Our Ozarks Holiday

We spent last week traveling around the Arkansas Ozarks and had a wonderful autumn holiday. The leaves were spectacular and the weather was unseasonably warm. Here are a few photos of Kellan playing in Ozarks National Park.

Missouri

These two photos were taken in the Missouri Ozarks on our way down to Arkansas.

Little Rock

These were taken in Little Rock. There are a few from the Discovery Museum, one from the zoo, and one from our hotel room (holding the ever present Roger).

[Note: Kellan was not injured by the sheep in any way. That face is due to the fact that he thought we'd run out of food for feeding said sheep when in fact I still had three quarters in my pocket! He loves to feed animals at the zoo]

A Few Late Halloween Photos

Better late than never. Here are a few photos taken at the play group Halloween party.

Kisses, and cuddles, and love, oh my!

Kellan has recently become a very kissy and cuddly boy, very different to his previous aversion to all things lovey. Everybody gets kisses these days, including the little boys in his play group. He leans in to his intended kissee, puckers his lips, then kisses them (preferably on the mouth) with a great big "smooch!" sound. I know that this will be a short phase (he is a little boy after all), but I am loving every moment getting love from my son.

A soggy trick-or-treat

It has been raining all day and promises to continue well past bedtime this evening, so we're going to have to resign ourselves to a soggy trick-or-treat. We have a large umbrella and plenty of Halloween spirit. We may not hit as many houses as planned, but Kellan will still get his trick-or-treat experience.

This child loves to trick-or-treat. It is all very new to him this year, but the idea of meeting lots of friendly people who give you free candy simply for saying "Tic-tee!" is simply fabulous. You should see those little legs go! Last night we were at a friend's home in a community that did Sunday trick-or-treat (I really don't know why, but it was good practise), and Kellan was unstoppable. The other kids had long since headed back to the house and he was still running up the sidewalk, turning in at each driveway, while I tried to keep up.

Two incidents of note: Beware the person who is handing out Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (Kellan's favourite). A woman apparently didn't give him enough in his bucket last night and he rushed her, lunging into the candy bowl with his big Elmo hands. She honestly didn't know what to do. At another house, Kellan decided that he was going to come in for a visit. He simply ran past the woman at the door and took off into the house. I caught up with him in their kitchen, where a very startled man was staring in bemused confusion.

Yes, tonight promises to be a fun one, umbrella and all.

Elmo

We attended a Halloween event this weekend and were able to test drive this year's Elmo costume. Kellan is the hit of his peers in this costume. The little bee is Carmen, one of Kel's buddies.

Mommy and Kellan

Here we are after our shower last night. And please forgive the brown appearance of my teeth in photo number two. I'm not sure what happened there. I don't even drink coffee or tea!

New Jammies

Grandma sent these lovely warm Dinosaur jammies for Kellan and he decided to do some modeling after his bath last night. They are too cute and he's snug as a bug now that the cool weather has arrived. They'll be our winter standards.

Train Trip

We had a lovely weekend. Lots of cycling, family time, and fun activities. The culmination of which was our Fun Shop train trip on Saturday afternoon. This was so much fun. The regular St Louis to Chicago train picked us up, but we had our own car. The conductor spent time with the children and punched souvenir tickets for them. And the kids had a fantastic trip on the train as far as Lincoln, IL, where Nic met us, we went for a malt, then drove home to Springfield. A delightful adventure.

[side note: a "stranger" took the photo of Kellan and I together, thus the bewildered expression on his face]