We have had a busy month of September. We made two trips to Pilot Mountain and little Hunter is exhausted from all the excitement. I will update everyone on our fun times as soon as my camera battery charges. In the meantime I found this really cute picture! I wonder what they see?

I almost forgot one little tiny bit of news---Hunter has spoken his first word, "mom-ma!" It is the sweetest thing. Now he says it all the time! We have been working really hard on Da-da.

Hunter's first day of school. After warming up a bit, he quickly found his favorite toy.


For those of you that haven't really seen Hunter walk. He loves the new freedom and extra mobility. I will try to get a movie up of him walking toward me, but he gets a little camera shy and just wants to stand still and stare! It is so much fun to have him walking!

Starting school

This has been another big week for Hunter. He has started going to 'school' on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9-12. There are 5 little friends in his class, including himself. They range in age from 10 months to 18 months and they are all girls. For right now I don't think he will mind, but in the future he may not be fond of all the girls. He has two teachers that are extra sweet and Hunter likes them both. On Monday we picked him up a little earlier and made a mad dash home to eat lunch and lay down for the big afternoon nap. Needless to say, Hunter was very tired after his busy little morning. We pack Hunter a snack for the morning and the big lesson for them to learn the first part of the year is how to eat their snack at a special little table with friends (those that are big enough). While Hunter was in school, David and I took advantage of the free time and enjoyed two nice long runs on the Creeper Trail. We are both training for the Shut In Trail Run, which is an 18 mile run that climbs 3000 feet on a mountain in Asheville, NC. Right now the name of the mountain escapes me so I will have to look that up later. I have run the race once in the past and David has successfully completed 5 races. It is a beautiful run with the trail winding throughout the woods. Even though I have only run this once before, it has been one my favorite races. The scenery is beautiful and it is so peaceful--you almost forget that the entire race is uphill....almost. Of course I took pictures of Hunter's first day of class! I will post them soon.

Hunter and I made a trip home to Pilot Mountain over the Labor Day weekend while David worked. It is always nice to go home and see all of our family. Hunter, Chloe, Jenny, Papa, Gaga, and myself all went to eat fish on Friday night. Hunter, of course, does not eat fish so I packed his dinner to take, but boy did he have a good time in the restaurant. Thank goodness they stuck us in a corner room with other children and thank goodness it was a kid friendly place to go. Hunter, Chloe and about 4 other children all played while mommies and daddies ate dinner. We may be in trouble if he thinks all out to eat dinners are this fun and crazy! The rest of the weekend was spent playing around Papa, Gaga and Granddaddy's house. We made our trip back to Abingdon on Sunday so Hunter could have some Daddy time.
David had Labor Day off so he and Hunter had a fun filled day while I cleaned the house. We all spent the afternoon at the pool. It was the last open day for the season so it was super crowded. Hunter didn't know what to think about all the people so he stayed pretty close to David the whole time. This was the first time we had been to the pool since Hunter started walking, so he enjoyed getting in and out of the pool..over and over and over again.
Today was the first day I have left Hunter for and extended period of time with people other than family. We have joined our local MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group and today was our first meeting. It is a chance for moms to get together and share their experiences as moms through fellowship, lecture and crafts. I really enjoyed meeting other young mothers in our community and Hunter had a blast playing all morning with new friends. I checked on him throughout and once he was cleaning off the table with some sort of cloth he found and another time I caught him standing up backwards and jumping in a chair! Thankfully, no one was hurt and the teacher was there to whisk him safely to the floor to play with some trucks. I am looking forward to our next meeting and I hope Hunter is too.

First tractor ride with Papa.

First nap after 15 minutes on our first tractor ride!

Chloe--What a rock star! She insisted she wear her sunglasses--exclusively be DTE (Dora the Explorer)

Gaga and Hunter on the Polaris. He is now big enough to turn the steering wheel.

Hunter and Chloe are standing in the back of the Polaris eating apples they helped Papa pick!

Chloe is convinced that 'Pooh' lives in this hole. She calls him by name every time we walk past it. Who knows, maybe Pooh does live in this hole. Today she was showing Hunter his home.

Over and over. Does this look like fun to anyone?

Hunter helping David wash the cars. I think we went through 3 outfits that day.

This has been a great weekend. David was off and the weather here has been beautiful for lots of outside activities. We made a trip out to the Holston dam, which is in TN, to check out the famous trout fishing spots for David. The dam is amazing and Hunter had fun watching all the people fishing in the river. If you ask me, some of those guys fishing are cheating. The dam operators have these 'wells' in the river that rise and fall when the water is released. The fish seem to get trapped in there so they become easy targets for fishermen. You guys can decide. We also spent lots of time on the Creeper Trail. We usually go running after Hunter's morning nap, and since the weather has been close to perfect, we have been taking extra walks on the Trail in the afternoons. We have been searching for that perfect spot where the dogs and Hunter can play and David can fish. So far we haven't found it. There are some good access points along our walk, good for fishing, not so good for little boys to play in. Hunter loves the river and one of his new favorite things to do is to throw rocks in the water. He really enjoys throwing the rocks and watching Abby chase them.
For our Ibis fans out there, we almost lost him on our last Creeper Trail hike. As you all know Abby is our little lap dog, one that is entirely dependent on human entertainment and is never more than a leg's length from your shadow. She is great and we hardly ever walk her on a leash. Ibis, on the other hand, is our free spirit and he is restricted to a 'leash only' policy on our walks, hence we may never see him again. Well, we found a good spot to let Hunter play down by the river so I thought it would be OK to let Ibis run around for awhile and take a little swim. Ibis loves to swim and isn't the least little bit afraid of the water or rapids, or snakes, or, I really can't think of a thing he is afraid of. Needless to say, Ibis swam across the river and spent the rest of the time on the river hunting (or whatever he does on his adventures) and out of site. We spent the whole time calling him. It was awful. For about an hour we debated on who was going to cross the river and go search for him. While David was searching for a place to cross, here comes Ibis running down the rocky beach on the opposite side of the river, he catapults into the river and heads for the rock David is standing on. The next thing I see is a wet dog being tossed into the air as David pulls him from the rapids by his harness. David was so upset with him and Hunter and I are just laughing at this ridiculous sight. From down at the river's edge David was yelling, "Get out his leash!" Well, Ibis is safe. He has quite the adventures around here. The 'leash only' policy is back in effect for now.
Hunter also got a great little car over the weekend. He loves to sit in our cars and 'drive.' It is a little tikes car that we can push from the back and he loves it. Sometimes it is hard to get him out. We have lots of great pictures and videos of him riding in this car.

This is about as deep as it gets for Abby. We are just happy she got her feet wet.

Cheaters?

This is the spot where we lost Ibis. He was running up the shoreline on the left.

Ibis found and trying to get back into David's good graces!

New favorite toy!

Sorry, turn your screen around. Aren't we all thankful for those little outlet covers?Thanks for the cool b'day toys! Hunter loves them.

Eli is the next Lance. "Eli go fast".

Eli and Hunter riding in the Trek Go-Bug. I don't know who enjoyed this more, the boys or David.

Our first big boo-boo. Hunter fell over a ball and face planted onto the hardwood floors. He took it like a pro (only a few big tears)!

I actually got a picture of them sitting still..and at the same time. Way to go Aunt Noelle!

It has been a very busy week around the Simmons house. We had our in laws up from Atlanta so Hunter wore himself out trying to keep up with cousin Eli who will be 2 next month. The pace around here is quite different from that of the big city, but there were plenty of things to do to keep 2 little boys busy...and when little boys are busy, mommies and daddies are TIRED! Thanks to cousin Eli's help, Hunter had the extra motivation to rise up off all fours and really give the walking thing a shot. He is so funny, most of the time he walks with his arms straight up beside his head. I keep telling him it is harder that way to drop them out to his side. Whatever gets the job done I guess. We can't wait to have them back for another visit.