Halloween # 2

Our Halloween festivities began a few days before Halloween. On Tuesday night, we took some time to carve pumpkins (Matt & I carved, Braeden ran circles around us) and the finished product was pretty amazing if I do say so myself. (I'm disappointed to say that I can't find a single picture of our pumpkins! But trust me, they were awesome!) Braeden enjoyed sticking his hand in the pumpkin and saying, "Eww!" when he touched the insides of the pumpkin. Unlike our previous experience in college with making a gingerbread house, we will definitely be carving pumpkins again (props to Target for a very easy-to-follow kit!)

The tradition in our neighborhood is to go trick-or-treating the Thursday before (I think it's before) Halloween. So, we got Braeden all dressed in his pirate costume (he wouldn't keep the bandana(-sp?) on for us but he did look very cute in the rest of his costume) and headed out to go trick-or-treating. He got very good at walking up, taking a piece of candy from the bowls and putting it in his bag (isn't the bag so cute?! I ordered it from a catalog. It has his name stitched on the bottom!)
After we did our 1-block of trick-or-treating (that 1 block took a while!) we came back to hand out candy. Braeden was also great at that! There was one particular princess who came to our door and received at least 3 pieces of candy from our little charmer! He handed her one and kept reaching in and handing her more! It was so cute!



(In the pic of the 3 of us, you'll see part of Matt's pumpkin-it says "Trick or Treat".)

That night, since Adam and Kendra were over, the family helped celebrate Matt's b-day with a yummy Peanut-butter cup ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.


I also had to include these pics of the mountain near Matt's parents' house. It's absolutely gorgeous in the Fall!


The last pictures I had to include were our 4th grade team Halloween pics. We dressed up as crayons for our big Halloween party/parade day at school (I'm the short one in the middle-haha!) Our colors (in print on our right leg)- Hot Magenta, Mango Tango, and Red Salsa.

Pumpkin Patch and Fall Festival

In mid-October, we decided it was time to purchase pumpkins to celebrate our favorite season. So, we headed to the church pumpkin patch to find mommy, daddy, and Braeden-sized pumpkins to carve. Braeden was very proud of his strength as he spent most of his time trying to lift as many pumpkins as possible!

We also got to participate in our church's fall festival, complete with balloon animals, hot chocolate, hayride, s'mores at the bonfire, and a maze! What a great way to begin the Fall!

Fall Fun

Here is an assortment of pictures from the last few weeks as we have been enjoying our first Pennsylvania Fall with Braeden.

Napping on mommy at Great-grandma Pearsall's house in VA.

Braeden and I spent some time with Laura and Kalen one afternoon and this ended up being the fun game of the afternoon- lock Braeden in the dog crate! Nice work, boys!


Braeden has become quite the little jumper...well, almost! He tries really hard! Here's a clip of him one Wednesday night at church after dinner "jumping" with daddy.

Here's a brief movie clip of Braeden's first steps on the beach. He's a little unsteady but still very excited to be there!

Here's our little kicker the night of his 24-hour EEG as happy and carefree as ever!

Stone Harbor, NJ

These are a little late in coming (okay, SUPER late in coming) but nevertheless, here they are- our pictures from our Labor Day weekend trip to Stone Harbor. On Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend, the Estep/Boykin crew packed up and got on the road for a relaxing trip to Stone Harbor, New Jersey. It was great to spend those days with family at the beach in a really nice beach house. Matt, Braeden & I were only able to stay until Monday because I had to be back to school on Tuesday but, we were really excited to get some much-needed vacation/beach time!

We followed Matt's mom & dad in their fancy new van!

Daddy & Braeden heading down to the beach. The 3rd pic is Braeden's face as he first encounters the ocean. See the awe? :)

A beautiful Saturday at Stone Harbor. Pic # 2: Braeden's typical "Whoa!" face. (Thanks to Uncle Nathan for the awesome Baby Gap hat. Braeden kept that on the entire time on the beach! Wow!)


Some nice pics of our lovely beach house.


Pics from our evening trip to Wildwood.


My men on Monday morning, ready to head back home.