Davison Pumpkin Fest (10/9/10)

We arrived at my parents’ house around 3pm, put Lily in her spider costume, plopped her in my old wagon, and walked downtown to the Davison Pumpkin Fest.

Here is Lily looking very cool on her wagon ride:

There was a lot to see and do so we regretted getting there so late as the festival ended at 5pm. Those two hours flew by. The first thing we encountered was a train ride which, of course, got Lily very excited. There was a very long line for the train though, so my dad held a spot for us as we began exploring the festival. Right past the train ride was a petting zoo. Lily enjoyed wandering around and looking at all of the animals. She loved petting this super soft rabbit:

And, of course, baaing at the sheep was a lot of fun:

Surprisingly, the turkeys interested her the most:

Happily exploring the festival with grandma:

There were rides and games for kids but nothing that Lily was old enough for. She really wanted to jump in the bounce houses so we were thrilled to find this little bouncer for toddlers. She could jump around in it without fear of bouncing off of anyone or getting hurt. She had a ton of fun and quickly made a game out of bouncing onto her butt and back up again. She was very reluctant to get out when another little girl wanted to take a turn:

We then explored the merchant area where Lily enjoyed petting this stuffed dog:

Then my dad called to tell us that he was near the front of the line for the train ride so we hurried back. We didn’t make it onto the train that was loading up when we got there so we had to wait for that group to finish their ride. Here we are waiting in line as the train pulled up for us to take our turn:

Lily and I on board and ready to go:

Lily was so excited when the train started to move:

She was squealing so loud with delight that the little girl in front of us turned to stare:

Lily greatly enjoyed her ride:

Lily was sad that the ride was over but was quickly cheered up by this giant Saint Bernard:

She was especially happy when we let her go back in the bouncer:

Next, my mom, Lily, and I went on a hay ride:

Lily was scanning the crowd for daddy and papi upon our return:

Exploring more of the festival with papi:

Further down Main Street, Lily amazingly recognized this pet shop from almost two months ago and ran up to the window to see the cats inside. She had been cranky at my dad’s birthday dinner downtown way back in August so my mom took her for a walk outside where they discovered two cats in the shop window. I can’t believe that she remembered them and instantly recognized the shop! Especially considering that we came at it from a different direction and the shop looks different due to the addition of fall decorations:

She finally found the kitties way in the back and brought grandma over to show her:

The festivities ended so we headed back to my parents’ house where I got some adorable pictures of Lily on my parents’ porch posing with their fall decorations and some gerbera daisies that she picked from the flower bed:

Lily then started gathering the gourds and brought them over to the Adirondack chair to line up on its arms:

Counting the gourds:

She loved the chair but kept slipping down in it:

We then got Lily out of her adorable spider costume (I hated to see it go) and headed over to John’s Pizzeria for dinner. Lily loved her pizza but ate it in a very unusual way as she was really only interested in the cheese:

What!?:

It was such a gorgeous day and we had a lot of fun. We headed home shortly after dinner as we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow as well.

Ride Train! (10/9/10)

As mentioned on the previous post, Lily has been talking nonstop about her ride on the Huckleberry Railroad last weekend. We are constantly being told, “ride twain… wif gwamma… was fun.” We shot some videos of her talking about it yet again this morning (with a wee bit of prompting) first to Paul and then to me.

1Y32W / Fall Around the Yard (10/4/10 – 10/10/10)

This week was not very eventful. Both Paul and I had dental cleanings scheduled on Tuesday. Paul left work early for his appointment and then picked up Lily by himself from daycare while I hurried out to my appointment after work. We usually don’t schedule our appointments for the same day but thankfully it worked out okay. On Wednesday, Paul lost a bet about what day we are leaving on our upcoming vacation so he has to change Lily’s next 5 poopy diapers. I should make bets like that more often! I started going to my chiropractor again on Wednesday for my ITB and hip pain as they are getting pretty bad. We had an 8am meeting at work on Thursday which always makes our morning routine difficult as we have to wake Lily up 30 minutes earlier than usual. I had my kickboxing class after work so Paul and Lily killed time at McDonalds- Lily’s favorite place.

Our daycare was closed on Friday and all of our backup caregivers were busy so we used the Safe at Home service. We have only used it once before back in March and were very pleased with the caregiver they sent. That caregiver was not available but we had another very nice lady that Lily warmed up to instantly (which is always a miracle). Lily had a good day with her. It is certainly a great emergency daycare option and we are so glad that U of M offers it. Unfortunately, we only have 10 hours left for the rest of the year at the U of M subsidized rate then we have to pay $20/hour for it. Yikes!

We had a very busy day on Saturday. Paul spent the morning prepping the recycling while I started packing for our vacation. We kept putting off Lily’s nap hoping that she would sleep through our errands but she stayed awake while we got the oil changed. We ended up not being able to head into Ann Arbor to do our recycling because the MSU/U of M game traffic had southbound US-23 at a complete standstill. Instead, we stuffed Lily with McDonalds to help knock her out and hit the road to Davison to attend the Pumpkin Fest with our recycling along for the ride. The details and numerous pictures of our time at the Pumpkin Fest will be on another blog post. Thankfully, we didn’t hear any details about the game all day so we watched it on the DVR when we got home. Even though I have worked for U of M for nearly 9 years, my loyalty always lies with my alma mater so I was very excited that MSU won. GO STATE!

On Sunday, we went to Frankenmuth for my grandmother’s 90th birthday. That will also be a separate blog post. Paul was nervous about taking Lily back to the city of her arm incident but I kept reassuring him that we were going to Zehnder’s, not Bavarian Inn, so everything would be fine.

All week long, Lily talked about her ride on the Huckleberry Railroad. All we heard was, “ride twain… wif gwamma… was fun.” She was very excited to tell us all about it multiple times a day. We finally got some videos of her talking about it on Saturday morning which will be featured on the next blog post. Apparently her visit to Crossroads Village made a huge impression on her!

Speaking of talking, Lily is a nonstop chatterbox now. She also constantly amazes us with her great memory. When we drive by Toot’s place, she says “arf” and “track-TOUR” as she remembers his dogs and tractor collection that she visited last week. She used to call all waterways “ponds” but on our daily crossings of the Huron River, we usually respond with, “Yes, that’s the river,” so now she calls it “river pond”. Silly girl!

We had wondered if last weekend’s counting had been a fluke but Lily has been counting a lot this week as well. I am no expert but I think that 19 months is incredibly young to be able to count to 10! She doesn’t always get the numbers in order and sometimes starts in random spots but she definitely knows 1-10. She did say them all in order from the beginning on Sunday. Lily likes the number 9 the best because she got such a rise out of my parents and I when she said it for us last weekend.

Here are a few limited pictures from this week which are mostly of our yard. The rest will be on the upcoming posts.

Silly Lily doing a modified version of what we call the “baby bridge” on Thursday evening. The normal version has her stomach down on the ottoman with her legs extended behind her onto the couch. I have no idea why she loves to bridge herself across the two pieces of furniture but she does so daily:

Our red maple in full color:

The autumn blaze maple is almost completely changed as well:

Despite the onset of fall, this morning glory is still in full bloom:

Two red maples in our north bed:

The new flower bed on our northern property line, still in progress:

Winterberry holly in the new bed: