Last week, while it was still reasonably warm, I took my three kids to our local pumpkin patch. I like that it’s so close, and so free. And every year they make it a little better, too.

We got to go on a tractor hayride around the pumpkin patch. The kids really liked that.

School groups come and go. When the kindergarteners were there, it got a lot busier. But once they left it was nice and peaceful again.

One of the new improvements is two big slides. The kids climb hay bales to the top, then slide down the pipe to land in a cushion of corn kernels. Wes jumped right in and had so much fun. Carissa saw him having fun and joined in, but unfortunately I realized too late that the two slides were different; Wes was on the big, tall one (of course) and Carissa should have gone down the smaller, tamer one instead. So she didn’t like her first experience on the slide, and I ended up going down with her on the smaller, tamer one from there on out. They both had a good time.

On the other side of the slides is a big pit of corn kernels for the kids to play in. Wes enjoyed jumping off the bales, the higher the better. Carissa preferred to look at the pumpkins nearby. Elizabeth sat in the corn a little, until I got tired of pulling corn kernels out of her mouth.

We had a fun time, spending a couple of hours there.

Last night I took my kids to downtown Salt Lake City with my parents, who are visiting.

We started at City Creek Mall, which we haven’t seen since it’s been built. The kids liked the creek running through the middle with fish in it. But we had to stop Wes from throwing rocks in. The kids were ecstatic to hand out with their Grandpa.

We HAD to stop at Godiva. They were pretty busy, but we got a few chocolate bars and a dark chocolate milkshake to share (Wes drank most of it, no surprise there).

Then off to Temple Square.

Dinnertime was quick approaching, and we decided to eat on the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building at The Garden. We hadn’t been there before, but it was good food with a nice view. Elizabeth ate the menu.

There are fountains everywhere at Temple Square, even in the restaurant and lobby. The kids liked that.

After dinner we tried to get some photos but the kids were kind of done sitting still.

We went back to City Creek to return something at a store.

One last stop: Trader Joe’s, which is new to Salt Lake City. It sells products that are preservative-free and many are organic. I came specifically to get these:

And that was our adventure in Salt Lake City.

This week our baby Elizabeth Erin turned 11 months old. A quick recap:

She was born November 6, 2012 (election day) around 6:30 in the morning. I wrote about it here. It was remarkably easy. One of my first thoughts was how different she looks from her sister.

In December she was one month old. Her demeanor was calm and sweet. We felt lucky to have her.

When she was two months old John gave her a name and blessing in church.

At three months she started to notice other people and smile.

Wesley has always been very sweet and attentive towards his baby sister.

Bunny slippers!

In March was her first Easter. Maybe next year she can try some chocolate.

The start of supported sitting.

At five months she still used the pink binkie and slowly–s-l-o-w-l-y–was growing some hair. I have always loved the fair, reddish-brown color of her hair. In the sunlight it shines like copper.

Baby cousins. Elizabeth was small for her age. Around this time I started giving her more formula and in the next few months she fluffed out very nicely.

Grandma.

In May was Mother’s Day, and Elizabeth turned 6 months old.

In June Elizabeth turned 7 months old. By now she was transitioning from supported sitting to sitting up by herself. She was getting better at eating solid foods and holding her own bottle. And she started to perfect the art of the army crawl. Suddenly she’s mobile! Her mobility started to bring out her personality, and we noticed that she prefers to be around other people. She is a social baby.

In July we played a lot outside, and Elizabeth went swimming for the first time. She is interested in climbing the stairs. She’s eight months.

In August Elizabeth turned nine months old. She is still an army-crawling queen and starts getting better at regular crawling. She likes to climb up stairs and is starting to learn to go down them backwards. She is becoming more vocal and “talks” by making noise often.

In September Elizabeth was 10 months old and starting to take interest in standing and walking unassisted. She’s really good at pulling to stand and walking along furniture. As she neared 11 months she started taking a few wobbly steps by herself. She is very talkative, which worries John and me–having TWO girls who both are very chatty! She is also starting to get into everything, and putting everything into her mouth.

In October Elizabeth turned 11 months old. She is beautiful and joys in doing her own things. She teems with personality. Still sweet, I think, but spunky. She wants to walk by herself and move and do all the things her siblings do. She fits into 12-month clothing. She has two teeth on the bottom and almost four teeth on top. She can be silly and likes to play peek-a-boo by hiding around the corner and popping out to make us laugh. She is a happy baby and we’re glad she’s ours.

The kids like to play this matching game together.

Elizabeth apparently likes strawberries.

The kids play Legos together really well. Their specialty is tall towers.

Carissa just got bangs.

Today I took all three kids to the swimming pool. The next-door city has a new recreation center with this nifty indoor pool play area.

Carissa was timid to start and never went up the stairs or down the slides. But she had fun.

Wes was in heaven. From start to end and every second in between. He is at home in the water and as free as free can be.

Elizabeth, surprisingly, loved it and expressed her independence by wanting to walk everywhere in the shallow pool. I found she had the most fun when I stood her on the side and helped her jump in. She is very spunky in the water.

The pool provided life jackets for the kids if we wanted them.

Afterward we sat on the grass out front for a mini-picnic of pretzels, baby crackers, and milk. Does life get any better in October?

Over the summer Wesley and Carissa earned money for our “Helper Jar” by doing chores most mornings. I promised them we’d do something fun with the money they earned, and today was that day to cash it in. I took them to the local nickelcade.

They were SO excited.

Wesley came here once for a birthday party, but this was my and Carissa’s (and Elizabeth’s) first time.

Since we went at 1:30 on a Thursday afternoon, the place was empty and the employee turned on the machines so we could use them. But this was secretly my plan, because a big empty place means an easier job for me to keep track of Wesley.

In short, the kids had a ball. Lots of balls, in fact. Wes’s favorite games involved balls–basketball and ski-ball. The one employee must’ve been super bored, because she actually stood and played basketball with Wes for about 20 minutes while I took Carissa around to the other games. All I could hear was his laughter echoing in the room.

No, that’s not true. The nickelcade is really loud, like a Las Vegas casino. But I could still hear his laughter above all the music and noise.

Carissa’s favorite game–surprise, surprise (NOT!)–involved candy. She sat on a stool and directed a claw over a pile of candy and then pushed a button to scoop up a piece or two or three. I finally had to cap how many times she could play this game. But just look how joyful it made her.

At the end of two hours we had lots and lots and lots of tickets. Over 800. The kids immediately picked out two blow-up guitars that are as tall as they are, plus a ball. Once I got out to the car I discovered another pocketful of tickets–but I gave them to another family getting ready to go in. We had our guitars, and that was enough. And that was our reward for summertime chores.