Harvest to Halloween

We started off the month with a pretty cool trip - we were invited out to help with a wine harvest in Alamo. Kind of a long story, but we got to spend the day with family (Bruce & Cindy Lower), get a hands-on introduction to wine-making, and see a beautiful house and little vineyard. Our hosts were gracious enough to put up with a two year old AND a puppy, and on top of that, we have 2 bottles of their wine to enjoy. Above is Brennan admiring the grapes. He's not actually about to swim in them. I wish I could say the same for the pool I let him "wade" in.

We've stayed in San Francisco for the rest of the month - the weather is best this time of year, and someone in the household has a grueling schedule of MLB playoff games to watch. We managed to turn Roux's puppy school into an excuse to go out to dinner, since we had a sitter for class. Puppy school is a strange lead-in to "date night" but I'll take what I can get. I also signed up for an online "photo class", which wasn't much of a class so much as a bunch of ladies with cameras complimenting each other, but I did pick up a few things. Mostly it was good to get a daily email "assignment" and have a push to get out and use my good camera (almost) every day for a month. All of the photos in this post were from the EOS, not my usual pocket camera or iPhone shots.

Here's Brennan illustrating "get cozy" - the favorite spot in the house to curl up with a blanket and a book or movie-

and a falling leaf -
This one didn't make the cut for "class" - I think it had something to do with fading the color or converting to black and white, but I like how Bren is smothering Roux in the bed neither of them is technically supposed be in. They are really warming up to each other - he likes to squeeze her around the neck and announce "HUG", and, well, she puts up with it, because it's attention.
It's interesting what you come up with for subject matter, when you're supposed to shoot every day -

Woobie (who scared us with a brief disappearance this month)

The last of the summer peaches at the neighborhood farmer's market

Little trucks and trains (the prompt was: find a new way to photograph a pumpkin)

Like every other kid in the age of digital photography, Brennan is a pretty willing subject. I don't think he quite gets what I'm doing yet, but he LOOOVES to look at pictures of himself on my laptop. It's a reliable way to stop a tantrum, although then I'm stuck with demands for "more baby" if I shut the screen. This series from the playground is his current favorite - he laughs every time he sees the second one. Every time.

Another thing he loves: candy. Any kind, really. So the approach of Halloween has been a banner week for that. I let him eat almost this whole chocolate lollipop, because I was trying to get a photo to show what was great about candy for my little class. I almost used either of these, but ultimately went with one with more chocolate smeared on his face.

Finally, a Halloween preview - I actually have a bunch of pics from today to edit, but have this one from Friday, the day of his preschool parade. I couldn't actually take photos during the parade, since after I showed up, he became teary at the prospect that I might leave again, and was only happy if I held his hand. Since I normally get about as much hand-holding as it takes to cross the street, I was happy to let the photo op slide...