Pumpkin Patch

Matt and I decided that this year might be fun to start a family tradition.  In the last month or so he had been talking a lot about a pumpkin patch that his family visited in North Carolina.  I had been hearing a lot about a local pumpkin patch called Layman Family Farms, but I wondered if it would hold up to Matt's expectations.

 

We got there about 2:00 on a Saturday and as a surprise to us, it was not very crowded.

 

We paid our admission, got our wrist bands, grabbed a map of the corn maze and headed out.  We decided to try the corn maze as our first activity.

Following our fearless leader, we headed into the deep jungle of corn....

 

But our leader got sidetracked many, many times.  Quite often she found parts of the ground that needed to be swept or cleaned.  Or she would find large dirt clods that needed to be carried from one location to another.

 So every once in awhile she had to have a guiding hand from her daddy to help her along in the maze.

 

Next we discovered the corn crib.  It was like a huge sandbox but instead of sand there was corn kernels to play with.  It took a bit for Grace to get up the courage to go in and play, but once she got in there we could not get her out (and we were finding corn kernels in the most interesting of places for the next few hours).

 

Then up the hill to the cow train.  Grace did not want to ride this alone so Matt was nice enough to fold himself in half and stuff himself into one of the cow train cars for a ride around the field.  Once she got to ride on her daddy's lap she was as happy as a lark.

 

We could not leave the cow train station without riding on the tire horse swing.  These were so cool, and they were each made out of one complete tire.  Grace fit in the seat very well and had wonderful hand holds with the ears.  She enjoys all swings but this one she could do on her own.

Finally it was off to do what we came here for.  A hayride to find the perfect pumpkin.

Mommy, I want this one!

We did not get the bumpy, mutated one.  We got a nice, "normal" pumpkin.  Grace seemed just fine with it.  She had to hold it on her lap on the hayride back to the barn.

Oh, I forgot one thing that Matt did that we did not get pictures of.  He had the chance to shoot two pumpkins out of a pumpkin cannon.  He tells me that they explode very nicely.

Finally it was time to go. Matt stated that the pumpkin patch was not exactly what he remembered, but it was a good place and fun to go to.  I do feel that we have started a new family tradition.

Greek For A Day

Matt and I have always enjoyed visiting the local finds and "tourist traps."  Which Virginia and especially interstate 81 have many of (mostly historical and wonderful).  Friday we decided to stay local though and experience our own city.

In the past four years I have heard about a Greek festival being held in the city.  I have seen banners and billboards but have not paid much attention to them.  Well, last Sunday I was listening to the radio while getting ready for church and I heard an advertisement for the Greek Festival this year.  It would be held Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  I thought that if we desired to, this could be a fun thing to finally go to.

Friday comes along and after Matt comes home from work we decide to jump back in the car and go to the Greek Festival.  It was a lot of fun.  We listened to a live band play Greek music (Grace and I danced).  Then we watched a group of people in authentic dress dance Greek dances.  We got some wonderful food (which Grace did not partake of :(  We ate Gyros, and Greek fries, and some wonderful desserts that we have no idea what they were called.

Grace's favorite part of the festival was trying to walk up and down the ramp and stairs to the kitchen where they were preparing all of the food.  She also enjoyed touching and playing with the plastic fencing that kept the festival contained.  Finally she really enjoyed just standing and staring at the port-a-potties.  She did not touch them or use them, she just liked to look at them.

I think that it was a great way to end a long work week.

Church Picnic

 Last Sunday our church had a picnic at the picnic shelter just beyond our church building.  It was a potluck so everyone brought food, there was ladder ball to play, cornhole to play, and they had part of the parking lot coned off for chalk drawing and twister (for the younger kids).

Originally Grace only had eyes for the gravel and would not leave the area where loose rocks could be found.  Later she discovered the wonders of the chalk and was very busy with that.  Finally she discovered Twister and joined in on a game that was already being played.  I do not think that she quite understands the rules yet.

 After a fun game of Twister, Grace decided to be her daddy's cheering section as he played a game of cornhole.  It was a good thing too because it just might have been her cheering that helped his team beat the other team.  Good job Matt!

 After the game, it was time to eat.  I picked many, many things off of the tables for Grace to try and to eat.  What did she end up eating?  Cheese and grapes!  She ate all of the grapes that were available.  She would not eat anything else (though there was some wonderful food there).  Oh well, at least she ate.

 Then off to play again.  This time Grace went up the hill and found a group of about 10 older kids playing football and she decided that she needed to join in.  They were very good about it and let her have the ball every now and then.  She thought it was the best thing ever.

Finally we relaxed in our chairs and waited for the bonfire and sing-along that was to happen after dinner.  We sang, and ran around some more.

It was a great experience and Matt and I had a chance to talk to some people in church that we usually do not have a chance to talk to much.  I am glad that we went.  More than that, I am glad that Grace had a good time and wore herself out while there.

12 hours later

I am starting to think that I should have waited 12 hours to write my last blog post.

I mentioned that I feel horrible in the evenings recently and that I am very, very ,very tired.  This morning I woke to a very sore throat, runny nose, stuffy and achy head, and just miserable all over.  I have a cold :(

Which is not typically bad but I can take almost no medicine for it.  It has prevented me from sleeping much.  Ok, enough with the whining.  I am blessed that I have a husband who has a wonderful job that allows him to work from home, and rescue his pitiful wife.

Yes, Matt came home at 11:00 today.  He sent me off to bed to get some sleep them promptly took care of putting Grace down for her nap.  Since then he has been working hard at his computers.  I do feel blessed, I do feel better, I just hate being sick.

I mainly wanted to write this post, not to complain and whine, but to explain that there is nothing more serious happening to me than a bad cold.

Not Much To Say

It has been awhile since I posted last so I thought I would give a bit of an update.

Not much has been going on around here,
Grace is getting used to her toddler bed and doing well with that
I believe that Grace has the start of a cold (fun, fun...)
I have been very, very, very tired lately
I also have felt horrible in the evenings (I think that I try to do too much during the day)
Grace is enjoying her two story time days (and learning that she needs to sit during them)
Matt is enjoying playing his guitar more often and even went to play with the praise band last night
Grace is getting more words every day
       ex: shoe, sock, vroom, up, cracker, juice, truck, and many, many more

Life is normal, not much to say.

Big Girl Room

So Matt lost his man cave....

All so that his daughter could have her own room when Glen arrives.  What a great father he is.

It will be a little bit before Grace moves into the room (October or November), but in the meantime we decided to paint and decorate the room to get it ready (anything that we can do ahead of time is a good thing these days).

It was decided to paint her room green and have purple flowers stenciled on the wall.  It was a grand idea until our toaster oven melted two of the stencils that we were planning on using.  Back to the drawing board.

Then my sister bought a new house.  Left in the house from the previous owners was a butterfly mobile.  When Grace saw it she was transfixed!  So it was decided that my sister's son would not enjoy the butterflies as much as Grace, so she got them.

New idea, paint the room green and stencil butterflies...  Done!

 38 and a half butterflies all fluttering around her new room.  The above picture shows the finished product of the whole room as if it were cut down the window and laid flat.

 Hard at work stenciling.  It got messy and tedious at times, but it was worth it.

A finished butterfly.  I am so grateful for Lowes and their sample paint cans.  I got very small cans of paint for the butterflies and still did not use even half of the samples but at least I did not have to get a gallon or anything.

We did red butterflies to match her toddler bed, purple butterflies to match her purple floral curtains (also from my sister's new house), and blue to match her curtains and also to tie everything together.

I think that they look wonderful.  Grace goes in the room and babbles as she looks around the room and points to the butterflies.  I think that she is going to really enjoy this.

First Day Of Story Time

Recently, especially on facebook, there have been many pictures of my friend's children and their first day of school, kindergarten, preschool, etc.  Well the closest that I have is Grace's first day of story time.  Today we went to the library to have our first day of story time.

She enjoyed the stories.  She liked the dancing, but she did not know what to do with the egg shakers or the bean bags that they used during the songs.  The lady in charge tried to hand out the eggs and Grace took one only to put it back in the basket, very proud of herself for cleaning up.  It took a couple of tries for her to actually keep the egg in her hands.  The same goes for the bean bags, but the difference there was once we got to our space on the carpet she promptly gave her bean bag to the boy next to her.  Sharing is good, but she did not have a bean bag to do the bean bag dance with.  Oh well!

I think that story time is going to be a very good thing for her.  I am glad that she is finally old enough to participate.

Big Girl Bed

Matt and I were lucky enough to have a toddler bed available to us when Grace out grew her crib.  

Grace really has not out grown her crib, but about a month ago she discovered that she could swing her leg up and hook her heel over the edge of the crib.  I was not going to wait for her to realize that was the first step to getting out of the crib (the hard way).  I also realized that we would need to make this transition sooner than later due to the arrival of Glen in a few months.  I wanted her to be used to her new bed before the rest of her life got turned upside down.

 So on Sunday after church, lunch and a nap we all three got into Grace's room.  And all together (yes, Grace was "helping.") we took down her crib.  Then in the same time frame we put together her beautiful red toddler bed (yes, she "helped" with that one too).

 She got in, she laid down, she bounced, she climbed over the railings, she explored.  She loved that she had access to all of her stuffed animals and pacifiers that were usually locked up in the crib.  She showed off by climbing in bed, picking out each item one by one and handing them to us.  Then taking each item from us one by one and putting them back into bed...over and over and over!

The first night in the bed she was not too happy.  It took about 45 minutes to 1 hour of singing, rubbing her back and sitting with her to get her to sleep...then she woke up at 4:30 am :(

Nap was a little better, 15 minutes of rubbing her back.

Tonight I was in there for 5 minutes before she was out.  I think that she is getting the hang of this, she did not fight or fuss at all.  In fact she saw me leave but she was already so sleepy that she did not even cry.  I type this hoping that I am not jinxing anything...4:30 does come early, I hope I do not see it again tomorrow morning!

But this is one of many transitions that we are trying to do for Grace before October/November so that she can be used to the changes before her little brother gets here.  In the next blog you will hear all about her big girl room that we just painted this past weekend.

Grapes and other news

Grape season is upon us.  We got lots of help from my family when we went to Harrisonburg last weekend.  We took a cooler full of grapes and came home with 10 quarts of white grape juice!

Then after that, the next week I made 6 pints of grape jelly and am about to make about 6 more tonight from our concord grapes.  Matt loves the jelly.  I sent him to work with a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a pint of jelly.  Not much of any of that returned home :)

We still have more grapes.  I am debating on working them up some more, or just letting the season be and allowing the birds and bugs to have at the fruit.

My favorite thing about grape season has to be what Grace does.  When I am working with the grapes she will hide under the grape arbor and eat all of the low hanging grapes.  When I was cutting bunches of grapes she would run by the cooler, select a bunch for herself, then hide under the arbor and eat every last grape off of the stems.  She loves her grapes!

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This morning she was pulling out toys to play with me.  She pulled out this toy

In the past I had to kind of direct her to the correct spot to put all 10 pieces in.  This morning she did it all on her own with no help from me at all (except to get the pieces out).  I was very proud of her.


She has a few new words that I would like to document here.
Real Word   - - -   Grace Speak
I love you -------- I love (or she might just kiss you)
peach ------------ appa (apple...she does not know her fruit yet)
apple------------- appa
She is starting to say more names (at times) such as grandma, grandpa, mamaw, papaw, and others.
She is getting more words every day so I know I am missing many of her new ones.  But these were the ones that I have been hearing the most.