oh baby!

september 11th... not necessarily a day that stands out as "happy" for the average american.  but as of 2012, it's a good day for me.  september 11th 2012 is the day i welcomed my sweet daughter jellybean to the world.  7lb and 14oz of precious girliness packed into 20.5 inches.

Strawberry Harvest Festival

so in the spirit of getting the kid out of the house for something a little more out of the ordinary, we decided to take him to a local-ish farm that i found online.  we weren't sure what he'd think of it but it turns out he had a GREAT time!

the corn castle (really a shed with corn kernels inside instead of sand) was ok and the bounce house was a hit (surprise, surprise!) so we did ok for the first couple of activities for the day. 

took some encouragement for pid to warm up to the very friendly farm animals. it actually took encouragement, the purchase of a bag of food for the animals and a few minutes of dad feeding them for pid to try it. he befriended a little white goat and fed it most of the veggies we bought. lucky goat.


after the animal feeding, we took a break for lunch and to rest a little before heading out to the strawberry patch to pick the berries. the hayride there was uneventful but once we got there, pid was very concerned that we would miss the hayride back. eventually he got into picking berries though. 


and boy did we get berries:

they were sweet and juicy and i made some fun things with them:  strawberry jam, strawberry curd, and strawberry shortcake. we also at lots and lots of fresh berries. a definite outing to keep on the list! fortunately they have various pick-your-own items through to pumpkins in the fall.

Deeper Waters...

we finally got pid out into water that was a bit deeper this past weekend. he truly loves the lake but is pretty committed to the shallowest waters. as luck would have it, there was a friendly young boy from the neighborhood that owned this little floatie car deal in the picture below. he must've noticed pid eyeing it as he came and told my husband that they could use it. still stuck in the shallow end but loving the car, we eventually convinced him to venture deeper into the water and he had a blast! yay! i'm very much loving the decision to live near the lake. it's a great little bonus in nice weather!

Independence Day 2011

we had a nice relaxing independence day 2011 - it was our first day to go hang out at the lake and re-meet some of our neighbors. weather was great and we had a nice few hours outside. the kid was on cloud nine and called himself "swimming" though he was really just scooting along on the sand in the shallowest part of the water. but it was good to see he is much more at ease in the water after swimming lessons last winter!

YA or you?

yesterday walking out of daycare:
pid - mama, i love ya
me - i love you too
pid - no mama, i love YA
me - ok then i love YA too

in other news - had our first official parent teacher conference which went very well - the kid does well those things he should be doing well. he needs better conflict resolution skills, but to paraphrase my mom - i know some adults that could still use better conflict resolution skills.

Bedtime Reading

i think i must have the sweetest little boy in the world... tonight after his bedtime story, the following conversation took place:
pid: ok mama, i'm going to read this book now.
me: we just read a book i'll read that one to you tomorrow
pid: no i'm going to listen to my songs and read it myself and you're going to go downstairs
me: ok but when i tell you it's time to put the book away and turn off the light you need to do that ok?
pid: ok.

--- fifteen minutes later ---

me: ok, it's time to go to bed now
pid: ok, mama!

--- sound of feet padding around and then the light goes out upstairs ---

me: ok now get in the bed and go to sleep
pid: i am in bed, good night!

aaaw....