Adventures of the Running Fairy Princess and her Bunny

Our Halloween adventures started with a trip to Thies Farm for "Pumpkinland". We had to go fairly late in the season because of temperatures in the 80s during much of October (global warming - still scaring me!!). The low heat tolerance of #1 (as Kevin and I call Reiley doing "code-talk") kept us away until the weekend before Halloween, but we enjoyed a beautiful, blustery fall day at the farm. Here they are proudly toting their pumpkins.
We carved them outside and Ainsley enjoyed mixing the pumpkin goop around with the spoon and trying to eat it. Reiley is sporting a nightgown, which she wore to preschool for their Halloween party.
The long-anticipated night arrived, and our little ladies morphed into a "Running Fairy Princess" and a bunny. Reiley said that she wanted to be a fairy who runs, not flies, because "Mom, I can't really fly in the air". Ainsley even wore her little bunny hood, which I think makes her face look even rounder and more squeezable:-).
Ainsley literally lunging for chocolate at Grammi's house (hey, I completely understand the feeling).
Reveling in the chocolate coma - Ainsley chose my favorite, Snickers!
Another Halloween is over, but we are zooming ahead into the rest of the Holiday season (need I say again how much I love the fall!!)

Go Ainsley Go!

Ainsley started crawling this week! Being the crazy camera-toting Mom I am, I have been wearing my camera on my hip because I saw it coming, and I caught it on tape. True to herself, it was not a toy, but food that lured Ainsley into crawling (that girl loves to eat!).

Over the River and Through the Woods

We had some more fall fun a few weekends ago in Central Illinois visiting my parents. It was a beautiful day (though still more like summer than fall - global warming is scary!!). We took a trip to the Henson Robinson Zoo in Springfield, which was the perfect zoo for my kids. Yes, we love our expansive St. Louis Zoo with all its thrills, but Springfield's Zoo was small, very walkable, quiet, and relaxing. There was a cute little playground that the girls loved, and Reiley (formerly slide-shy) went down the "Huge slide, Mommy!" for 15 minutes straight.

After Zooing, we Grandpa and Reiley had a jam session. My parents got Reiley a guitar for her birthday and has been enjoying playing, but her strokes are much more confident after carefully watching Grandpa's technique. You can scroll down and watch a Live and Uncut version of Old McDonald.
We also played at a playground close to my parents' house, where Ainsley was WAY excited to be sliding right next to Reiley (over and over again).
I wanted to include a classic picture of Petersburg (my hometown). Kevin, being the city boy he is, insisted that he take the girls walking through the corn (because that's apparently what people who grow up in the country do with their days - walk aimlessly through corn). Though corn walking was a huge hit with Reiley, who exclaimed "I want to walk through the corn all day long!"

Step away from the Swiffer...

While Reiley and I were cleaning the bathroom the other day, Ainsley discovered the most ingenious child's toy ever made - the Swiffer. You can push it, pull it, twirl it around, pivot on your bottom while swinging it in a circle, bang it, pinch it, you use it to smack things, and, most importantly, chew on it. It is so entertaining that my attempts at swapping out the Swiffer for another toy illicited intense rage. Thirty minutes later, after using an old towel on my hands and knees to wipe up the dust, I attempted to remove the Swiffer again to change Ainsley's diaper. More fury. Solution: break apart the Swiffer so that she can hold the handle while changing the diaper - quickly reassemble Swiffer after new diaper is on.



Yet more evidence that regular household items are far more entertaining to babies than carefully sculpted plastic. Here's a movie of the Swiffer antics (Reiley got a little too close to the Swiffer for Ainsley's comfort), including Ainsley's trademark "grimace smile".

Hokey Pokey, anyone?

Reiley's favorite part of preschool is singing and dancing (go figure, right?). I am amazed that songs that she already knew (Five Little Monkeys, Wheels on the Bus, Old McDonald, Hokey Pokey) are so much cooler when she sings them at preschool. When she is singing them at home and I try to join in, I am quickly shushed because "she's singing her preschool songs", of which I am obviously not a part. While I am very happy that she is enjoying preschool and clearly takes great ownership over what happens there, my brain is racing ahead 10 years to Reiley at 13 expressing her teen angst and yelling "Get out my life, Mom!"

Right now I'll politely stay silent, enjoy the fact that she's three, and listen to the solo choruses of Hokey Pokey.

Apple Picking Time

Fall is absolutely my favorite time of the year. I don't think it always has been, but since I've had kids it is because there is SO much to do. Apple picking, nature walks, pumpkin farms, apple cider, and most off all, no more disgusting summer heat and humidity! I feel like I can actually breathe and walk farther than my car without sweating profusely.

That said, I've been looking forward to going apple picking for several weeks. So I was less than pleased when the morning's forcast predicted a high of 89 degrees. The heat increased our frustration factor (particularly for Reiley who prefers to find the shady spot in any amount of bright sun). However, the pig races, pumpkin cannon shooting, petting zoo, and ice cream at the apple farm upped our spirits (rather, prevented a complete meltdown before we were able to get cool in the air-conditioned car). Here are some highlights:

Riding out to the fields. Reiley is trying to act cheerful, though she is sweltering and slightly crabby (there had been no ice cream at this point).

We kind of rudely sat Ainsley in the huge barrel of apples just to get a cute picture. Selfish of us - yet cute!

Last year during apple picking, Reiley sat in one of the trees (the closest this non-risk-taker has come to climbing a tree) and wanted to recreate it this year.

Ainsley spent about half an hour chewing on the apple, and Reiley in the background is clearly spent. (In retrospect, we realized she was coming down with a stomach virus, not just crabby).

Fun and sweat was had by all!

Ainsley's Adventures

Ainsley is SOOOO close to crawling, but not quite there. She's rolling, doing an almost-crawl backwards, lunging forward to catapult herself towards toys, and the round-and-round pivot on her bottom. All these locomotive devices have gotten her in some adventurous places lately.

Here she managed to roll herself all the way under the futon, and couldn't figure out how to get out. Whereas Reiley would have been immediately furious, Ainsley checked out this predicament for a little while, banging her head on the bottom of the futon, and then looked at me like, "Hey, can I get some help here?"

She's figured out how to pull herself up on her knees, but is still trying to understand how to pull herself up the rest of the way. In this picture she's trying to steal the apple on the picnic table from an unsuspecting Reiley.

Her newfound mobility has made the dishwasher her favorite plaything. Just the right height to pull up on, a shelf that slides in and out, dishes to take in and out. WAY more fun than the hunks of wood and plastic in our house called toys.

Ainsley's also very interested in reading all of our grown-up books. She studies the covers, trying to pull the words off, flipping the pages, until she gets FURIOUS about something that I haven't quite figured out. That's the point when she typically chucks the book across the room in frustration.

I had forgotten how fun nine month-olds can be! So much personality, new mobility, funny babbles - all fun and games until she gets into big sister's toys, not understanding that they are carefully placed for an elaborate pretend scenario. Once she starts crawling, I forsee some brawls.