Day at the farm

You know it's fall...

when you starting seeing lots of pictures on social media with kids in pumpkin patches.

And now it's the Streit family's turn. After taking a hiatus from the pumpkin patch scene for the last five years (here is our last pumpkin patch visit when Olivia was only one!), we decided to rent a car to drive outside of London to visit Willow Farm and their pumpkin festival.

Olivia had previously been to Willows Farm on a school field trip but for the rest of us, this was our first visit. What a fun place! Lots of animals to see and pet, pig races, a magic show, tractor rides, tons of outdoor and indoor playgrounds/softplay and carnival-type rides for the kids.  

Oh my goodness.  This boy is a heartbreaker!

Lastly, it was time to choose our pumpkins so we headed for the fields.  Olivia and Ashton excitedly ran around trying to locate the biggest ones they could find, while Geoff inspected to make sure they weren't rotting out. Meanwhile, I tried to take photos of Quinn in the patch and he tried to eat dirt and grass. 

Note to self: next time you want to get a cute picture of the kids and their pumpkins, don't place them looking directly into the sun.

Hampstead Apple Festival

I love our London neighborhood, Hampstead. Although only minutes on the underground train outside of the hustle and bustle of central London, is has a small village feel and so much charm. There are many old, historical homes in the neighborhood, one of them being Fenton House. The house dates back to the 17th century and is now owned by the National Trust, meaning it's a museum.  Even though we've lived in Hampstead for four years now, we had yet to actually see the house beyond the front exterior. So when I saw they were having their annual apple festival last month on their grounds, we decided it was the perfect chance see the house while having some autumn fun.  

The festival had plenty of activities for kids. The girls loved turning the apple press to squeeze out the juice, sampling the apple cider (delicious!) and watching the busy honey bees. They also had an apple coloring paper station and various games for the kids to do. At one point, we stepped into the interior of the home to explore the old house. As an old house with lots of off limits to touching antique furniture, Geoff and I were on high alert for curious little fingers itching to place their hands on everything within sight and reach. Particularly the excessive number of harpsichords throughout! I'm happy to report our crew caused no damages. I'd call all that a pretty good day! 

Birthday Boy

Quinn is one! Whew, the past year has flown by. I'm certain the more kids you have, the fastest time seems to move. What an addition Quinn has been to our family! I love having a little boy and the new dimension of fun he's brought along with him.  

This little man

One year later. Funny how all that dark hair he arrived with is gone! We've another blonde in our family. 

We had a very low-key birthday celebration for Quinn on his birthday, October 22.  No big 1st birthday party like we had for the girls. Instead he got a homemade cake and birthday presents wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper.  Typical third born child.

The girls were so excited for his birthday and were very eager to help me make his birthday cake.  Chocolate, of course.  Because he's a Streit child, so he must love all things chocolate.  The cake baking scene quickly turned from these happy faces...

...to this face. While I had the electric hand mixer on, Ashton leaned in close to hear the hum of it at the exact instant that Olivia thought it would be a good idea to jerk up on the mixer in my hands.  The result was spinning beaters getting caught in Ashton's hair following by loud screaming from everyone. Poor Ashton now has a small bald patch on the side of her head where the beaters ripped out her hair. 

Quinn opened up a few presents before he demolished his birthday cupcake in record time. 

Here is a update on his developmental milestones:

1. Language - He babbles a lot and we've heard "mamamama" and "dadadadadada" sounds out of him but he's not yet directed those sounds specifically to Geoff or myself.  He does recognize his name and will turn and look at me if I call him.  He also waves his arms in big gestures if we encourage him to say bye-bye or night-night.  He loves the song If You're Happy and You Know It and often claps his hands together when we sing it to him. 

2. Physically development - 

Weight: 18.5 pounds (9th percentile)

Height: 2' 5" (50% percentile)

7 teeth: 4 on the top, 3 on the bottom. 

You would think with a little boy that's in the 9th percentile on weight, he would be very active and/or a poor eater.  Not true in either case! We've got one lazy boy on our hands.  At 12 months, he's not even close to crawling. (Both the girls were crawling by 9 months.) Within the last 4-6 weeks, he finally figured out how to consistently roll from back to tummy and tummy to back.  He's generally content with just sitting on the floor with a few toys around him. If there is a toy slightly out of his reach, he's showing no motivation to figure out how to get himself to it. In many ways, his lack of mobility is a good thing as it makes my life much, much easier. But in some ways, I feel a bit bad when I take him to baby classes and when the teacher encourages all the babies to practice their crawling/walking skills, all the other babies his age (or younger) get on the move while my son face plants into the floor and just lays there. I know it will all come in his own timing.

3. Sleeping - It took awhile, but he's finally sleeping regularly through the night. There is still the occasional night where I have to get up with him at some point during the night, but I no longer turn on the baby monitor from his room to our room and that's a very good thing!

4. Food - This boy LOVES to eat. Typically boy. He is fully on table food. No more purees for this kid.  He eats anything I set in front of him and I can't recall anything he's rejected. However, he's particularly happy with banana, blueberries, sweet potatoes and any meat. I'm down to breastfeeding him only at night before he goes to bed and that's about to get stopped. Woo hoo!

5. Temperament - Quinn is the happiest, calmest baby ever.  He's so content to just be.  He's collectively spends hours every day in his stroller while we take his sisters to school, run errands, go to baby classes, meet up with friends, take his sisters to various activities, etc. and he never cries in there.  I mean, NEVER EVER. He's starting to shows signs of toddlerhood such as getting angry when I have to take something away from him, but it's very short lived and he's quickly back to his happy normal self.

Shortly before his birthday, I had a lady come to the house to give Quinn his first proper haircut.  Before we had left for our trip to the USA back in July, I had attempted to trim his hair myself.  However, I quickly realized I have no future in the hair cutting department. Professional help was required. The lady who did the cut was super fast and efficient and done in less than 4 minutes.  Which was good because by minute 3, he was so over it. 

Can't believe this much hair was cut off!

New do' and looking like a very big boy!  Love him so!

Our Family: Fall 2016

With the arrival of Autumn every year comes cooler temperatures, beautiful fall foliage and annual family pictures. We turned to our amazing photography Hermione to capture our family.  This was her fourth time to photograph us as she previously captured us in London, Paris and Quinn's newborn photos. Even when I think there is no way she's getting any decent photos of us, she has a special mojo and she always ends up getting so many terrific ones.

When she asked where I wanted our photos done with year, I said I wanted our family to be captured near our neighbourhood of Hampstead and she suggested the pergola of Hampstead Heath. I stumbled onto the pergola one day several years ago when I was on a run in the Heath and was memorised by it.  It felt like I had discovered a secret garden. So needless to say, I thought her suggestion was perfect! Unfortunately, the weather was not the day of. Rain was predicted for most of the day. In hopes of avoiding the rain, we moved our session time up 90 minutes to a time that was much too early to be getting three kids out the door looking decent. When we arrived at the Heath there were bright blue skies and no clouds.  40 minutes later it was pouring rain.  Add in Geoff with some sort of stomach bug that had him vomiting as we were leaving the house along with cranky children who got up too early and it seemed like a disaster shoot.  Fortunately, Hermione was able to work her magic quickly. These are my favourite.