Meet....Happy Pumpkin

Man, I can't believe Halloween and the end of October are here. Soon it will be Thanksgiving and the Christmas and New Years. Where does time go? It goes fast during the holidays. Meet the newest member of our family. Mr. Happy Pumpkin. Our family carved it last night with the help of Andma and Pa Pa on the computer. It was fun. Faith's great uncle D even joined us for a while. Faith was not too sure about the guts of the pumpkin. She is a sissy when it comes to getting yucky like that. Bud did most of the scooping and carving. She mostly sat on the table and watched. She decided the shapes that she wanted for the face so this is what she came up with. He is sitting nicely outside on our step. Can't wait to see the Secret House's pumpkin this year. He is always so nicely carved.

Sing...sing a song....sing out loud

That is how Big Bird sings. Anyone who knows Faith knows how much she loves to sing. Today it is not only the Beatles, sorry Pa Pa, but Bud's rock stations. She loves Yellow Submarine, Life goes on by Beatles, Don't Worry Be Happy, and The Witchdoctor. If I want to teach her something important I put it to a song. She has learned her full name, her age, her address, telephone number, and how to spell her name all to a song. It reminds me of when I was little and studying for a test. How did we all remember stuff? We put it to a rhyme and it was 10X easier. She will just make up songs and sing and sing. Sometimes I will ask her what she is singing and she will tell me, "Oh just a song about my cereal." It is the songs she makes up and then all the ones from her class and the ones from my class. Yesterday it was the Baby Bumblebee song. When it came to cleaning off her hands because she squished the bee in her hands, she began to pretend to lick it off. Thanks to her teacher for teaching her the song that way. Yuck!! Her song Don't worry Be happy has now enticed her to say "Don't worry mommy, it will be ok. It's alright" whenever I get upset. I never thought my two year old would be telling me it will be alright.

Rain Rain Go Away

I caught this photo of Faith sitting in the kitchen window before lunch. It has been raining all morning and we only made it to the library and Target. No park today, no trunk or treat, no fall festivals. Everything is rained out. Drat! Sometimes she reminds of Abby our cat and how she sits up here looking outside.

Pumpkin fun

Yesterday was a field trip to Cox's Farm. It was only about 25 minutes away and Faith's class and my class joined together for a fun trip. I went in to wake up Faith yesterday morning and asked if she was ready to put on her Rainbow t-shirt. I have never seen her jump out of bed so fast. Cox's Farm is over 90 acres of fun including fresh cider, apples, farm animals, slides of all sizes, wooden cutouts to poke your head in, music to dance to, and a hayrides. Luckily because so many parents went we were able to split the children up into groups of one chaperone and two or three children. Faith went we me and I took one of my children along also. They had fun climbing the huge hills to get to the top. On occasion Faith would slide down the hill. I don't know if that was because she didn't want to put her apple down so she was trying to hold her apple and climb. When we first got there she had never seen so many fun things. She quickly forgot their were so many people there and she became lost and I watched all my children too. She wandered to another part of the train to climb on not realizing that she didn't know where I was. When she found me she held on and just cried. I quickly realized that her Rainbow shirt needed to be on the outside of her jacket to make her feel safer. That really helped because everyone had on jackets for fall. She blended in. Although she was scared we did alot better when we split the group. Before we left we had the opportunity to take a hayride around the farm. Along the way there were silly wooden cutouts such as ghosts, pumpkins, three bears, George Bush, Dracula, Little Red Riding Hood, Dora, Sponge Bob, and many others. At one point the tractor driver went through the water and pretended she was stuck backing up and going forward again. Then this big man came out with a big head mask and pretended to pull us out. We went through a haunted covered bridge that started with scarey music only to quickly turn to party music. It was really cute and I wish we could have stayed longer. Although there were 20 school buses there the farm was big enough that it didn't feel clustered at all. Faith had fun and of course tried to fall asleep on the bus but that was quickly stopped by her teacher. Bless her. Otherwise she would have been tired all night.

Lovin' the leaves

I love Fall. I love to be outside. I love the fresh air and I love to play in the leaves. This afternoon we raked some leaves up and crashed into them. We buried ourselves, threw them into the air and jumped and tumbled into them. Faith even made a leaf angel. If I had it my way we would leave the leaves on the ground until it was too cold to play in them. No more mowing over them. No more raking them into bags. Just leave them on the ground. The more the merrier.

The Spanish colors

Faith gets Spanish class for 30 minutes once a week. She has learned her colors and enjoys saying them to us. Here is a video of her. She made her swimming boat into a bed and put her soft blanket on top. Then she added her pillow and lastly covered up with her favorite frog sheet.

She's at it again

We went to a new store this weekend to find a pair of jeans for Bud and while we were there Faith nicely asked for this new puzzle. It is a foam puzzles with all the letters of the alphabet and numbers 0-10. She quickly pulled it out of the package when we got home and took all the numbers and letters out. She had them in a separate pile and then all the matching squares in another pile. She put it all together all by herself and I was quite amazed when she did the number puzzle. She said, "Look mommy, I know all my numbers." I went over there and listened to her tell me all of them and and she told me 0-8 right and just didn't know 9. I was amazed at her knowledge of the ABC's also. As she went through them she would pick up a letter and say to herself, "hmmm, where is the A or S or whatever." She would also tell me words that start with it also. What a little peanut she she is. A funny peanut.
Do you like her t-shirt. She decided to use her fabric paint to do a little decorating. Turned out quite nicely. She loves the skirt Pa Pa. Don't listen to mom about what to buy for her. Just get what you think she would like. Nine out of ten times she will like it.

A beautiful day!

I know Faith just wants to have some fun with mommy and daddy so we decided to take her to Frying Pan Park. We've been there before but it is free. That is all we have to say. Faith talked to the animals and there was actually a horse show going on. There is a ring in which horses and their owners come to show them and what they can do. They were practicing outside also. We stopped and ate snack while watching the horses. We then went on the horse trails for a little bit, circled back around to see some riding lessons going on, continued on until we came to huge climbing rocks and then finished off by going into the local suveniour shop. Faith really enjoyed herself. The weather was just right and the leaves were starting to change. As we left we decided to stop by Hooters for lunch. Faith loved the french fries and the music. The waitress gave her her own orange Hooters balloon and we paused on the way out to take this great picture of Bud and her by the sign. Her first Hooters restaurant. Just like her mom and dad.

No, mommy, it goes this way!!

Recently I have seen just how obsessive Faith can be. If something is not done how it is supposed to be done she will have a fit. Some examples.... every night before bed she gets tucked in, if she doesn't have a small story right before the lights are turned off she cries because something was out of place. This is a story after storytime. Then if her blanket is not facing the right way, horizontal with flowers up, she asks me to turn it around the other way. If her toes are not covered or if she comes uncovered she figgets until the blanket is fixed. If she does not get a glass of milk at supper time. But milk is healthy she says. I can't change anything on her. She is set in a way to do things and that is what is comfortable. Last night there was no convincing her to stop with only one puzzle left to do, she told me that she had to finish all of them. I wish she could be half that obsessive on picking up her toys. Ok, just thought I'd try. A mom can always wish :-)

I think every one of her emotions is trying to come out. She is having a hard time dealing with them and often breaks down in the evening time. Nothing is wrong. Last night is was because she couldn't get the milk out and then it was because I put the chocolate pudding up. It was turning to milk. She didn't understand. I wish I could keep her home for a few days and just have some days of one on one time. I know that is what she needs. She loves school but she is not at home any to play. I try to just hold her when she gets upset. At first I tried ignoring however last night the hugging and holding worked better. Hopefully she will come around soon. I literally had to pull over the car on the way home last night and sit in the backseat with her to calm down. The reason she was so upset was that her stickers were on the floor and I couldn't give them to her. The drama of a two year old.

How many puzzles can she do?

Tonight Faith had too much energy for bed. Instead of settling down to read she decided she was going to do her puzzles. Tonight after completing one, she would set it aside and call that her completed pile. I thought she may get four or five in the pile however she continued to do her puzzles until every last one was finished and placed in it's correct pile. I heard her mumbling through her thoughts of where pieces go. She would say, "No, that's not right. Let's try it here. That just doesn't quite fit. Maybe it goes here." She did wonderful and was so proud to have her picture taken with her completed pile. After the count was in, there were a total of 11 puzzles that she did by herself. I helped her with some corner pieces but all in all she did them by herself. She sure loves doing puzzles.