Chicken Little

After a much needed Halloween nap, we all headed over to Chance (Chris’s brother) and Rachael’s house to join them and some family and friends for pizza and trick-or-treating. And is always the case when there are so many people involved (five kids, six parents, four grandparents, a girlfriend, and two brothers), we got started on the actual trick-or-treating a bit late. And since this was the last night of our trip, our little chicken was on some major sleep deprivation.

But we were able to at least get a few pictures with smiles.

He did not love when I put him in his costume,  but as soon as we took him outside, he started running.

  We tried to do one kid group shot before leaving the house, but you know how that goes.

 

We drove a couple of blocks over to park near the busiest trick-or-treating street that I have ever seen! They had the road blocked off to cars, but I’m not sure a car could have driven through there if they tried. Yes, it was a “rich” neighborhood, but it’s not as if they were handing out king size candy bars or anything; in fact, several houses just had small tootsie rolls. I guess it’s possible that at one time this was the neighborhood for lots of candy and that’s how it became so popular and now they just have to buy ten huge bags of candy just to make it through the night.

Suffice it to say that it was packed. And Miles had no idea what was going on.

I had to hold the bag for him because it was as tall as he was, and he kept trying to go inside the houses, and we had lots of meltdowns. But I don’t think it would be Halloween without those.

Dallas Zoo

We spent Halloween morning at the Dallas Zoo with two of Chris’s little brothers, and it turned out to be a my kind of trip to the zoo (i.e. there was no one else there). So here’s a smattering of pictures to tell the story of morning.'

“Mom, I don’t care about that gorilla sitting right up against the glass. I’m busy.”

“But I do like this me-sized monkey.”

I guess the cool thing to do at zoos these days is to charge you $5 for some romaine lettuce to feed the giraffes. When we fed them at our zoo here earlier this summer, he didn’t really like them, but this time he was way more into it.

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We ended our trip with a visit to the children’s zoo where, along with farm animals for petting, there was a manmade wading creek. He loved it!

And because I just thought this was really funny, here you go:

Even Pumpkin Patches are Bigger in Texas

We spent a long Halloween weekend in Texas visiting with Chris’s family and enjoyed all of the festivities that come with October. We will not talk about the other reason for visiting that particular weekend. You know, that football game that left us both very upset that we spent money on tickets to watch our alma mater play horribly. But we did get to see the largest HD TV in the world. And one of my old roomies and her husband. So I guess there were perks.

But we spent Saturday morning enjoying a wonderful pumpkin patch that is run out of someone’s large backyard which happens to be right next door to a competing pumpkin patch that tries to entice you in with free parking, but my S-I-L informed me that it was not nearly as good.

Miles got to enjoy some firsts. Starting with his first bouncy house. There were about 5 of them, but this one was designated for children 4 and under, which I was grateful for because these things are crazy dangerous. At least when your kid has never been in one and you spend the whole time worrying that he’s going to get bonked in the head. Like the kid in the back of this picture did.

But Miles really loved it. Until he didn’t.

He also enjoyed his first Hay Ride, which he loved. Until he didn’t. But we got to spend it with some great people.

Like Uncle Colton and cousins Maddox and Vivienne. So cute! The kids, not Colton.

Miles apparently is teething (is that still possible?) and is chewing on fingers again.

There were lots of things to look out from the hay ride, like horses, cows, and painted cutouts of all sorts of characters (like Elmo).

But the cousins seemed to have a good time (at least we were able to get one pictures that made it seem that way).

***Oh, and those scratches on his face…he took his first big tumble two days before we left home. No biggie.

Why I’m glad I had food poisoning

Friday was not a fun day because I woke up feeling completely nauseated. Chris lovingly got up with Miles and fed him breakfast but then had to go to that place where he makes money so that I can buy shoes. This left me spending the bulk of my day curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor with Miles whining at me because I don’t think I was being very much fun.

He made his point known by slamming the toilet lid into my head while I was vomiting.

And why am I glad that I had this experience?

Because it made me remember the four months that I spent feeling this way while my little bundle of joy was cooking. And it made realize that I don’t think I could do that again just yet while Miles is so young.

And why is Chris glad that I had this experience?

See above.

And because he’s hoping I have developed a taste aversion to Qdoba.

Why I haven’t spent any time on the computer

For some reason last Sunday night I decided that the next morning would be a good time to stop letting Miles have his binky during awake times. Don’t ask me why because I don’t really have a good reason. Other than I was worried other moms were judging me. And I was sick of him dropping it on the floor pretty much everywhere we went.

Don't get me wrong—I was really glad that I gave him a binky at a week and a half because comfort sucking on anything other that a rubber nipple was out of the question. But somewhere along the lines (probably after nine months), it became a crutch—which my mother-in-law did warn me about.

So how did the week go? Let’s just say that we spent a lot of time out of the house doing distracting activities like going to the play place at McDonalds, going to Costco, and Target (many, many times). And spent no time doing things like cleaning or laundry.

And then I caved. A couple of times. Like today when he woke up from his nap an hour early in a really bad mood.

But now I’m sitting on my couch in my slippers, next to my favorite man, sipping hot chocolate, and watching TV.

Life. Is. Good.

Is this wrong?

How does a mother of a toddler clean the house without a little "helper" getting in the way?

Baby prison, that's how.

Supporting our local growers

This morning the playgroup in our ward took a self guided tour of the Venetucci Farm just a few minutes from the house, a family farm since 1936. And because I was curious, I looked up Nick Venetucci, the “Pumpkin Man,” on Wikipedia and learned some amazing facts. He played baseball for the New York Yankees organization when he was 22 but stopped early when his family (immigrants from Italy) bought about 100o acres in Colorado Springs. In 1942, the family sold 800 acres of their land to the US Army to help establish Camp Carson (now Fort Carson) for $10 an acre. He courted his wife for 27 years! In the 1950s he started giving pumpkins away to every local child he saw as he drove his truck around town. Over the years, it is estimated that the farm gave away over 1 million pumpkins. And…he is apparently a subject in On the Road with Charles Kuralt.

The farm was put into conservancy with a local foundation that now holds annual give-away days when school groups (or playgroups) can come get free pumpkins, see the animals, and learn about how food is grown.

Now for the narrated photo series:

Our group was gathering near the chicken coop and as soon as Miles reached up to the fence, he got pecked. But he was a very brave boy and didn’t cry.

But he decided to move onto something nicer. Like a goat. And they became fast friends.

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Since the pumpkins are all grown on site, they actually had volunteers come out a few days ago to prepare the field for the kids (i.e. cutting them from the vine and moving some around for easier access). Once at the patch, we were given a lesson about Nick Venetucci and the rule he initiated for picking pumpkins: only pick one that you can carry all the way up the hill by yourself. Miles took this to heart.

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Until he realized that this rotten little green one was much easier to pick up and carry.

I took that one away as we kept exploring. Unfortunately, the rows with pumpkin vines all over were a bit difficult to maneuver with little toddler feet. But it did result in the cutest picture of the day.

Then he set his sights on the pumpkin of his dreams.

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I had to convince him to move on to something that followed the rules, but at that point he was too frustrated from falling so often that I carried it up the hill for him. We tried to get a picture right before we left with his actual pumpkin, but he wasn’t having it.

Overall it was a very enjoyable morning at the farm that we will probably visit for years to come.