Family Fun Night

AEEC has "Family Fun Night" every October.  It started as our main fundraiser, and has now become a celebration of the Trike Ride.  I had conferences late that day, so Drew picked Parker up and brought her to the school to enjoy the festivities.  

She was very excited to "see" Whiskers, our school mascot.  She did not want to get anywhere close to him, although she did give him a high five.

She LOVED the playground.  We will definitely be visiting it more often so that she can play.  She slid and slid and slid, and would have been perfectly fine not going any where else at the school.  

We finally dragged her convinced her to walk around and see what else was there.  She played a few games, then we walked to the back of the school and found the train.  

She had a blast riding the train, and was sad that we couldn't stay on it.  We explored a little more and then played on the playground again before going home.  Having Little Miss around definitely made Family Fun Night more fun for me :).  

Here are a few short snippets of our night:

Car Wash

Drew was washing the cars last week, and of course, Parker wanted to help.  She played and played in the soap and "bubbles" and even brushed the car.  We have enjoyed every last second of our warm weather lately!

I Phone Dump Take 10

sweet snuggles

sliding

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after her spaghetti

would NOT let me put the other sleeve on

"me do it"

Birthday Fun

Parker and I made a quick trip to Birmingham to celebrate John and Will's birthdays.  Amanda had the party at Jump Zone and it was fantastic.  

Parker loved playing in this area.  And she loved the big slides.  But she was not a fan of the bounce houses.  I think climbing through the enclosed space and not having good control of the walking was what threw her off.

Momma left the party with tired arms from carrying her up the big slides. 

The entrance to one of the bounce houses was sloped so Parker started climbing up it and sliding down by herself.  She probably spent 15-20 minutes playing on that "slide" and loved it!

At the end, she realized there were balls in one of the "houses" so she crawled in to get the ball.  But it wasn't long before the big boys came in and she came back out.

We had a fun time celebrating our favorite boys.  Happy Birthday John & Will!!

For the love of books...

Little Miss "disappeared" one night after her bath.  I had gone to get her pajamas and when I found her, she was reading in her room.  She pulled almost every book off the shelf, "read' one page and tossed it behind her.  She then started singing "nean up" (or clean up) and stacked them up before reading more.  

Pumpkin Patch

Drew was off on Sunday afternoon, so we went to the pumpkin patch!  This year, we went to Jack O' Lantern Lane in Lafayette, and Parker loved it!   We took the hayride back to the pumpkin patch.  Parker wasn't quite sure to think about it at first, but ended up loving it!

They had a small petting "zoo" near the patch.  Parker got to pet horses and bunnies.  At one point, Drew had three bunnies in his lap and Parker wanted to get more of them.  

We took the standard pumpkin patch pictures.

"cheese"

Parker checked out the chickens and the donkeys.  She was NOT sure about the donkeys when they started braying.

Once we walked over to the patch, Parker found her pumpkin right away.  She kept trying to carry it and then would pass it off to Drew.

They had some extremely large pumpkins.

We took the hayride back to the front and Parker got to "ride da choo choo".  Honestly, I think she would have enjoyed the day only riding the train.

As we were leaving, Parker told the owners bye and thank you and they were sweet enough to give her a small pie pumpkin.  She LOVES that pumpkin, and wants to sleep with it.  

Overall, we had a very successful trip.  And by the way, she was showing off her bracelet the whole time like it was something special!

A Boat Ride

This weekend, Parker and I headed up to the lake for a little relaxation and time with family.  It was a nice little getaway.  I don't know why we don't go more often!  

Nothing like starting your morning off with Mickey on the Ipad while the rest of the house sleeps.

We played around all morning.  Parker painted the deck (with water) and we watched the first half of the Auburn game before going for a quick boat ride.

Parker loved it.  When we woke up, and she saw the boat she started saying "I ride da boat". 

Thanks to Reagan for taking us out on a quick ride.  And please, don't judge.  We do have a life jacket that is Parker's size, but it was in Auburn.  Oops!  We did the best we could.

Hopefully, this video of the ride will work.  If you listen carefully, you can hear her say "I ride da boat".

Twenty-Two Months

Our sweet girl is growing up too fast!

* In the last month, we have spent a lot of time reading and a lot of time outside.  We have books in the car and in just about every room in our house.  I love walking in and seeing her sitting down to read a book.  So so sweet.  For about two weeks, we had to carry a book into school every morning, only for me to turn around and take it back to the car so it was there when I picked her up.

* We have enjoyed the fall temperatures.  Our afternoons have been nice.  Parker has started initiating the contact with the neighbors.  One day last week, we were outside getting the mail and she saw the boys playing in the cul-de-sac and started walking down to play with them.

* I said last month that I thought she was counting past five and she definitely is.  Let me be real... she can't do it by herself but we can usually get her to count every other number up to ten.

* We have had a hard time sleeping in the past month.  She had a cold and still has a cough from it.  She tends to wake up between 3 and 5 and is having trouble getting back to sleep.  I am ready to be over this hump.

* Speaking of the cough, Drew took her to the doctor last week to get it checked out and Parker weighed 26 lbs 4 oz.

* Parker's obsession with shoes has continued.  She loves any shoes (hers, mine, Drew's).  If she has a pair on and sees another pair that she would rather wear, she will take the ones on her feet off and put the other ones on.  As we have started wearing fall shoes, she is able to get hers off and on by herself.  There are days we are wearing sandals and she still needs help.  She can put them on by herself, but cannot do the buckles.  We also have to help with the velcro straps on her fall shoes.

* We have a sensitive little one.  One of the most recent episodes of Jake (and the Neverland Pirates) has a race and Captain Hook wins Jake's ship.  Parker gets upset every time Hook takes Bucky.  This past weekend, we were watching Spookley, the Square Pumpkin and she got upset when Spookley was singing a sad song.

Scottsboro

My brother came home from Texas last week to complete in a triathlon in Scottsboro.  He was home for a full week, so Parker and I left Auburn on Thursday to go visit.  We had a great trip up.  Mom took off work on Friday, and we had a full day.  We visited her school so she could show off Parker, then had lunch with Daddy Jack.  

After Parker's nap, we loaded up and headed to Huntsville to visit Dad and Sandra.  We had dinner with Susan, Zach, Amy, Harrison and Hatley.  The kids had a great time playing together!

Saturday, we had a relaxing day.  We watched a really ugly football game, and just played around the house.

Sunday was the triathlon.  Jager had to be there super early, so Parker and I passed on the seeing the start!  We got up and made it there in time to see the transition from bike to run.  Jager came in as the third biker, even though he had started in the third heat of the swim!  Parker cheered for him, and he headed off on his run.

Apparently, I didn't explain things to her well enough.  Parker is a little bit obsessed with bikes right now, so we talked up watching Uncle Jager ride his bike.  I never mentioned that he would be running when he got off his bike.  Parker got a little upset when he ran away.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay to see him win the race :(.  We had to head on back to Auburn to get our week going.  It was a nice visit and great to see Jager.  Too bad it'll be next year before we see him again.