Halloween and Such

On the 15th, Freyja and I drove to spend two weeks with Cyrus!

Up until this point, Freyja and I have travelled on four domestic flights and an international flight, and taken a couple of successful car trips which were less than 3 hours each direction...but I have to admit that I was completely freaking out over a solo 10 1/2 hour drive with a 2 year old. I thought this could be too long...that I'd have a disaster on my hands, and I'd be all alone...but she was great! She hung out in her carseat, snuggled in a blanket, reading books, singing, and playing with toys until her bedtime, and then she slept through the night while I drove...and drove. My daughter is such a great little traveller. I'm so lucky...

We did a lot of fun things during our stay, including a trip to the Harvest Farm and Pumpkin Patch! They had all sorts of great stuff! Freyja had a good time on the hayrack ride and picking our own pumpkins, being pulled around in a wagon, visiting the petting zoo, going down the giant slide suspended from the barn with her mama, playing with the old-fashioned water pumps, crawling around in the sandbox, and watching someone launch pumpkins from a cannon!

Here are some highlights:

The Freyja-sized pumpkin Cyrus picked out, just for her.

"It's a big pumpkin, Mommy!"

This photo is hilarious!

Petting the bunnies...

Playing in the sandbox..

Eating some warm fall goodies: A bratwurst (and they didn't have sauerkraut, can you believe that?), a cabbage roll, a pumpkin muffin, and hot apple cider...

This was the first year since Freyja's birth that I decided we should carve pumpkins. I thought she might be old enough, at least in some small way, to have fun and watch while we did it. She was so excited by the whole thing that she was running all over the room, trying to crawl up on the table, jamming raw pumpkin into her mouth, spilling pumpkin shavings all over the place, and grabbing at all the knives and spoons we had out to scoop and carve the pumpkins. After we cleared all the sharp objects out of reach, it was pretty hilarious to see her so hyper over it all!

I didn't think she would put her hand into the pumpkin, but Cyrus has this way of convincing Freyja that things are "cool" so she'll try them, and after she'd decided that this whole thing was fun and exciting stuff, she jammed her hand right in and started pulling out the pumpkin guts...

...although I think he meant for those pumpkin guts to go in the trash can, rather than in his hand! She looks so proud of herself...like "Aaaaah! It's so gross!"

And here are our finished pumpkins:

Lights on!

Lights off!

We drove back home to Illinois just in time for trick-or-treating on the 30th. There are many different places here for children to celebrate Halloween, but we like the event sponsored by the city of Normal in it's uptown outside business area the best. All the merchants wear costumes and give out candy, the pizza place and the mexican restaurant provide free food, and the kids all parade around in their costumes in the cool fall weather and have fun.

This year Freyja went as Minnie Mouse. She just happened to have this red and black polka dot skirt in her closet, and I made her ears and her candy bag. The pearls actually belonged to my grandmother! I bet she would laugh if she knew they were used as part of a Halloween costume...

Normally I take Freyja out into the neighborhood on the 31st for door-to-door trick-or-treating, but this year I decided to take her to a Halloween event at the mall instead. Never again! Too many overstimulated children in one small, hot, loud, enclosed space. I prefer the fresh air and more room for running around...plus, I think it's fun to see the decorations on everyone's house!

These photos are from both nights of festivities...

Of course she's not looking at the camera! How many photos do we have together where she is?

Investigating her loot:

...and digging in (before Mommy hides the rest)!

~

Just some random Halloween jammies photos! Happy Halloween! More Fall photos to come...

A Zoo Review

If you haven't figured it out yet, Freyja is crazy about animals, hence the plethora of photos featuring her checking out some creature and/or playing with the cat. She also likes to point out every animal possible in books, pictures, etc. and yells in excitement when she sees one in public. Future veterinarian? I suppose it's possible. Or, maybe all little kiddies are pumped about animals.

Regardless...

At the end of September we took Freyja to the zoo. Obviously, given her animal fascination, she loved it. I forgot to post the photos at the time, so here you have it...

This first photo cracks me up because these little guys are looking straight at her!


Our local zoo is the middle of a huge park with a large pavilion, a lake with paddle boats, a miniature golf course, and an immense playground, among other things. Since it was a ridiculously hot day, we took her to the fountain park, which is also a part of the whole complex. I don’t know how to describe this place, except to say that it’s a big concrete pad with sprinklers and fountains sticking up out of the pavement for kids to run through and get sprayed by when it’s hot outside. At first I was just going to let her walk around the edge and get her feet wet, so we both took our shoes and socks off and I rolled up my pants and walked her over, but she seemed completely happy and wanting to go in further, so I figured, “Why not?” and we just walked all the way in and got completely soaking wet in all of our clothes. We were laughing hysterically by the time I finally picked her up and carried her out. It was so much fun. All of the other parents looked at me like I was crazy. I wanted to scream, “Hey, lighten up!” but figured it wasn’t worth it.

So, I guess we did have another hot day after all!

Tanner's Orchard

On the 6th we took a family trip to Tanner's Orchard to celebrate the beginning of the Harvest season. In the past, we would have gone to the local orchard, The Apple Barn, but it closed some years back and now it takes nearly an hour to reach one. Last year Freyja was pretty tiny and most likely wouldn't have enjoyed the experience much, so we decided to buy apples and pumpkins and other seasonal things at a farm produce stand in town instead, but this year we thought she would like it, so we took the trip. We'd actually never been to Tanner's Orchard, and it was nice! There were all kinds of things to do. They had covered wagon rides into the apple orchard for people who wanted to pick their own fruit, and lots of children's activities....a corn maze, a huge playground, a petting zoo, and lots of cute displays using pumpkins and gourds to recreate popular cartoon and book characters (such as a Wizard of Oz scene with Dorothy, the Tin Man, the CowardlyLion, and the Scarecrow...all with pumpkin heads....pretty hilarious!) They also had a nice market which sold apple products made from the fruit of their own orchard, as well as other farm-prepared foods, harvest decorations, and a huge selection of pumpkins and seasonal flowers, mostly different varieties of mums.

Freyja seemed to enjoy herself! She spent a lot of time walking around in the huge field of pumpkins, touching them, leaning, and climbing on them. One of her new words is "ball", and she kept yelling it every time she pointed at a pumpkin. What can I say? It looks like a ball! I also took her on the wagon tide into the orchard, and at one point we got out and walked across one row together while she held my hand. She's not quite walking by herself, but almost! She carefully walked from one tree to another, touching the fruit and saying "apple!"...also one of her new favorite words. I think she picked that up from all the applesauce and apple slices she eats! But, it was cute to see that she understood what was hanging from those little trees. We also had a chance to see some animals, and she was totally psyched (although I think a little freaked out too!) about the Emu, which she'd never seen before.

Although Tanner's had some great pumpkins, we decided to stick with apples and farm goods from the orchard and buy our pumpkins locally. But, we did come home with a lot of goodies and spent some really nice time outside in the fresh autumn air!