Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday we went to one of our local pumpkin farms. We basically go every year for the pictures and some of the activities. This year we thought it kind of lost it's appeal. Next year we may try one of the other 5 in this area.

It was pretty chilly here on Saturday so we didn't end up staying long. But we did get our yearly photos, and yeah, I did not pose this child at all. She did it all on her own.

After the pumpkin farm we headed to our normal pumpkin spot. A little family owned farmers market (store) near our house. They have great pumpkins for really great prices. Belle got to pick out her own pumpkin this year. She picked out the one below and then put it back and picked our two different ones. Yup, she has daddy wrapped around her finger so much that she picked out two all on her own and he said ok.

A little late this year but we have our pumpkins finally. No carving this year after last years mess. I think I may have Belle paint one of her pumpkins. We'll see how this week goes.

More Disney Updates are over here. I will try and post some more pictures here, but the full updates are on the Disney blog.

Good Bye Summer

It’s sad to know that summer is unofficially over with Labor Day now in our rearview mirrors. This summer went too quickly. Normally by now I am welcoming autumn with open arms. Sweaters and jeans, scarves and hoodies, pumpkins and pretty leaves, and let’s not forget about Apple Cider and Pumpkin Spice Latte’s. Which of course all of these make me smile, but it is with a heavy heart that I say good bye to summer this year. It just went too quickly to feel like I enjoyed it. We did so much, but I still feel like we didn’t do nearly enough.

This past weekend we went to the annual Labor Day Fair and did our annual walk around and say goodbye to summer. Belle was able to ride some rides and of course all she wanted to ride was the carousel. Since summer was so busy I never did write about our Fourth of July or all the small carnivals we go to. So here are some pictures of my big girl enjoying the rides this year.

I think we rode the carousel about 4 or 5 times on Saturday. We already know which is going to be her favorite ride in Disney. So much for Dumbo, but thank God for three days in the Magic Kingdom for her to be able to ride it as many times as she likes. I have a pretty good feeling that when mommy and daddy go on Space Mountain Grandma and Belle will be on the Carousel. And well when daddy goes on his rides you know where you can find us.

We spent the rest of our last summer weekend just relaxing around the house. Belle got to play outside and we went to the playground for a bit. Belle had her two year pictures done (will post those soon). And I think we went for our last ice cream of the summer as well. On Saturday it was in the 90’s. We were sweating at the fair. Yesterday it was in the 60’s and just cold and rainy. Today is cold again. While it is going to get back in to the 70’s this week, I think our days of 80’s and 90’s are done. It’s time to embrace the fall. And well, the fall can’t be all that bad, we leave for Disney in just a few weeks. The Magic Kingdom will be decorated in all of its fall glory, and Belle will get to go trick or treating in her Halloween costume while we are there. I am pretty positive that in the next week or so I will come around to fall and love it like I do every year.

Good bye summer, we will miss you until next year!

Handprints, footprints, and Minnie Mouse?

Last night we carved Belle's pumpkin. I am so glad we only did one. It took two and a half hours. It started out great. Belle loved holding it while we got things ready. You know all the tools together and about 5 layers of newspaper on the table. The Hubs carved the top off and I dug in and cleaned it out. We gave a small piece for Belle to explore and play with.

At this point it was bed time, she was tired after not sleeping at all Tuesday night and we still had to do a bath. I was finished cleaning out the pumpkin so I stopped and got Belle in her bath. This maybe where the half hour came from.

After her bath I cleaned up some stuff around the house and got back to working on the pumpkin. After fighting for ten minutes to get the templete to lay right I was on my way. It was going great. I poked all the holes in and it actually looked like Minnie Mouse. I jumped right into carving. It was going great everything was working and looked right. I got to the end. The bottom part.

Remember how it took ten minutes to get the templete to lay right? Well how I finally got it on made some of the parts a little close then they should be. At the bottom a peice ripped from the pumpkin. It was suppose to be connected. This piece ripping made 2 other pieces rip. It's still together I some how managed to get the face semi done. I didn't completely finish the eyes. And have a paper clip stuck it holding it togther until Sunday.

I think we may skip pumpkin carving next year. On Monday we had to take a pumpkin in to school. Belle painted it. So cute. Her hand prints are the eyes and her foot print is the mouth. While painting it, she managed to get purple paint all over her other shoe. She was apparently excited. When she gets excited she kicks her feet. She now had one white and pink sneaker and one white, pink, and purple sneaker.

Tonight we are going to the mall to go trick or treating. They host an indoor trick or treating event every year. Crazy how I went one year when I was a kid and now I am taking my own kid.

And I know my blog is a mess. I really like the new background I made but I just can not figure out what is wrong with it. Any one good at HTML and willing to help out. I want the white spaces to go away and when the blog is minimized for everything to stay the same. It's even worse then. I didn't get a chance last night to work on it with the whole pumpkin thing and not sure how much I will get to do tonight. The Halloween header I made last week and is something that is actually easy to upload and get on here.

And if you missed it, I had a new post up at my Vacation home yeterday.

Blog Make Over

I updated the header over the weekend. I decided to make it more fall friendly around here. Maybe I will get ambitious and decorate for Halloween. We will see. Were not to terribly busy over the next week. Although, next weekend we are. We have a wedding that we are so looking forward to. The bride and groom are the couple that caught the garter and bouquet at our wedding 3 years ago. I can't wait, it's going to be so much fun. The on Sunday we are getting together with my parents and my brother for my father's birthday. His birthday was yesterday,

Anyways, how do you like the header? I feel like the pictures really stick out and don't blend in to well. Well I have a couple weeks to work on a different one. I also added a facebook and twitter icon to the right. Of course they fit with my fall theme.

This past weekend The Hubs had to work so it was just Belle and I. We did nothing on Saturday but apparently I wore her out. She was in bed a half hour early. On Sunday we went shopping with Grandma. She did great as always, even with the fact that we left the paci in the car. She is such a great kid. Grandma bought her a couple of dresses and we had something

Tomorrow is Belle's first school pictures. I can not wait to see how they come out! So excited. And I am totally lame that I get excited over this stuff.

And now that I am completely rambling I will end this post.

Minnie Belle?!?!

Belle picked out her Halloween costume. Yup she picked it out. While The Hubs and I went back and forth and changed our minds about a thousand times, Belle knew all along. We went into a Spirit Halloween store a couple weekends ago. We walked down a couple of aisles looking at costumes and Belle pointed at one. Minnie Mouse. Why were we being so dumb about this? She know's who Minnie Mouse is from Mickey Mouse Club House. She has a Minnie Mouse at home. So why did we never think that she should be Minnie.

Well she let us know that she wants to be Minnie. So Belle is going to be the cutest most adorable Minnie Mouse ever. I can't wait to take her trick or treating (only to a couple of neighbors houses). We have a halloween party to go to the weekend before and were taking her to the mall for some trick or treating. I can not wait!

Apparently she really doesn't want to be Minnie.

I just have to find a long sleeve black shirt or onsie to go underneath and it will be perfect. Hopefully it won't be super cold out that she will have to wear a jacket. The costume is so short it will probably cover the whole costume.

Belle's Fall Portraits

I promised a couple of weeks ago that I would post Belle's fall shots from her 1 year pictures. The fall portraits were the last shots we did. By the end she was done and wanted no more. We coudn't get the pumpkin away from her. She would just crawl after it.

This one is my favorite and I am sad that we only got this one in wallet size.

Belle and the Great Pumpkin!

This past weekend was beautiful. I have to say that it was probably our "Indian Summer". It was in the 70's, sun was out, and it was  absolutely beautiful. The keaves were at their peak here. I wish I was able to get some pictures of the trees. It was the perfect weekend to spend it doing fall family festivies. On Saturday Belle and I took a walk over to the community center in our neighborhood with her BFF across the street.

Have I ever told you about her BFF? Well our neighbors across the street had a baby girl the day before Belle was born. They are a day apart, not even. More like 14 hours apart. Instant best friends!

Any ways we walked up there on Saturday. Belle and her BFF were able to pet some goats and sheep. They were still to young to do anything else there. Belle was a little stand offish with the animals at first. I had her pet them and she was pretty good. Then my friend bought a cup of food to feed them. They all came over then. Belle was good until the kept pushing there heads at us. Belle had enough and started pushing the animals away. So that was it for the animals.

On Sunday The Hubs was off so after Belle's nap we packed up and headed to the large pumpkin farm in our area. There are rides, food, petting zoos, haunted houses, hay rides, shows, and of course pumpkins. Each weekend is a special event. This past weekend was the Pumpkin Olympics. Belle petted some goats again and got to get up close to a camel. She did really well with the goats today and even knew what to do. She reached to pet them all on her own.

We went into one of the kiddie haunted houses. Belle just sat in the stroller and took everything in. It really wasn't scary at all. Just displays of things. No people jumping out at you. We took her through the hay maze. We wanted to go on the hay ride but the line was too long and not moving. So we watched the pumpkin launcher. I should have taken a picture. They have a large launcher that looks like a canon that was shooting pumpkins into a field.

We then walked over to the pumpkins. This farm doesn't have an actual pumpkin patch but a ton of pumpkins. We found a quiet spot with no kids running around and were able to get some pictures of Belle. Of course she was facing the sun so the pictures aren't that great and I was only able to get one picture of her actually looking at the camera. For a one year old she is excellent at ignoring mommy already!

We then found some large pumpkins. Belle was tiny next to them. But of course she didn't want to cooperate on getting her picture next to them. Maybe if it wasn't so busy we could have taken our time getting pictures. It was packed.

On Monday we went to get our pumpkins from our normal place. There is a family owned Farmer's Market in our area that we go to every year. We get great pumpkins for pretty cheap and the owners are uber friendly. We will continue to go there. I also picked up some gourds as well.

Mommy, Daddy, and Belle all got pumpkins. The one right in front of Belle in the picture above is her first pumpkin ever! So cute. We picked up a couple small ones as well.

Our pumpkins on our steps.

It was a great fall weekend. I am glad that we decided to fight the crowds and go to the pumpkin farm on Sunday as it rained all day on Monday. I am glad that we had our beautiful Indian Summer weekend this past weekend as The Hubs is working all next weekend. I am so glad to have fall traditions that we have introduced Belle to. It doesn't get any better then the fall!