Here Be Dragons

 

Boys. Two little boys. Two little boys, who are so big for their age and so smart for their age that most times, we two mothers forget that they are barely three and almost three.  Sawyer and Lincoln set off on many self-initiated adventures together dragon hunting, dragon fighting, dragon chasing, and other non-dragon things like firefighters, rescue, and good old regular mischief. Of course, when two little boys spend all day together, there will be occasional discord, but thankfully we have acres out back to let them run it out and work it out. They settled into camaraderie each day.  Two little boys that made quite the team.

Back at Nana's

It took peer, pressure, goading, and guilting, but we convinced my sister to drive back with us from the beach to our parents' house to stay for a week. The final convincing piece for her was the picture-perfect idea of munching fresh apple fritters in the crisp, fall air while the babes played on tractors and danced among pumpkins. This place is the best in the fall, with so many fun outdoor activities, and we crammed as many as we happily could into one week.

Pumpkins: 

Patterson's Fall Fest:

Practical Joking:

{I just couldn't not post this picture...spider bum was hilarious to LouLou}

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Everywhere

    

 

 

We have been to no less than three separate pumpkin patches this glorious fall, but this little farm stand one is our favorite.  Sawyer talks nearly non-stop about the spider with glasses and wants to know on precisely which days we will be going to see him.  In addition to the bespectacled arachnid, there is a corn maze, little tike's rides, goats, a hay bale crawl space, and rows and rows of pumpkins; pink, white, orange, green, and even bumpy, warty ones.  We pick one up nearly every time we visit, which means we've got a lot of carving to do.

We Fancy Fall

  

Change is not comfortable for me.  I'm a settler.  Roots, traditions, familiarity, other such comfort-eliciting what-have-you's are near and dear to my existence. Our past year has brought many changes and a good measure of discomfort (if I'm honest) and opportunity to stretch my known existence (if I'm optimistic).  It's been hard to experience many new things at once and to try to generate a positive metamorphosis at every turn, though I appreciate and know the growth factor of diversity.  

So it is with an abundance of irony that I find myself, in what will hopefully be the last big change of the year, landed in a place that is extremely familiar and comfortable, yet transformative in its familiarity and comfort.  I feel like everyday is a sigh of relief; I feel renewed in  the old.  And finally, as the weight lifts from remembered strength, I can appreciate what is new and improved.