The sweetest place on Earth!

Who knew that Hershey Park was still open at Christmas time? I did not.  But I hope that it becomes a yearly tradition for our family.  

He's my miniature!

We are a Reese's family!

The park was decorated in beautiful Christmas lights and decorations.  They even renamed rides with Christmas names!  They only had part of the park open so we were not able to ride any roller coasters but we enjoyed the zoo, carousel, the monorail, and a visit to Santa!

The Zoo

Christmas Faces of Timmy and Elisha

We went to Hershey with our Daycare mom, her family, and one other family from daycare.  Elisha loves his Mrs. Beth!

Snuggles with Mommy!

Snuggles with Daddy!

Elisha slept through his first carousel ride, he was a sleepy boy. 

He loved Santa! He was totally enthralled with his beard.

Who needs mistletoe when you have Hershey's kisses?

We also enjoyed the Hershey’s Trolley ride through town to learn about Mr. Hershey’s story.  

He was wide awake for the trolley ride. 

Then we drove across the street to the Hershey Sweet Lights drive through display.  This was the largest lights display I had ever seen!  It seriously took us at least 45 minutes to drive through.  There were so many different scenes and villages.  It was a very well designed display.  Although we did live and learn; you should buy the ticket for the sweet lights at the park because then you get a discount.  We did not know about that deal this week but next year we will be sure to get it at the park. 

We definitely plan too!

Mr. and Mrs. Armes & Kassouf Thanksgiving

Mom and Dad came up in early November to babysit during our dear friend’s wedding and to celebrate Thanksgiving a few weeks early!

Andrew was a groomsman in Joel and Katie’s wedding.  They were married outside at Pond View Farm.  It was a cold but beautiful day.  The reception was held in a new barn built for large events which was the most beautiful barn we had ever seen.  Katie and Joel had planned many details making their day unique.  One of our favorites was the bible where people were asked to highlight favorite passages as encouragement for them.  It was an honor to be a part of their day!  Meanwhile, Grandma loved her snuggle time with my little man!  

Mr. and Mrs. Armes

The next day Uncle Tim, Aunt Erin, Mom and John joined us for an early Thanksgiving dinner.  We had the whole spread: Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, broccoli, spaghetti squash, and apple pie! No Holiday meal with the Kassouf family is complete without Mom’s apple pie.

Play Time with Grandpa!

Snuggle Time with Daddy, and smiles for Grandma!

Halloween

I woke up the morning of Halloween not feeling well.  After spending the day in bed and relaxing I felt better.  Although I knew that Elisha would not remember anything about this Halloween I still wanted pictures of my little man all dressed up and I wanted to visit a few people to show off my cute little sock monkey!! Isn't he adorable! 

Elisha's First Halloween

We started at Aunt Erin and Uncle Tim's church for Trunk or Treat.  It was super crowded at Community Christian Church (CCC). We waited on a 30 minute line to get in which was way different than what we expected but it was fun and exciting to see Uncle Tim and the Walker family! 

Superman and a Sock Monkey

Photo booth fun with Uncle Tim

Happy Halloween

He's our little monkey!

After leaving CCC we went to visit our friends Joel and Katie.  They had just bought their first house and they were 1 week away from their wedding.  We had a wonderful time visiting with them and are looking forward to their wedding! 

Elisha loved Katie's scarf.

Oh my silly boys! 

Mr. and Mrs. Robinson

They are now officially Mr. and Mrs. Robinson! My cousin/best friend got married on October 26, 2014; Heather and I grew up attached at the hip.  We were 11 months apart and we were the only girls among our immediate family so we have grown up to be more like sisters.  The weekend was full of wedding festivities! The venue was beautiful and the bride was stunning.  

Andrew and my mom both watched Elisha and set up the decorations at the reception hall.  While the bridesmaids and I got Heather ready for her beautiful day! 

The Ceremony: 

She was stunning! 

Walking in

The Reception:

First Dance

Mr. and Mrs. Robinson

Mr. and Mrs. Kassouf, I love this man!

We loved celebrating with such a great couple.

Visiting with Family:

Hanging out with Uncle Paul

Meeting his Great Great Aunt Barbara, Great Great Uncle John, and his cousin Will.

Elisha and Nana!

Dancing the night away!

Who doesn't want to dance with glow sticks and their super cool cousin!

I love this boy!

We made it through the busy day. 

We ended the night dancing with the bride!

Visit to Emma's Daisyhill Farm

 A few days after our pumpkin patch extravaganza we went to Poppy’s house to visit and take fun pumpkin pictures.  We figured the farm would be a great setting!  Thankfully it was a nice day!  First, we just took fun pictures with the hay bales.  Then, we opened up one of the pumpkins and Elisha got in!  I was so excited to take these pictures.  Heather Consla also bought him a pumpkin hat adding to the fun extravaganza! 

Just chillin

This hay is really cool.

I like being a pumpkin!

Emma is such a good puppy! Elisha is very intrigued by the dogs.  

Laughing!

Poppy and Elisha hanging out. 

Poppy brought Patch over for a picture.  Patch was born right before Elisha and I am sure that in the next few years they will be great pals.  But right now Patch is very unsure about Elisha because she has never seen a person so small before.  

Elisha and Nonni

You can't visit the farm without sitting on a tractor. 

Fun Fall Things!!

I have said this before but I really hate to see summer leave.  I love the hot weather, I love being outside, and I love getting to go on vacation.  So as sad as I am to see fall start I do enjoy a few things about fall.  One of those things is apple picking.  This year we went apple picking twice!! 

The first was with the Bitel’s! We went early in the season and we went to a local farm (Weber’s).  Their apple orchard was very small but because we went so early they also had peaches still in season (it was the last weekend) and they had a sparse supply of blackberries!!  Those are my second favorite!  We picked enough berries to make 2 peach blackberry cobblers and froze 1-2 cups so I could make it again later in the winter when I am in need of some summer flavor.  Then we had 35+ pounds of apples and peaches.  It was so fun picking with Sarah and Stephan; Sarah kept Elisha for me while we dug through the blackberry bushes to get the last few that we on the bushes.  It was a fun afternoon!  (Side note later in the week after this picking experience we found out that you can blanch peaches, slice them and freeze them so I went to the Weber’s farm stand and I picked up an additional 17 pounds of peaches.  Which we then froze and we have been using them for baking and baby food.)  This first apple picking experience also yielded Elisha’s first food.  We made baby apple sauce in the crock pot after picking apples and he loved them!! To this day apples are still his favorite food!

He loved touching the leaves. 

Elisha helped Daddy pick peaches!

Fun adventures with the Bitel's

Elisha and Sarah hung out while we picked berries.  The shade was much cooler!

Later in October Andrew and I went to Maize Quest Fun Park/Maple Lawn Farm, in Fawn Grove PA with Heather Consla and the Brutus family on our day off from school.  Heather has been friends with Andrew for many years.  Angela Brutus teaches at Bel Air with Andrew and she and I were in Pre-natal yoga together last year before the babies were born.  Her daughter Eva is 2 ½ weeks younger than Elisha. We made the most of our day off.  We started with lunch at the park, then we took a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch and picked our own pumpkins.  I loved that pumpkin patch and I can’t wait until next year to take Elisha because he’ll be toddling around all over the pumpkins!  

Tractor rides with friends.

Mommy I want this one! 

Daddy I found it!

This feels really cool.

Eva loved the pumpkins too!

Then, we went over the apple orchard and picked apples.  This was the most amazing apple orchard Andrew and I had ever seen!  Seriously, it was so large you had to drive into the orchard and park next to the rows of apples you wanted to pick.  Each apple type was clearly marked with a sign that was complete with a QR code giving information about that apple including recipes that would be good for that variety.  This was both Heather and Christian’s first apple picking experience.  It was fun to see them be so excited.  Christian wanted to try all the different types of apples and he loved the taste testing part of the process most.  He tried over 10 varieties apples that day!  Once we had our apples and pumpkins we came home and made apple pies and apple sauce! We made 7 pies that day and multiple batches of apple sauce.  All in all it was a great fall day!

He loves apples!!

Eva and Elisha had a great time!

A perfect fall day!!