This is My Forties

After I got back from Ohio I was feeling exceptionally motivated.  I took it upon myself to extend the backyard fence to include more of the woods (and the clubhouse).  The dogs were thrilled!  They use the clubhouse as a dog house now and the boys think that's the coolest thing ever. I also insisted we finally hang the gate on it so we can get in and out, now that the kids have places to play with the dogs. Finally, we bought paint we've been holding off on since we moved in to turn our house into more of a home.  The light green dining room is not a dark slate gray, and the photos I finally hung up really pop on those dark walls. I hung up most of the other photos as well and took on a grand photo project for the guest bedroom.  So far I have 20 black & white photos with a pop of red in black frames (which I had to paint).  They're going to be kind of like a filmstrip in the guest bedroom.  Pretty sure once we get it all...

Autumn makes me ridiculously happy and productive.  It also makes me miss my family in Ohio.  So, since Noah had Friday off we drove the six hours up for an impromptu visit!  Grandma H was especially pleased to see us.  The drive there was perfect.  We left at 5:30am and the night prior was a little rainy so we were treated to a sunrise through fog onto beautiful autumn trees.  I was dying to take pictures of it, but you'd have to make it real life wallpaper to really capture how gorgeous it was.  Still, I snapped a couple.  Don't worry, I take so many pictures I didn't even have to take my eyes off the road or my hands off the wheel.  I love my kids more than taking pictures so I wouldn't have put us in danger.  And look... can you blame me?!   The boys only require one stop along the way and I try to pick places they can run.  We had ourselves a little picnic lunch and a game of tag before getting back on the road. ...

Little Moments , a set on Flickr. I'm thinking of turning these into a huge collage table/wall art... to be decided later.

I recently found a nice little list of all parks (and their amenities) in our county.  So, I decided Fall is the perfect time to go exploring!  We're going to visit them in alphabetical order.  I've already hit a few out of order, but now that I have a list I'm all kinds of exciterpated.  Lists + mild OCD = ridikerous happy Mommy.  First we were exploring by following the plethora of brown signage indicating historical and natural landmarks (of which there are plenty to choose from out here). Our first discovery was the American Chestnut Land Trust , which is no more than some hiking trails really, but what fascinating trails they are!  We didn't get to hike every trail, but from what we saw these trails have some of the most interesting flora and fauna we've seen in Maryland thus far.  There are numerous swamplands out here, but the one at ACLT had such interesting trees and vines, it made the overgrowth more like a scene from "Fern Gully" tha...