Weekending it

What a split weekend. We had amazing weather on Saturday. It was a beautiful fall day so we planned to take family photos at the local state park. Plans got slightly adjusted when Mandy was called away to help the other family she is a nanny for when their new baby arrived early!! Exciting for them and I'm sure they were grateful to have Mandy help in a pinch since the rest of their extended family is down with covid. Ugh. So stressful for them, I'm sure. 

I would have rather waited to do family photos with Mandy since she is our designated family photographer, but Kip was insistent we go. So Dan and I took the kids and just did photos of them. It was a moderately pleasant experience. There was a lot of attitude and forced cheese faces, but we did get a couple of gems that might make it onto a Christmas card. Here are some outtakes:

On Sunday, the weather was poopy but we NEEDED to get pumpkins for a little pumpkin carving party we are planning for next weekend. We hit two places and basically all that was left were MASSIVE pumpkins. I mean huge. The first place we went was where we went last year and I think the nice weather from the day before brought the crowds that wiped the good pumpkins. 

Mandy directed us to another farm nearby which allowed us to view some of the beautiful fall foliage in the area. We live pretty close to a lot of farmland in Jersey - they don't call it the "garden state" for nothing. Once you leave the industrial area across from NYC, New Jersey is gorgeous.

We had much better luck at the second farm. It was spitting rain and a bit muddy, but we left with some options (still not an ideal size for small kids but doable).

We had donuts and got some photos around their decorations. Kip is currently in a phase where he requests photos but then usually puts on the most forced cheese face and rarely looks into the camera. Ivy just shouts cheese but only looks at the camera about 1/3 of the time. I much prefer candid shots of the kids but I do love those rare posed shots with sweet beaming natural smiles.

Happy Tuesday!