Coloring and Carving Pumpkins

Filed Under Firsts, Halloween, Sensory Stuff, Two and a half years old | 3 Comments

This is the first year Bailey has helped to decorate pumpkins. Last year and the year before I either did it by myself or put out a premade pumpkin. This year since we went to the pumpkin patch, I knew she would be really excited about decorating her own pumpkin.

We gave her washable markers and let her color all over the smaller one. She took her job very seriously. She told us the designs on the pumpkin include a pig, a cow, a face, and some letters. She colored on it for about twenty minutes which is a LONG time for a two year old to work on a project! At least for my child, anyway.

She helped me scoop out the pumpkin guts from the big pumpkin. She didn’t like it though and lost interest quickly. I don’t really like doing that either, so I can’t blame her. I carved it by myself and she watched and colored while I did it.

All lit up and ready for Halloween! She thought it was pretty cool.

Boo At the Zoo 2009

Filed Under Halloween, Outings, Two and a half years old | 1 Comment

A few pictures from Boo at the Zoo last weekend… Bailey would NOT wear her crown (in fact, she didn’t want to wear any of her costume but we told her nobody would give her candy unless she wore it!) She ended up having a lot of fun, but it was much more crowded than last year. I don’t know that we will go again in the future but it was a nice day to spend together as a family at least.

Here she is right after we got out of the van and put on her costume. Clearly she’s not thrilled and Jonathon was a little frazzled after wrestling her into the princess dress!

But then she met a friendly penguin who wanted to give her some candy, and it was all better.

We had to wait in line a lot to get candy, which was the boring part of the morning. We had to try to entertain her as we stood around in huge groups of people waiting to move through the areas where the foot traffic bottlenecked.

Bailey decided it was more fun to pass time by running around in the grass.

We finished off the morning with a picnic lunch and some candy tasting

We’re ready for the zoo!

Filed Under Halloween, Holidays, Talking, Two and a half years old | 4 Comments

Tomorrow we are going to the trick or treat event at our zoo. Bailey is so excited. We tried on her costume tonight (yes, for the first time!) and it is a little big but it looks cute anyway. It is a Cinderella costume but she has no idea who Cinderella is- she just wanted to be a princess. She keeps saying “I want to wear my princess!”

I think we are going to have to layer it with a shirt and pants underneath. It’s supposed to be chilly but that’s not going to keep us home. She was so excited to put her jammies on and go to bed so that we could wake up and go to the zoo sooner. Let’s cross our fingers that she doesn’t get up at 3 a.m. now. She keeps saying “It’s a holiday Mom!”

Here she is all jammied up and ready for bed. Nite nite, princess Bailey.

2008 IN REVIEW

Filed Under Bailey's Birthday, Christmas, Cloth Diapering, Daddy, Disney Vacation, Eighteen Months, Eleven Months, Fifteen Months, Firsts, Fourteen Months, Hair, Halloween, Nineteen Months, Play, Professional Pictures, Seventeen Months, Sixteen Months, Ten Months, Thirteen Months, Twelve Months, Twenty Months | 4 Comments

We were so blessed with a wonderful year. No major catastrophes, no deaths in our families, a daughter who has stayed healthy (with the exception of a few colds) and continued to grow and learn and amaze us… Here are the highlights of our year.

January- please note her lack of hair, compared to now

February- and Bailey is walking!

March

April- happy first birthday, Bailey!

May

June

July

August

September- Jonathon and I went to Disney World

October

November

December

Happy New Year!

Happy Halloween!

Filed Under Eighteen Months, Halloween, Holidays | 5 Comments

I hope you appreciate the effort that I put into posting this picture. I could not get my scanner to turn on today and my computer genius husband is at work… so I took a picture of Bailey’s Halloween pics that we had done a few weeks ago.

We also had some adventures this morning. We went to see Nana and Papa (my grandparents) and this was the first time they saw her in her costume.

Then we went to the grocery store and a lot of people were trying to talk to her/touch her/give her candy… So we figured out that she does much better in this little grocery cart car, because people can’t get so close. She was getting a little overwhelmed.

After that, we went to see Daddy at work. He works at a school and all the students just loved Bailey. Some of the oldest kids kind of intimidated her because they were all screeching and crowding around her. But she loved the preschoolers and younger kids. Here is a preschool class who stopped in the middle of the hallway to see her. I just had to take this picture because all the kids were crazy about Bailey, and she was loving it.

Anyway, she is napping now so that we can trick or treat tonight! I hope you have a happy Halloween, and we’ll post pictures again this weekend!

Boo at the Zoo

Filed Under Eighteen Months, Halloween, Outings | 6 Comments

I know I talk a lot about how much I love our zoo. It’s free, seriously free. You can park for free (not in the lot but on all the streets around the zoo). The children’s zoo is free for the first hour the zoo is open. I love living in a city (okay, near a city) that has so many great things to do with kids!

This past Saturday, Jonathon and I took Bailey to Boo at the Zoo’s Spooky Saturday. They had free trick or treating, so we knew it would be crowded. We were lucky and got a close parking space, but we should have arrived earlier. We got there almost an hour after it started. I have to say, there were some hoosiers there who had their kids trick or treating without costumes. Also some adults were trying to get candy. At least bring a kid to hold the basket like we did! Bailey seriously got a lot of candy, so Jonathon and I have been snacking a lot lately

Bailey got to wear her frog costume. She loves it, and gets so excited to put it on. We need to do some work on her pumpkin because it’s cloth and has her name on it, but it hangs down and drags on the ground when she holds it. And of course, no one else is allowed to hold it.

The weather ended up being really nice. We got to see a few animals. My favorite is always the giraffes. Today they were close to the fence because people were feeding them leaves.

By the end of our time at the zoo, Bailey was worn out. She had eaten pretzels all morning (she got them in her pumpkin and it was better than feeding her candy that whole time!) and we had seen animals and she was ready for a snooze. But she was the cutest tired frog I have ever seen.

Halloween Candy recall

Filed Under Halloween, Recalls | 2 Comments

HALLOWEEN CANDY RECALLED

Sherwood brand Pirate’s Gold Milk Chocolate coins are being recalled due to
the fact that they contain Melamine, the ingredient in milk product that
has caused many infant deaths in China. These candies are sold at Costco,
as well as many bulk and Dollar Stores. Please make sure to check your
children’s Halloween candy and DO NOT LET THEM EAT THE PIRATE COINS (you
know the ones wrapped in the shiny gold foil) and please let other parents
know about this!

Check it out on Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/coins.asp

Grant’s Farm Halloween Night

Filed Under Grandparents, Halloween, Outings, Seventeen Months, St. Louis | 3 Comments

Last weekend we went to Grant’s Farm for their Halloween event. It is every weekend in October, I think. It was $20 a car to get in, but no per-person admission. So it wasn’t too bad considering that we fit the three of us and my parents all in our car! I think it was really well done. It was cheesy kid-scary stuff. Like Bailey was not afraid of anything except this woman dressed as a witch who kept trying to talk to the kids. She was really nice, but they were scared. Anyway. We met Dave, Amy, and Kaitlynn and Christopher, Emily, Emily’s parents, and Ella there. We all rode on the tram separately and then met before the goats.

These first few pictures are from when we were waiting in line for the tram. The line started on the parking lot side of the bridge, for those of you who are familiar with GF. It was the longest I have seen the line but my guess is we waited no more than 20 minutes.

Also now you get to see what Bailey’s Halloween costume is. I know I was being funny keeping it a secret. She is going to be a frog. She loves her costume and wore it the first part of the night, before she got too hot.

Here’s a really funny one of me, when we were riding the tram. I just never have any normal pictures of me with Bailey!

Once we got into the park, we took a bunch of pictures on the bench. Obviously it’s not easy getting pictures of three toddlers. And Bailey and Ella kept poking at each other and trying to kiss.

I loved seeing my little Muffin in her frog suit. However, quite a few people commented on how “HE” was such a cute frog. I knew that was going to happen. I have to remember to glue a bow to the head of the frog suit before she wears it again.

When you walked through the park, there were things like ghosts in the trees, and at one part it looked like giant moth traps, and some version of the Scream guy. But if it was stuff your kid was going to be scared of, it would be really easy to distract them so they didn’t look up at those spots.

I tried to get a shot of Bailey and Ella kissing (again) but I was too slow. They kept doing it but I just didn’t get the timing right with the camera. They were so cute and funny. I am so glad that the girls are starting to interact with each other more. It’s fun to watch them develop their little friendships.

Bailey and Grampa- and she was no longer wearing her frog costume because she got really hot in it. It was about 70 degrees out- too warm for a busy girl to be wearing a long furry suit!

Family picture in front of the Anheuser-Busch sign/logo, but our flash didn’t light up enough to really get a good shot of it.

We went and enjoyed our free drinks and let the girls run around and play. Bailey was definitely busy the whole time. She found a Grants Farm stroller that someone had abandoned and wanted to go for rides in the stroller, then the girls decided it was more fun to push the stroller. She also danced A LOT and got so sweaty.

My mom bought Bailey one of those wand things with spinning lights in it. She was obsessed with it for about five minutes. Then it quit working, they traded it for another one and it was put together funny, so they ended up returning it. We got her some glow necklaces and a different wand for next time we go out at night.

Relaxin’

If you live in the area and you haven’t been to Grant’s Farm for their Halloween event, you have to go before they close for the season!! We had a great time and will definitely do this again next year.