initially love his first pony ride, but slowly warmed up to it. he kept a death grip on the saddle the whole time.

lucy has also received a lot of love. it took a lot of encouragement to get william to hold her, not so with cousin madelyn, she's a pro.

lucy received her first bath. she didn't love it, but has warmed up to them recently.

and since we've had the camera out a lot these days william has been perfecting his 'cheese' smile.

i think we just may survive as a family of four.

halloween

william was blown away by the concept of halloween. he loved that all he had to do was say trick or treat and people would give him candy! he also got a kick out of being dressed liked a lion.

we participated in three trick or treating outings. first at trunk or treat at church, then downtown los altos and finally actual halloween night. william wanted to eat each piece of candy right away. he only collected a few treats and then was done. playing in the leaves with josephine was more exciting.

the neighborhood kids had a wizard of oz theme going. william as the cowardly lion, josephine as dorothy, wesley as todo, and mackenzie as the monkey turned panda bear.

i'm sure this will be the last halloween when three houses is all that it will take to satisfy william. and lucy slept through it all. happy halloween!