Pumpkin Fiasco

Since Daddy has a paper due soon, he has pretty much been M.I.A. this week. So by Thursday, Kaylee and I were desperate for something fun to do. I decided to be brave and try carving our pumpkin with just me and my 20 month old. Think I'm crazy? I did too but I was willing to give it a try. 

The calm before the storm.

My favorite part is always scooping out the guts- carving takes way more patience than I have. And Kaylee loved squishing the guts between her toes. 

Disgusting...but it kept her busy and away from the knife I was using so it was perfect.  However, the slipperiness on her toes, her bum, and literally every inch of her body met with the slipperiness of the table and when she reached over to grab more guts, she slid right off the table and landed smack on her forehead before I could even react.Wow- that made me feel like a terrific mom, I tell you what.  But luckily kids seem to bounce back really fast and within two minutes she was asking to get back on the table for more "squish". Don't worry, I took more precautions after that! Here she is after the fall-you can even see the tear streaks on her cheek :(

 You'd think I would also learn that with toddlers, there can be no such thing as small scale. In my head Kaylee was content to sit and play in the bowl with the pumpkin remains.  But in real life, it was strung on the walls, the chairs, the table, the floor, on Kaylee, and all over me. 

 Regardless of this, I actually did have a lot of fun carving with Kaylee. You can tell we were definitely missing the carving expert in our family but it turned out alright for doing it by myself while trying to keep a busy toddler from falling off the table...again.  I'm just glad we both came out of this experience alive :)

Pumpkin Farm

I was so excited about taking Kaylee to a pumpkin farm this year.  We didn't get to go when our R.S. went so we've been trying to find a day for a while.  FINALLY it stopped raining and we went on Tuesday with two girls from my ward and their kids.  However, because it had been raining so much the pumpkin patch was REALLY muddy and they advised us not to make the trip out there because people had been losing their shoes, etc in all the mud. We were going to be brave and make the trip anyway but we got about 10 feet out and realized they weren't lying, it really WAS too muddy so we turned right back around.  Ha ha

I thought they offered a hayride out but apparently they only do that on the weekends...so I was pretty bummed about that. But they did have a bunch of pumpkins already picked so we got one to bring home to daddy and bought a tiny little gourd for Kaylee. 

We then ventured over to the kid area. They had a straw maze and grain boxes to play in. My sister took her son to a straw maze and it was kid size and very fun so I thought that is what it was going to be like.  NOPE- the walls of the maze were big enough for adults and on the floor going through the maze they laid about 4 or 5 inches of very very slippery straw!  Not only did Kaylee slip and fall every other step but I also kept slipping and looked like an idiot trying not to fall.  For a very pregnant woman who already hurts walking normally, this was NOT a good place for me. Every time Kaylee fell, it would make her really mad and she would look down at herself covered in straw, say "dirty", try to brush it off, and finally give up and ask me to hold her.  

There was also a slide in the middle of the straw maze that was a lot faster than I thought it would be and Kaylee hit her head and once again got very upset.  So the "fun" maze ended up being Kaylee sitting on my lap while the other kids played....oh well.  The grain boxes were tons of fun though so that was good. Instead of a sandbox, they have these boxes full of dried corn. Genius idea!  If I can figure out how to re-create it at my house, you better believe Kaylee will have a corn box in the backyard next year :) 

 We ended the day with a doughnut and cider. Definitely not an ideal trip but it was still fun.  And now we have a pumpkin that we need to carve- better get on that soon!  Can you believe Halloween is only a few days away???

First of Many

We are now part of a babysitting swap here in our little apartment complex and I am SO excited about it.  Richard has very little time with us, let alone just with me, and it makes it much easier knowing I will have two whole hours with him to myself every Saturday.  This week we wanted to take advantage of the good weather since we know it won't last much longer.  We went to the Park of Roses, which we have heard is incredible.  I didn't expect there to be any roses left, and there weren't a ton but definitely more than I thought!  It is a GORGEOUS park and it was so fun to walk around and have some alone time with Richard.  We will definitely be heading back next year when all those bushes are full of roses!

 

 

After we got some ice cream and made a quick stop at the store.  Even if we aren't really doing anything I'm so lucky to have an amazing friend to be with.  There is nobody I would rather spend time with!  Hopefully this was the first of many many fun dates to come!!

Failed Attempt

The other day I saw a huge pile of leaves in our neighborhood.  So I ran home to grab the camera to take some cute pictures of Kaylee playing in the leaves.  However, Kaylee did not want anything to do with them!  The first couple pictures I took all looked something like this:

She was trying to hold up both her arms and legs as high as she could so she didn't have to touch the leaves.  Even when she didn't have to sit in the pile she didn't really want to play with them and would barely touch them when I was trying to get her to throw them up in the air.

She was slightly less hesitant about them when her friends came over and played in them too, even when she got them dumped on her head.  

But mostly she was just happy to watch the leaves from a safe distance :)  

 Oh well.  Maybe we'll get some cute leaf pictures next year?

Beautiful Fall

After a teaser week of freezing cold wind and rain, Ohio has decided to show us why fall is so great on the East Coast.  

 

 I don't remember ever feeling such perfect weather in my life.  If only it would stay this way!  Kaylee and I have been trying to take advantage and spend lots and lots of time outside.  One huge perk to being here?  Apparently Utah got snow this week.  And quite honestly, I took extreme satisfaction in going outside that day in shorts to play at the park. :) We love fall!!

Just to make you smile

Kaylee wanted to try on her new coat and show it off to Daddy.  Daddy, being the crazy guy he always is, was trying to get her to make funny faces.  So I grabbed the camera and tried to capture a few...and was pleasantly rewarded with this:

and this:

I was laughing pretty hysterically for a long time after seeing this picture and every time I look at it now it makes me smile.  Who knew an 18 month old could entertain me for so long? :)

And so it begins

As of Sunday, we have officially been in Ohio for 48 days.  Also as of Sunday, I was officially homesick for the first time.  I'm going to take a wild guess and say that won't be the last time that happens.  And so it begins...

Franklin Park Conservatory

I just realized that I never blogged about Richard's birthday...oops.  His birthday was on Sunday so we tried to celebrate a little bit Saturday night.  Richard told me he was up for anything because whatever we do here is fun because it's new.  Well I really took that to heart and we ended up going to the Franklin Park Conservatory.  We weren't 100% sure what was there, but it got really good reviews online so we decided to check it out.  Honestly, it was really boring except for the butterfly room, while had the best butterfly place I've ever been to.  Kaylee had so much fun watching, chasing, and running from the butterflies.   

They also had enormous Koi in the pond and she watched them probably longer than she stared at any of the butterflies!  Because of that room, it ended up being a lot of fun and we were glad we went. 

Outside they had a bunch of fruits and vegetables made out of blown-glass. They were pretty cool and were in all different colors. Kaylee's favorite? The purple pumpkins of course! (Purple is her favorite color)

The rest of our celebrations were very low-key and we didn't do a whole lot more than eat all of Richard's favorite foods.  The good part about having his birthday on Sunday was he got two full days of special meals made just for him :)

Parental anecdotes

Kaylee does so many adorable things. There are a lot of good things she has learned that I absolutely love: Some of my favorites are when she does things to imitate us like patting herself on the back and saying "Are you ok?" whenever she coughs.  Or the fact that she has the best manners of any kid in the world and always remember to say thank you, excuse me, and please don't without being reminded. There are, however, a few good things that Kaylee does that I wish she had never learned :)  I can't hold them against her though- they are adorable and make me smile. 

MORE: The word more.  I didn't think I could get sick of a word, but some days I really wish I could never hear this word again. I think Kaylee says it about 50,000 times a day.  Mostly she says it over and over again if it's something we can't control; like her burping, or an airplane flying overhead, or a squirrel in our backyard.  When that thing is gone, she'll just say more, more, more over and over again.  No matter how many times we try to tell her that we can't bring it back, she insists that by saying "more" 25 times in a row, it will magically make that thing appear again!

BRUTUS:  No, she is still not over her Brutus fixation.  Every time we get in the car, she asks for Brutus, as well as at other random times in the day.  It's actually hilarious but I have no idea why she is so obsessed with him.  The other day she kept repeating mommy and daddy so I asked her, "Are those the only words you know?"  She said "No" and so I said, "Ok well what other words do you know?"  She paused for a minute and then said "Brutus".  Ha ha ha- my funny little girl! 

PLEASE DON'T:  Instead of having her say no every time something doesn't go her way, we've been trying to teach her to say "please don't" and she's done amazing at it.  However, when you're trying to tickle or play with her and she says "please don't" it sucks out all the fun!  She even says it when she has taken something from us and we are trying to get it back from her.  Ha ha. How can you keep doing something when your sweet little girl looks up and you and says "please don't"?  That's what we get for teaching her to be nice ;) 

I seriously couldn't ask for a better little girl.  She just makes life so much fun!