Team Seth goes to the pumpkin patch.

Finley is definitely "Team Seth." On the infrequent occasion that Seth folds laundry, Finley lets him carry her around in the laundry basket and acts adorable. On the nearly daily occasion on which I try to get laundry folded while cleaning bottles and making dinner and packing and repacking everyone's bags, she alternates between trying to locate small objects on which to choke and unfolding everything I've finished and put in neat stacks.

Not to mention that THIS is what my living room looks like at 0600 on Saturday mornings on which I was foolishly hoping to sleep until the sun came up.

 On Sunday, after a disastrous (and admittedly ill-timed, since I had forgotten about the Marin Corps Marathon road closures) commissary trip that included a flat tire and a several mile hike cross Arlington to an Avis office (while carrying an empty but still-heavy car seat), I came home near tears to find Seth taking out the trash with Finley tucked under his arm like a football. They had cleaned the whole house. I'm "Team Seth" too, it turns out. The man comes through in a pinch, football-baby and all.

And it was a good thing, since it was our first weekend at home in ages, and we had both catching up and leaning forward to do. We were still behind on laundry and sleep, and frantically trying to get Seth's promotion details ironed out, uniform issues taken care of, Finley's Halloween planned, and the house company-ready. Seth had spent all day Saturday driving down to Fort Lee and waiting on sewing and nametapes, since he had waited too late to get the new OCP uniform and they didn't have his size anywhere closer. We had been very, very spoiled living in Army towns for so long, on that front anyway. Apparently "sewing while you wait" isn't really a thing.

I took Finley shopping, as she needed a winter hat and gloves and some sweaters. She refused anything to do with any of those, but took a liking to a pair of furry boots. I gave in. Maybe we can stuck her hands in them when it gets cold. We stopped by Michelle and Josh's to hang out for a bit (where Finley played with a puppy, gobbled an entire cookie, and pulled Grace's hair), and had a hilarious lunch date during which she ate her kids' portion of grilled chicken so fast, the waiter brought her another one while she started on my mashed potatoes uninvited. Rude baby.

She also shops with snacks. In my next life, I want to come back as Finley.

Thanks to Seth's fortuitous house cleaning during my grocery misadventure, we still had a little bit of time to take Finley to the pumpkin patch Sunday evening. We were too late for the fall festival, but she's pretty easy to please. Dirt and a wheelbarrow and pumpkins made her pretty happy. 

She looked like the queen of the fall parade.

That, and Dad shared his apple cider slushie. AND took her to Founding Farmers for dinner, where she killed a skillet of cornbread. Not a bad start to a new week.

 

Oh and Seth got a new foot, which he really likes. This is a weird picture, but I made him show me how the heel stayed almost in contact with the ground when he squats, which none of the other ones have been able to do.

And Ben and Lisa and The Traveling Walters Circus made it to Japan today! Which is great news. Their travel schedule was horrific, and involved a multi-leg journey from New Mexico to Dallas to Seattle to Japan with two kids, two dogs, and eight suitcases in tow. It's rare that wanderlust doesn't get the best of me when I hear of a travel adventure, but you couldn't have paid me to do this one. I'm in awe that they pulled it off.

And Lehua got a new puppy. So all in all, the Walters Fam had a pretty killer week.

There are a couple of photos of the week from the Maryland branch, none of which are winning any photography contests, but all of which were hilarious.

The first one is of an ATM in the middle of a field at Butler's Orchard, which cracked us up.

 

 Then there was this one. Seth and Finley were making exactly the same thrilled-about-photos expression.

And finally, Finley dying to get into the bathtub... seconds before she actually dove in headfirst, with her diaper still on. She was ridiculously pleased with herself.

Reunion weekend, and cinnamon rolls.

When we were young and in love, we thought nothing of spending most of the weekend driving hours upon hours to see each other, we loved discovering new places, and we made spontaneous plans at the drop of a hat for things like a concert in another state or a friend throwing a theme party at the last minute.

Things have definitely changed. We've been on the road nonstop for over a month of weekends now, and Finley's been an absolute trooper about it. She's really taken to mornings in hotel rooms, in fact, where she likes to demand an early breakfast in her PJs and then roll around on immaculate white sheets with dirty fingers.

But the late nights (we have to drive while the little car seat terrorist sleeps) and early mornings and living out of suitcases has taken its toll on all of us. We're swimming in laundry and Finley's off her routine in a big way. She wailed for breakfast at 5 this morning and smashed blueberries into the carpet before crawling back into bed with Dad. Must be nice. Some of us had to clean up said blueberries and go to work.

This is Finley and Seth Thursday morning after a long, trafficky, late night haul up 95 for a long weekend of West Point Reunion Fun. 

It was Seth's ten year, and plans had been in the works for months. We had been on the fence about taking Finley but had read that the event was kid-friendly. It was. Ish. I'm still not sure whether taking her with was the best plan, and both Seth and I definitely had to do a lot of juggling, but she did seem to enjoy herself.

Seth spent most of the weekend drinking copiously, golfing, and catching up with friends and acquaintances. He did make time to address the prep school, which I thought was pretty cool. 

I was not thrilled to essentially have fulltime baby duty but tried to be good-natured about it, as the big guy doesn't get the chance to hang out with friends (or other adults) very often these days. That and a ten year reunion is apparently a pretty big deal at West Point. (Did USC even have one? I seriously have no idea.)

Finley and I had a lovely day of hiking and picnicking at Bear Mountain, the site of many happy childhood memories (and also my first ultramarathon). We made a pilgrimage to the Walt Whitman statue for Mom and ogled the snakes at the trailside zoo. Finley, for some reason, loves snakes.

And I got my fall foliage! Which basically salvaged the looonnngggg weekend for me. Well, that and the gorgeous (and kid-friendly) lakehouse we were staying at with friends. I got in a beautiful run around the lake on Saturday, Seth and Finley enjoyed breakfast with a view Sunday, 

and somewhere in there we even got in a little bit of family time, during which Finley got to try her first power wheels 

 and watch her Dad go for a swim.

Thanks in large part to the Army Football Club's "A" clubroom in the stadium, home of beer, delicious brownies, and places for babies to crawl on the ground, we all survived Finley's first Army football game too. (In bonus news: it was a win!)

She was still a handful.

The reunion survived, we eventually had to leave our idyllic lakehouse behind (Finley and I want one!) and tackle the long drive home. Of course we made a long stop at a Children's Museum. Finley decided that she much preferred the Virginia version to New Jersey's. We concur.

And now we're tackling a new week. Seth has a midterm Wednesday and we need to nail down details of his promotion ceremony next week. Our house is basically covered in laundry- mostly clean- and the grocery situation is pitiful. We're definitely ready for the upcoming weekend- finally!- at home.

In the meantime, there are two photos of the week. The first one is of a hilarious hotel room incident Thursday morning. We were both exhausted and trying to muster the energy to get up with Finley, who had just finished wreaking havoc on the Holiday Inn breakfast room and throwing a fit because I wouldn't let her have a cinnamon roll. I set her down on the floor for a minute, she crawled around to Seth's side of the bed, and things suddenly went silent. I assumed that she had found a shoe or something to play with. I heard Seth, who I thought was sleeping, chuckle, and jumped up to find that Finley had grabbed the cinnamon roll I had brought him from the top of the nightstand (somehow) and stuffed it in her mouth. Icing side first, naturally. It's hard to tell from this picture of the aftermath, but it was hysterical.

 The second one is funny only because it is so ridiculous. It is of Finley, pretending to be a good baby in the car. This did not last long.

Big news, overshadowed by bigger news. And a fall getaway.

Seth cleaned the bathrooms this week. All of them, without being asked, just because I was overloaded and my to-do list was driving me insane. I was overcome with gratitude.

And that was the big news of the week. Oh, and this:

That's right. Finley has until mid-April to enjoy being an only child. We're pretty sure she has an inkling that the fun's about to be over, given her reaction.

We celebrated with a fall getaway to Stonewall Jackson Lake, in West Virginia. I was bound and determined to "leaf peep," and Seth was excited about an Arnold Palmer (read: takes 6 hours to play?!?) golf course. But first we had to survive the long drive with Finley. 

Road trips are still very much a work in progress, but we did pretty well on the way there, stopping in Morgantown at a super sketchy mall for Finley's first Chick-fil-a visit (a hit, obviously) and a mall playground that was no doubt highly beneficial to her growing immune system.

We were a little early on the foliage, but the weather was spectacular and we had a nice, relaxing long weekend. Finley's idea of vacation is wildly different than mine, and she was mostly thrilled about the breakfast buffet and the (indoor) playroom.

She also likes hotel rooms, probably because Mom and Dad are a little less fanatic about the "no cheerios in bed" rule.

I did insist on some family vitamin D. Seth played golf all day Saturday while I dragged Finley outside for a hike, which she at least tolerated.

She despised canoeing, however (or at least the required life jacket). This picture is a total fluke. She spent most of the time trying to rip off her life jacket and throw herself over the side.

Thankfully, heated pools and cornhole games are a hit every time.

On the way home, we celebrated Columbus Day (having googled why it's even a federal holiday, while not looking a gift horse in the mouth!) with ice cream and a trip to the quirky Tri-State Zoological Park. Finley was not a llama fan and barely noticed the tigers, but really loved the roosters. Go figure.

The photo of the week is of Finley's expression at the lake beach, when I told her she was not allowed to eat rocks. Rough life she leads. Obviously.

Oh, and this rare "whole family" photo, in which she appears to be preparing to shank someone with her carrot. Mealtimes are always an adventure...

A quick, soggy NC weekend.

We're gradually getting better at this "travel with Finley thing." We may even have it down to "painless" by the time she leaves for college.

Now that we've gotten the basics of air travel figured out, we've decided to tackle road trips. It's a tad counterintuitive, but those are way worse. Finley HATES her car seat. The key seems to be to stay up all hours of the day and night to drive while she sleeps, and to attempt no more than two hours at a stretch because even in the wee hours of the morning that's about as far as you can get before her little subconscious registers her imprisonment in the offending car seat/ baby torture device.

We left at her bedtime Friday night, with all of our fingers and toes crossed that Hurricane Joaquin and DC traffic wouldn't combine to make it a horrific trip. (We got half lucky and, oddly, managed to miss traffic both ways.) We made it a couple hours before we heard wailing from the backseat, and Finley- decked out in her PJs with a monster cowlick- scored herself a late night truckstop McDonald's run. We definitely felt like the parents of the year.

Finley and I both dozed off afterwards, while a gallant Seth white-knuckled the rest of the drive in a torrential downpour. It was the first time I've been really grateful for the monster truck with stupid offroad tires that gets 12.5- no kidding- miles per gallon.

We were a little less than enthusiastic about the quick trip in horrendous weather that meant we were basically spending the weekend on the road or in a hotel room with Finley. Finley, however, is easier to please. She loves vacation.

Thanks to the impending hurricane, we skipped the outdoor bluegrass festival we had been excited to take her to on Saturday, and instead made a nostalgic trip to the Flying Saucer- a bar Seth and I had hung out at when we were first dating. We cracked up about how far we've come (as demonstrated by this picture)...!

Carrie and Josh's wedding was lovely, although we were bummed that Nicole and Michael had gotten flooded in at the beach and couldn't make it. At least ol' dirty Joe made an appearance!

We had left Finley with the babysitters Carrie and Josh had provided, and were a little nervous as it was our first time leaving her with strangers. I made Seth leave the party following a text that said she was being fussy, although of course it turned out to be attributable to our current bottle-to-sippy-cup endeavor and she was fine (and snoring) by the time we arrived to pick her up. She woke up on our way up to our room, and scored some bluegrass after all! (One of the bands was playing in the hotel lobby post-show, and Finley got- and loved- her own personal concert.)

Then, of course, her Dad let her have animal crackers in bed.

Sunday morning it was my turn to drive, as a hungover Seth and a sleepy Finley snoozed in the backseat.

This time we did the two-hour rest stop in style. We took Finley to lunch at an amazing Richmond brunch spot I had been dying to try, and then to the Richmond Children's Museum to play her way into exhaustion (and another nap). Children's museums are a new travel must.

 My original photo of the week was this funny one, of Finley's progress mastering utensils.

But then I took this series waiting on a table at brunch, and it's my new favorite.She seems to be saying:

1) "Oh, I just LOVE brunch!" 2) "Hmmmm... everything looks delicious." 3) "CHICKEN AND WAFFLES!?!"