October in Massachusetts: Hiking

Frances hiking with Mom (me) in Her Ergo baby carrier through the Flume.

Happy girl with Papa...

Towards the end of the Hike she insisted she walk. She was still only walking if we had both her hands, it was slow going.

She was not hunting, only hiking.

PS

Lucy, see this really great pumpkin hat? It is headed your way soon, don't worry!

We had a great day hiking "The Flume" in the White Mountains. The last time we were in Massachusetts the leaves were amazing shades of yellow, orange, and red... still not bad green. Frances really likes being outdoors and she had a great day.

October Apple picking

Don't look at my apple

Delaney

Danielle

1 apple, 6 teeth, no problem.

Oh my, I am behind in my blogging. Let me try and catch up.


This October we spent two great weeks visiting Frank's family. Frances had so much fun. I have never seen her so happy- she LOVES being around other kids and she loved her cousins. Delaney and Danielle loved her right back and were excited to help her pick her very first apple.

Cock-a-doodle-doo

And Happy Halloween to you!

The very scary McPherson's: Jessy, Aidan, Devon, and Austin.

Notice the wild look in my eye? This is my naughty face where I am about to do somthing CRAZY, and I am really excited about it.

This Halloween we camped out on our lovely porch for an early dinner while we waited for little trick-or-treaters. As you can see Frances was a proud rooster. It was a very nice evening with our good McPherson friends stopping by.

Frances is doing great. At 14 months she is learning and growing fast. She says: Momma, Papa, Kenya (our bird), Nana, Night, Dog and Hello. Mind you we understand her when she says all this, you may only understand the first four! She also points to the correct animal in her "My Little Animal Book" (Thank you Julie!) when we ask her to find the:bird, cat, and dog. She recognizes many of her toys when called by name and loves her stuffed animals. She hugs, kisses and feeds them. (also bites their little noses...)

Oh yeah, and she has been walking! She took her first steps the end of September and started walking on our recent trip to Massachusetts! By the time we returned home, mid October, she was a walker.

We have been a very busy family and will blog more soon.

Beautiful Embroidery Art from Vietnam

A few of my favorite things from VietNam

Here is one of my favorite embroidery pictures. I gave this to Julie who helped us at the very last minuet translating letters into Vietnamese. It was purchased at Tan My, the oldest embroidery shop in Hanoi.

http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/1006/4566267/0/brt0_art

I have been enjoying reading Scott's blog, http://www.scottlan.blogspot.com/
and seeing VietNam in his posts and pictures. He is currently in VietNam traveling and exploring this beautiful country with his very adventurous Mom. (Look on his blog for a picture of her on a motor scooter!) He is anxiously waiting for an invitation to his Giving and Receiving ceremony to finally meet his son Henry.

There is so much to love about VietNam; I love that: Frances was born there, the people were very friendly and that they love children, the combinations of French and Asian architecture, the good food, the amazing coffee and pastries, all the green, the warm rain, and the beautiful art. I had a very hard time adjusting, but still, I can't wait to go back. And we barely ventured past our hotels. It will be an amazing family journey when we return together when Frances is older.

August Update in Photo's

Frances with Julie, playing with the wrappings instead of the very nice books she received for her first Birthday. She also enjoyed the tissue paper from other gifts.

This month the birthday girl decided to reach as many milestones as possible before she turned one! She progressed through belly crawling, crawling, pulling self up, walking with dad, walking along couch in the short span of a few weeks! Now she can pull ALL the toys out of her toy basket.

It was not all fun, Frances also got her first shots- four of them. She was able to charm the nurse out of two toys. The ball she held on to for the rest of the morning and finally let go sometime in the middle of her first nap.

The three of us were able to hang out together on her birthday. We took Frances swimming, which we had not done since the hotels in VN. She still loves it and kicked and splashed. Here she is looking cute with Papa in her favorite hat.

Happy Birthday Frances

Please check out http://www.dlindley.typepad.com/ for some beautiful birthday photo's