Halloween Treats

I have realized lately that the holidays are MUCH more fun when your child is old enough to understand them, and enjoy all of the things that go along with celebrating them! Jack has been loving every second of all the special Halloween things we've done recently.

The first night we were back home with Daddy, we were lucky to have him come home from work early. Justin passed a pumpkin patch / petting zoo / bouncy house place on the way home, and thought it would be really fun for Jack. He was right! We were also blessed with seasonally-cool temperatures...I think that it fell from about 65 degrees when we arrived to 50 when we left. It was awesome! We all bundled up and enjoyed a night of exploring and running around (with Daddy!!! YAY!!!)

Daddy showing Jack how to feed the goats.

"Here goats, like this!" and then, "DON'T DO THAT!" Hmmm.

Running...literally...to the biggest bouncy slide there.

Our fearless little man.

 I took more pictures, but they are only of the back of Jack, and they are all blurry. Ahh, life with a two year old :)

Speaking of, we were all eating dinner last night and Jack was done. He decided he wanted to sit on the bench at the dining room table with Daddy...and proceeded to fall and BUST his bottom lip wide open. Between this, the bump he still has on his head from the doorframe at home, and all his leg bruises from climbing up and down bouncy house ladders, it looks like he leads a pretty rough life. He took this in stride though, although he has complained today about his lip hurting because he fell down.

This picture doesn't do it justice...the biggest bust is on the inside bottom.

 Happy Hollow, our favorite park/zoo, had a big Halloween celebration starting today for all the kids. Jack and I were excited to get there right when they opened and have all the rides to ourselves!! (Although he's STILL ONE INCH too short for the roller coaster! Soon!)

Big smiles on the granny bugs...I rode it four times alone before another kid came :)

In the scarecrow maze...a little scared.

Getting my face painted...guess what I wanted?

OH YEAH, a spider! And I instructed the nice lady, "no, need web!!" so it has a web too.

Firetruck ride!

Halloween Party at Preschool

Today Jack's class had their Halloween party at preschool. Thankfully, I threw his costume in the car at the last minute, because we haven't been to school in three weeks now so I wasn't sure if they would be doing one or not. They did, and it was awesome! Jack had a great morning dressing up, learning about Halloween, singing songs, dancing, and eating. I am even more excited now for Monday night's trick-or-treating because I know he will LOVE it!

Jack's orange-themed snack plate. All the Moms were supposed
to bring an orange snack...Oops. Even though I missed it, I thought they were
pretty creative. P.S. - That orange pudding stuff? It's an Indian treat with lots of spices.
It was DELISH!

In his words, "YUM-MEEEEEE!!"

In his spider costume! HE LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT!

In line for trick-or-treating :) He took off his hat because he
got so sweaty dancing in class!

Smiling at Teacher Meena.

Teaching the kids to line up. It worked...sort of!

On another note, HOLY GARDEN, BATMAN!!! Look what I came home to see...

Um, Justin, I think you are supposed to prune plants...just sayin' :)

That's a yellow squash, bigger than my foot x 2.

GIANT ZUCCHINI.

Our Trip Home!

Hi ladies and gentlemen, I know you have been anxiously awaiting my next post. (Ha ha.) Well, the reason I have been M.I.A. lately is because Jack and I were blessed to spend almost a whole month with our families in Georgia! We had originally planned to stay two weeks after Cara and Jack's wedding, but Justin's travel plans to China were extended and a trip to NYC was tacked on, so Jack and I decided to change our flights and stay the extra time in the south instead of heading home to an empty house in California for two weeks. It was so nice to have unrushed, relaxing time with our family members!!

As you can probably imagine, I have TONS of pictures to go through from this trip. I also have lots sitting on my email and a disc from Gigi to sort through. So I promise that I will post more soon! I wanted to go ahead and get these up now, because even though we flew in late last night, Jack still went to preschool this morning...and they had their Halloween party, which was adorable! So I will get those pictures up shortly too. :)

Please forgive the random order of these photos; they aren't necessarily posted in the order that they happened. I will do my best with the captions to explain things! We had a great time and we are so very lucky to have moms, dads, Pop Pops and SuSus, Gigis and G-docs, Colins and Sissys who welcome us without complaint, with open arms, to disrupt their houses and lives for as long as we did. Thank you thank you thank you to all of you!

At the Jax Zoo: riding the carousel with Pop Pop, for the first of many times!

Poor Doak. He's such a good sport, and Jack terrorizes him! Here: Jack wanted Doak to wear a diaper too :)

After seeing the flamingos at Jax Zoo, Jack practices his best flamingo pose. He's a pro!

The quintessential cheesy pose from a family vacation :)

Showing Mommy the birds at the zoo.

Riding the train around the zoo with Pop Pop!!

With Aunt Sissy at the pumpkin patch in Tallahassee, before game time!

Running the ropes course at the zoo...literally :)

SuSu thought she was being VERY FUNNY with this picture.
I guess a photo really is worth a thousand words...

Petting (hugging) a goat at the zoo :)

We had a great time!

At the pumpkin patch with Pop Pop!

Whoa, cool spider face!!!

Pool at the Grand Floridian, Disney World. Jack LOVED swimming!

Eating my Mickey Mouse waffles before a big day at the Magic Kingdom!

A little overwhelmed...

"Ohhh, castle!"

Dumbo ride, every toddler's must-do! With Aunt Cara and G-doc.

This used to be Mr. Toad's Wild Ride...now it's a psychadelic trippy Winnie the Pooh ride.

Carousel with Aunt Cara and G-doc at Disney!

Disney is a lot of work for little legs!!! (Oh wait, those were Mommy's...)

On the Monorail....maybe my favorite part of the day :)

Tired babies on a long ride home :)

With Pop Pop at Doak. Does this photo even need explaining??

Future Charlie Ward.

Doing my "funny face" for Gigi at the pumpkin patch in Valdosta.

Sleeping on one of our many car rides!

Park slide with Sissy!!

With Mommy at the pumpkin patch!

Superhero. Enough said :)

Like I said, we did SO MUCH and I have so many more pictures to post! It really was a great trip...and being able to do this was the reason we moved to California and Justin took the Apple job. So it was very nice to be able to enjoy a lot of time off (and free babysitters!!!) while Mommy tried to recover from the all-day nausea.

Speaking of dear baby Crosby, I have my next appointment on Thursday. After weeks and weeks of rapidly losing weight, I finally seemed to get my appetite back on track last week and I think I am doing much better now. I generally feel better (still gaggy, but like I told G-doc, that is now overridden by my hunger, which is good!) We will see how baby is doing and hopefully get the schedule for my 19-week ultrasound, when we SHOULD be able to find out if we will be having a little brother or little sister :)

Taking a nap break now...jet lag is rough! Love you all, xoxo until my next post.

To all my loyal readers...

I promise, a new, massive blog update is coming soon!! I will make the wait worth it ;)

Although unfortunately if you want inside info on Steve Jobs, you will have to read his new book, out Monday. All I can tell you is that Coldplay and Norah Jones played at his life celebration for the Apple employees in Cupertino :)

Be back very, very soon!!

Congrats to the Newlyweds!

This past weekend, we celebrated a very special occasion in the Crosby family! Aunt Cara and Uncle Jack got married at Pebble Hill Plantation in Thomasville, GA. It was a beautiful weekend....the weather was phenomenal and everything went off without a hitch! We enjoyed a fun time with all of our family and friends. It went by way too fast!

And now, as the saying goes around here, "If you don't know the Crosby's, you don't know Jack!!"

Here is just a small sampling of pictures. More to come soon!

Practicing to be the best ring-bearer ever!!

Rehearsal dinner. So yummy!!

Jack and Graham (the two ring bearers) doing what little boys do best.

Daddy giving Jack a pep talk before practicing walking down the aisle.

The Crosby/Bell/McCrary family!

The full wedding party (complete with meltdown Jack.)

Mommy and Daddy getting down at the reception!! Thanks Pop Pop and SuSu for watching Jack :)