"Look, pumpkin!" and Happy Thanksgiving

I forgot about our pumpkin sitting outside the front door.

Now it's covered in frost, and whatever snow that's made its way up the steps -- with help or not from the overnight blizzard!

Strangely, it's school as usual for the boys. Then again, this is NOT St Louis.

The husband was away. I didn't want to drive on the slick roads till he got back.

The tricky part was trudging up the slope to get to the schoolbus.

In that wind, and snow still coming down this morning. In our thick coats and clunky boots.

Jon went ahead while Ben was lagging behind with me, me carrying Kait.

She was crying even after we got back indoors -- stepping out at first and then again after school. Because...

IT IS SOOO COLD, IT BITES!

It was good that Vern eventually flew back one day later tonight, earlier than usual, before subzero temperatures will drop to *gasp* -10F!

Do you know how crazy that is? We are going to find out!

By comparison, Spokane got away with an unusually mild winter last year described as "below average". This year's forecast is "above average". Read: there's going to be more of this ARCTIC COLD... BRRR!!!

Now that we are already into winter, and I am so falling behind in our pictures to download and upload and roll out here, I'm thinking I might as well keep my fave fall picture(s) for Christmas.

Seriously?!

Oh, alright. It is almost Thanksgiving ;p.

From the harvest season...

"LOOK, PUMPKIN!" Kait was happy to draw my attention to every one of those big orange squash she spied with her eye -- outside someone's house,

or at this supermarket...

... More than what she could count with her two hands: "1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11"! She knows her numbers -- a few at a time, hehe!

And "LOOK OUT!" was what I did NOT have to alert other shoppers to that same day she was out to impress me with her driving skills, yet again. Everybody somehow knew to stay out of our way! Did I mention that it was a humongous cart and she was anything but steering it safely from inside the kid-size cab?!

So it wasn't until another week, another usual grocery trip with me -- and this time I tried to stay one step ahead of my baby, by heaving the pumpkin into the cart first, before we finally brought it home!

Look how mighty pleased she was with it!

In-between, we also made a "pumpkin" princess, and a prince, with construction paper. That was also when Ben who loves to draw, made his own cut-out of a boy -- with arms outstretched and wearing a shirt he had written "Welcome home, Dad" on it. It's stayed on our pantry door since, to welcome Vern back from his weekly work trips going on still.

And "Hippity hop, hippity hop!" went my Li'l Pumpkin -- toting her pumpkin bucket, during her own dry run of the big candy hunt last month...

... before the last leaves have fallen since a couple of weeks ago now!

The li'l girl loves to play with her brothers. She knows a Wookie from an Ewok, and Princess Leia of course, not just how to "clink" lightsabers and popsicles with Jon and Ben since little-r.

Thankfully, she did also get back to clinking rakes with me after joining them in their "LEAF FIGHT!", now turned "SNOWBALL FIGHT!".

As for the boys? They were casting Harry Potter spells on one another, and faster than how fast my fave flying colours have flown off the trees, they'd flown off on their broomsticks! Even before I could bag up those leaves!

Oh, all their childhood memories I will love to bag, too -- not to chuck, but treasure!

Season by season, the biggest joys are often found in the simplest things. That when we stop and gaze, they are there -- Thank You, Lord -- for us to count our blessings.

On a good day or not so great one. Rain, shine, or snow.

Thank you all also for stopping by here to gaze with me, and especially because you care :).

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

(Kait at 25-27 mos.

Pretend play gets more and more real, going from feeding a plastic dog to walking a ball of wool to imagining nothing as a pooch.

There's the "Look, leaf!" and "Look, pumpkin!", and "Who's that?", "What that?", and "Where?". Or if "I looked everywhere" and she can't find something, she concludes it's "hiding!". The curiosity as well as making associations on her own of what she knows about something she can name or spot also opens up a world of things to play, and stories to enjoy and retell in her own simple words.

Use your words -- we encourage her, but it can be really tricky at this young age. The screams and tantrums can be quite out of this world, too, and I still have not figured out how to wean her. Otherwise, I do really like Kait's "I do!"/"Me, too!"/"Yay, I did it!" enthusiasm).