Brown County State Park

Brown County is named the best place to view fall leaves in Indiana, which is why it was so busy the weekend we went.  The weather was crisp, but nice and the leaves were beautiful.  We just went for the morning, doing a short hike around the lake, but it was just perfect for what we wanted.  Jane enjoyed collecting acorns and leaves most.  She hiked for about half of it, but after tripping over a few roots, she wanted to be carried a lot.  Even the small boardwalk sections made her nervous.

 I really wanted a shot of the two of these together, but between Chris trying to squat behind them and hold Peter up, and Jane's complete preoccupation with filling her pockets with nuts, it just didn't quite work out.  Still, Peter's always up for a photo shoot.

"A owl!"

Just throwing acorns in the water.

Peter at 8 months

 

Peter is a playful little busy guy.  He is constantly on the move and a little over confident in his abilities.  He often stands next to furniture holding on with just one hand or tries to cross over from the ottoman to the couch when they are too far apart and he's paid the price with some rough falls. His favorite thing these days is climbing to the top of Jane's new slide by going straight up the front.  He's fast at it too, so I have to keep a close eye on him.  He definitely knows how to sit now, he just doesn't do it.  Any time I put him down sitting up, he crawls away immediately.  He does a real crawl now, but still throws in the old army crawl every once in a while.  He follows Jane around all day and stands up near where she's playing.  Sometimes he can get down by himself but often he just cries for me to come rescue him.
He's got two teeth on the bottom now and loves to feed himself pears and Cheerios.  He doesn't care for bananas (which is too bad, because they are so convenient). He has a mild allergy to milk, so we're avoiding dairy for the time being.  Fortunately, it doesn't seem to affect him when I have milk.

Turkey Run State Park

We visited Turkey Run State park last weekend.  It came highly recommended and it did not disappoint.  I just kept saying "this is so beautiful" over and over.  The leaves are just starting to turn here and it even smells like the beginning of fall.  So fun.  We went on a rugged .5 mile hike which was just PERFECT.  We got to feel like we were out in the wilderness for about as long as Jane can handle hiking anyway.  She was a little unsure about the uneven, dirty ground, but she warmed up to it when she discovered "throwing rocks in the water".  It was just fun for us to watch her collecting her leaves and rocks and pointing out squirrels and dogs.