What crafty toys do your kids enjoy playing with?

At 3 years old, he’s really become my little buddy. We have great conversations together, go shopping, share a snack, go out for lunch, play trains, and pretty much do anything. He is totally portable right now, and so much fun to hang out with. In a way, I’m really glad that we waited until Zachary was 3 to get pregnant again. He is such a big boy now, and I can focus on making some wonderful memories for him and with him, and really enjoy our time together as “just us” before our new baby comes along. He is REALLY excited about having a brother or sister (he said yesterday that he wants a brother, but we’ll find out for sure in a couple weeks!) and I know he is going to be an amazing big brother.

After running some errands yesterday, he looked up and said, “oh, look, Mommy! the moon!” and sure enough there was a tiny sliver of moon in the late afternoon sky. At his request, I took a snap with my iPhone using Instagram – you can barely see the teeny tiny moon, but you can tell by the beautiful color of the sky what a wonderful day it was! Here’s the result! :)

I hope you’re all enjoying the winter vacation as well and are excited about 2012! I can’t wait to finish writing my New Year’s resolutions and share more of my photography with you all next year!

We have really enjoyed celebrating Hanukkah with Zachary the past week now that he is old enough to understand lighting the candles and says the prayers with us.

Here is my favorite photo from the last night of Hanukkah, which we celebrated last night. He is going to be so disappointed tonight to realize Hanukkah is officially over. I can’t wait til next year though – we are going to have so much fun!

photo taken with iPhone 4s and Instagram.

Captured with my iPhone 4s and edited with Camera+

We can’t believe that we have such a grown-up little boy now, and the three years since Zachary’s birth have simply flown by. We are so thankful to have such a happy, thoughtful, and creative child. At three years old, Zachary loves to play with us, hug us, tell us how much he loves Mommy and Daddy, and he is constantly singing the most adorable songs. He is the happiest kid we know, and an absolute gift. It’s been so exciting to watch him grow up, and I love watching his personality and interests develop.

Happy birthday to our sweet boy with lots of love from Mommy, Daddy, Maya the dog, and your whole family!

Zachary was very excited about carving the pumpkin and drawing the jack o’ lantern’s face with Daddy!

Touching the “pumpkin brains” was a new experience. At first, Zachary thought it was yucky, but then he got into it! Another “first” was trying candy corn. We had a bowl out as a treat while we carved the pumpkin, and Zachary loved trying it! I remember how much I loved candy corn as a kid, but it’s definitely much too sweet for me now that I’m older!

Then it was time to carve the pumpkin. Adrian handled the carving while Zachary ate candy corn and I separated the seeds from the guts!

Zachary had a fun evening carving his first pumpkin with Daddy, and afterwards we all enjoyed the glowing candlelight emerging from the carved face.

Zachary loves Halloween! between our jack o’ lantern and our colorful Halloween lights, it was a very festive mood at our home!

Finally, Halloween arrived! Zachary was so excited to wear his Spider-Man costume and go trick-or-treating, that I was only able to snag a few photos since he was jumping up and down and would not stay still due to the anticipation! He was definitely the cutest Spider-Man ever!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I’m looking forward to taking Zachary around the neighborhood again this year. He loves holidays now and he’s been asking me about a pumpkin costume, but I haven’t been able to find one that I really like. Seems like with pumpkin costumes, the little girls really get the benefit here. If anyone knows of any fabulous pumpkin costumes for toddler boys, I would love to hear your input. Feel free to send me a message using the contact button on my blog.

One tradition in our family each fall is to go to a pumpkin patch before Halloween and take photos. In Florida the pumpkin patches aren’t as great as the ones up north – here they are usually at churches or garden shops. There is one I haven’t been to yet, though, which looks amazing! it’s about an hour drive from us in Boynton Beach and seems to be worth it for photos, especially now that Zachary mostly agrees to pose for me. The farm is called Bedner’s and they have a U-Pick and a pumpkin patch which opened this past weekend. I can’t wait to go check it out and take some photos of my little guy with the pumpkins!

I found this fun fall decor idea via Pinterest and Apartment Therapy today. What a fun way to liven up your pumpkins!

Keep an eye out for my Wordless Wednesday post, I’ll be sharing some images from my South Florida fall photo session with Zachary at one of my favorite little parks here in Coral Springs!

Udvar-Hazy Center in Washington DC

Washington Monument

Sunset on the Vermont/NY border

Zachary picking raspberries in Vermont

Beautiful mountains of VT and NH

Vermont park and lake

Zachary happy and playing in the park

Washington Crossing (driving from NJ into PA)

Second Bank of the United States, Philadelphia

Patterson’s Mill Country Store in Raleigh, NC