Trick or treat

Trick or Treat in our neighborhood was from 6-8 Pm tonight. The weather was beautiful so Grace had her first opportunity to experience Halloween. It was a lot of fun walking around just before and after dark. There was so much excitement and energy in the air as the kids (and some parents) collected their treats!I love that Grace doesn't know she should be afraid!

Left-handed lunch

Grace is still an eating machine. Today, though, I think we found a food she doesn't like - canned tuna! She put it in her mouth, chewed it, and then spit it out! Yeah, I don't blame her.

We settled on a Gerber prepared meal. I am pretty impressed with them. They are just the right amount and have a balance of protein, vegetables, and carbohydrates...and no preservatives. They get an A+ for convenience.

Grace's newest thing is trying to do everything by herself. The sitter found her this week in the middle of naptime with one arm out of her shirt, trying to take it off! When she eats, Grace must have her own fork or spoon, even if I am feeding her most of the food. It makes it seem like she is doing it alone, I guess. Here she is eating lunch today....notice the left hand, people! And, how she can't have her noodles in the pea area!

17 months or years?

Here is my big 17 month old...doing two of her favorite things:

"reading" her books and

"talking" on the phone.

I bet by the time she is 17 years old, things won't be too different where these two things are concerned!

It must BEE Halloween

We took the little buzzy bee to Boo at the Zoo on Friday night. We got there as soon as it opened and spent an hour trick-or-treating at about 10 different Halloween displays they had set up. It was a really good experience for Grace to start to figure what this is all about. She look so cute in her bee costume and she is such a big girl that she didn't want to be in the stroller at all! They had a path blocked off that led you around the zoo so you really couldn't wander as you would normally. Many of the animals were awake and active, so it was pretty cool. The big cats - jaguar, lions, snow leopard - were especially attentive. I wondered if it was close to their normal dinner time.

When we reached a trick-or-treating station along the path, Grace went up to get her treat from the zoo employee and then we told her to put it in her bag. I liked that they gave things other than candy like fruit snacks, chips, packages of crackers with peanut butter,...They also had a hay maze. I don't really like those mazes normally because I am afraid of getting lost inside of them. It is not fun for me to think about trying to find my way out. But this one was cool because it was short enough that I could see which way to go. No stress for Mommy in this one!

I thought this was a stepladder...

But Grace had another idea!

Fall festival

Kellie and her mom invited us to attend a fall festival at their country club today. Grace and I met them around 1:00 and we spent a few hours enjoying the beautiful weather and good company. Grace and Dawson looked so cute in matching outfits and they were both such sweet young ladies. It is amazing to watch them as they experience new things.When we got there, they had tables set up for the children to decorate their own pumpkins. Kellie and I chose all kinds of embellishments - hats, feathers, foam cutcouts, wiggly eyes, flowers - got some glue and had the girls sit on the ground (the table was too tall for them). They had fun touching all the pieces (and putting some of them in their mouths!) but Kellie and I ended up doing the craft. That is a bad thing for two educators. We know you are supposed to let the kids do it, but we justified it by saying they were too young!The country club had huge inflatable slides, obstacles courses, a jumping castle, and these bungy jumping-trampoline things for the older kids. There was also face-painting and they had people dressed in costume including three women who called themselves "The Tombstone Singers". They rode with us on the hayride and sang Halloween carols!When Grace saw the three ponies out on the golf course she rushed over there, cut the line, and went right up to one to pet it. This didn't surprise me since she is really comfortable around Daisy and Hondo, who are both big dogs. But when it was Grace's turn to ride, this is what happened!We had a really nice afternoon. I am in no hurry, but I am excited to watch Grace and Dawson grow up together. I am sure we have many other adventures in our future!

Baby, it's cold outside

We took Grace to the homecoming festivities Friday night at our local high school. It was cool, not really cold, but since she wasn't feeling great, I made sure she was bundled up. It was funny to watch her try to figure out the mittens. She didn't complain, though. I think she has it figured out that if she leaves her hat and mittens on we will stay where the action is...if she takes them off, we leave!

Plan B

This was a difficult week in our house. On Tuesday, I was at a work-related lunch at one of my favorite, trendy, downtown restaurants. As I looked at the menu and listened to what the others were ordering, my stomach started to do somersaults. I ordered soup but didn't eat more than two spoonfuls when I needed to excuse myself. Although I got up for work on Wednesday morning, I knew right away I wasn't going to make it and by that night I needed to call Kyle to take care of Grace because I couldn't. By Thursday night, Grace started showing signs of discomfort - although, luckily not the stomach flu I had - and she didn't sleep more than 40 minutes at a time. I kept her home from daycare on Friday, hoping we could avoid a full out cold, but no such luck. She has all the "kid crud" a boy at daycare had last week. It is hard to believe someone's nose can run that much! She is pretty miserable and neither of us has slept much in the last few days, so it is not a pretty picture around here.

So, to Plan B....I had planned this cool train ride through the Cuyahoga Valley for last night. The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad train (www.cvsr.com) was to leave from downtown Akron and go to a farm in the valley where they had fall family events planned - campfire, hayrides, pumpkins, apple cider. We were all looking forward to it and it was the perfect crisp, fall evening for it. I bundled Grace up and had her winter coat, hat, and gloves all ready to go. But the poor baby felt awful and I felt bad forcing her to go when I knew it was probably more for me than for her. So, we skipped it. It is too bad, too. From what I hear those tickets are hard to come by (they weren't for me for some reason) and the fall train events sell out fast. But, we decided that it would not be good if we got to the farm and Grace needed to leave. Since we wouldn't have our car, we would be stranded until the train came back. So, we came up with Plan B.

We went to pick pumpkins!

It was just a neighborhood place and they were closed so we didn't buy any, but it worked out. We all got out in the fresh air for a little while and Grace got to touch as many pumpkins, gourds, and corn as she wanted!