Trick-Or-Treat!

 

What a difference a year makes!

Happy Halloween! Who doesn't love this holiday!? You get to dress your kid up, show them off and get candy! Although we didn't go trick-or-treating per say, we did do the traditional pumpkin carving the night before, and then on the actual holiday, we went to the Lloyd Center in downtown Portland to walk around.

We decided to carve our pumpkins the night before with Connor this year (last year Ryan & I just carved the pumpkins). The older he gets, the more things he enjoys doing! Although he didn't quite understand what we were doing, he was super cute trying, and A+ for effort!

Helping, or making a mess LOL?

He thought the goo inside of the pumpkins was to eat...

Dad putting Mr. Potato Head on our pumpkin

He thought that mouth was for him : )

The finished product!

A few weeks before Halloween, we were searching the Internet for a costume for Connor to wear. We stumbled across the elephant costume and knew right away that it was the costume for him. In May of this year, Grams & Papa came to visit us and get to know Connor. One trip to Toys-R-Us and he found his best friend. He carries around an elephant where ever we go, and uses him as a pillow at night to sleep on. This costume was made for Connor!!

At Barnes & Nobles taking a break!

He was a hit : )

There was so much to look at!

Are we there yet!?

Costume Check (X) -  Dad Check (X)

Sauvie Island - More Pumpkin Patches

Like I mentioned earlier, there are so many pumpkin patches in Oregon, you could probably do one a day for a few weeks up until Halloween! We decided to venture over to Sauvie Island, which is known for their pumpkin patches, as well as U-Pick fruits and vegetables. Our first stop, was Kruger's Farm Market, which was alright, but not as nice as the pumpkin patch we stopped by at the end. We went on a few hay rides, and tried to pick out some pumpkins, but boy were they slim pickin'! You'll see by the pictures. We searched forever, but ended up coming up empty handed. Oh yeah, and we managed to get a family picture taken by Mary Faber for a great price. Since we're the only family here, we have little pictures of the three of us, since someone has to be taking the picture.

Not ripe yet!

Few to choose from

We did see a cool airplane though!

Cheese : )

 

Precious!

Our second stop was the Pumpkin Patch a few miles away from where we were. This patch was SO packed, parking was an absolute nightmare!! We decided to get in line to try the hay ride but that was so long, we would have been waiting forever (Ryan and I learned our lesson last year by waiting in line at the Roloff Farms. Not doing that again!) Ok, so no-go there. We decided that the walk wouldn't be that bad, so we hiked over there. Little did we know, the mud was horrible, and the cabbage stunk to high heavens. Poor Connor, he was pooped, but trudged on. We managed to find some great pumpkins here, and even got to catch the hay ride back which was mud free!

Haha, good luck picking that one up!

He could really care less about the pumpkin. He really wanted
to play with the water in the center haha!!

So many to choose from here!

Let's see what next weekend brings us!

Apple Picking - Sort Of

 Fall + Apples = Homemade Apple Crisp! I wanted to make my own this year, and scoured the Portland area for places where we could pick our own apples. No such luck!! I guess the weather didn't treat the apples too well, and many of the U-Picks didn't grow enough for people to do the picking. In a desperate attempt to just find some apples and make the crisp already, we found a cute little family activity to go to! The Apple Fesival was a great place to find some apples, and just enjoy the fall weather. Ok, so we didn't exactly pick our own apples off of the trees, but we can pretend : P These were the biggest apples we've ever seen and they were so juicy!

Apples on steroids haha!

Aside from the apples (which were a little expensive, but you got a whole lot of apple for that price!) there was face painting, an apple jumping bouncer, hay-rides and all of the fixings! We did do the hay-ride, but opted out of everything else due to the time constraint that we had for Connor's nap. Here are just a few pictures, but we enjoyed the time as a family!

Smile!

All Aboard...

A whole lot of pumpkins...

Let The Festivities Begin!

The one thing I've learned about Portland is that there is SO much to do here! Aside from toddler classes, storytimes, and playgyms, there are several things to do outside while enjoying the sunshine! For the fall, you could go to a pumpkin patch a week, and still have plenty left to do!! I guess we're spoiled over here in the Great Northwest!

Connor and I, along with our friends Sarah, Justice, Jody and Bobby decided to take a trip to Lakeview Farms in Hillsboro.When we got there, we first discovered farm animals that Connor fell in love with. Kitties, goats, and pigs oh my! After dragging him away from them (literally), we decided that we were going to first go on a train ride and see all of the wonderful pumpkins they had. And boy did they have some! (However, we didn't get our pumpkins from here because that's a tradition we usually do with Daddy). Our second stop was the little hay maize. How confusing for a toddler!? Connor kind of went in, looked around and then came back out. Hay just doesn't do it for him lol. That, and he had no idea what he was suppose to do in there haha.

Thanks God for hand sanitizer : P

 

 Riding on the train

 Justice trying to guide Connor in the corn maize

Ok, next stop was the hay pyramid. Once again, not interested. Leave it to the moms though to bring their trusty cameras with them. Even though Connor could care less he was sitting on hay, I had to take it upon myself for a photo op. I mean come on. Us parents capture anything! Even though I couldn't get a great picture of him, since he decided to be camera un-friendly, we managed to get a few decent pictures of the boys together!

 Connor and his friends (L: Justice, R: Bobby)

Aww!

Our last stop was the boat ride. To get back to the petting zoo where we came in, we had to take a boat ride. Not only was the gentleman operating the boat super friendly, but we came upon some rather interesting things lurking in the water!

The boat ride

Stay tuned for our next adventure!!

Welcome To Our World!

Hello all! Thanks for snooping on us. Haha! Just Kidding! If you've come to this page, you probably came here for a reason. Ryan and I would like to think it's for you to keep tabs on us, but we know it's all about Connor. We love it that way! We learned that early on!! We are no longer Ryan and Danielle Pieszak. You can just call us Connor's Dad & Mom. Anywhoo..

It's been quite the year, and time has gone by so fast. With everyone being so busy with their own lives, it's so hard to keep up with others. Talking on the phone, or chatting on the Internet has it's limitations, so why not blog! This way, you get the best of both worlds! You can see pictures, and get a little blurb about what's been going on in our world. We hope you enjoy : p

And hey..better late than never!!!