Halloween-y Festivities

I must admit that two weeks ago I was not planning to have Addie dress up for Halloween (I know, I know, we'd miss all the fun--but I thought it might be a waste of time since it's not like she's actually going trick or treating!). I thought of a quick costume idea that didn't involve much effort on my part and it would certainly be cute for pictures, even if no one sees her besides her mommy and daddy.

Addie is going to be a ladybug for Halloween--and thankfully, we already had a black turtleneck and tights to start out the costume. I bought some red tulle and black felt at Wal-mart and made this darling little tutu (with black dots of course) to complete the costume. Addie enjoyed playing with the scraps of tulle as I made the tutu, it was pretty cute.

Good thing I went to all the trouble of throwing something together for the sweetie because the library teacher asked us to dress the kiddos up for Born to Read Babies time today. Addie was hilarious when I first put her tutu on her...she just sat there, like "Mom, I can't move!" until she realized the big, puffy, red stuff would move with her. Her boyfriend Gage was a bumblebee so they looked incredibly cute together! Her other friends Jonathan and Lora were Tigger and a lion. The kiddos all looked so adorable! They even got to make a special craft for Halloween. Addie was interested in eating the stick on ghosts and witches more than anything. It was a fun experience!

I ended up finishing the Halloween pants (and shirt) that I mentioned in a previous blog. All that practice paid off because the outfit turned out SO cute! I am already excited to look for Thanksgiving and Christmas prints to get going on some more outfits for special occasions! This type of stuff sells for big bucks on ebay so you may see my creations up for auction one of these days when I get bold enough to go for it!

A Day at the Pumpkin Patch

I'm a little late on this blog, but the camera battery was dead and I couldn't blog about the pumpkin patch without including pictures! This past Saturday, we took Addie to Mayse Farm Market to visit the pumpkin patch. Although she was too little to play in the corn maze, she had some fun going on a hayride out to "the patch" to pick our very own pumpkin. As you'll notice in the pictures though, she was not willing to show much enthusiasm about the big day (we were there right around naptime, oops!).

We picked out several other pumpkins and gourds back at the store and we even spied a GREAT BIG pumpkin outside, bigger than Addie!

I can't wait to go back to the farm market next year when our little one will be running around and can enjoy the bigger kid activities more--for now, we're enjoying our little crawling bundle.

Mommy-made Pants

I've been feeling "crafty" lately, but have not been really motivated until yesterday. I woke up with a "sewing bug," and I sure don't get those often. You see, my mom bought this pattern and adorable Halloween material to make Addie a pair of pants for this season and I decided it shouldn't just sit around and wait until next year. So before ruining perfectly cute fabric, I decided to practice using some of mom's "stash" (which I will inherit all one day anyway--and it's A LOT, let me tell ya!). Mom picked out a few prints that might be fun to try--not to mention, they are truly from when I was a little girl and I actually had a dress made out of some of it when I was about 2 or 3 (so we're talking 24+ year old fabric here!).

I returned home to get started during Addie's naptime and I was just sure I would get these done in time for her to try them on upon waking. Haha. I've done several quilts and other blankets of sorts, but this would be my first GARMENT (other than making doll clothes without a pattern when I was younger). First off, I'm totally not good at following directions or visualizing how something is put together on my own--probably why I'm a good teacher because I understand how kids with attention problems and learning disabilities feel! I am a "Do-er" and have to either learn by my own mistakes or have someone show me exactly step-by-step how to do something. Neither of those methods were working for me yesterday. At one point, I threw the pants down and surrendered by calling my mom. She could tell me exactly what I did wrong before I even explained my problem (apparently, I'm not the only person in the world who has ever experienced this issue).

Once I got myself straightened out, it was a breeze. I finished the pants after Addie went to bed last night and she tried them on this morning--ADORABLE, if I do say so myself. There will be several pairs to follow now that I know what I'm doing. Here begins another obsession for me--finding fun material for pants and coordinating shirts for my little lady!!!

Future Quilter!"Window Kiss"--thought this was too cute!

Donkeys, Fall Festivals, and Termites

First of all, sorry for the random playlist that doesn't work in the middle (or is it still at the top?) of my blog. I was trying to be "techy" and upload (or is it download?) some of my favorite songs for you to enjoy as you try to concentrate on reading my entries. I figured out how to put it over on the side, where I really want it, but now I'm not sure how to delete the one that is just taking up space on this beautiful page! Mikey!!! Help!!!

Donkeys are fun and interesting animals, right? Well, Addie got to meet her first Donkey friend on Wednesday. You see, one of her Godmothers lives out in the boonies on a gorgeous chunk of land where it's okay to own a donkey for no good reason at all. Linda, I'm not saying it's a bad idea to own a donkey, I'm just not sure why you do--but I LOVE IT (the idea of having a donkey, that is)!! Anyway, I was just thinking the other day that Addie has never seen a real horse--we didn't make it that far down at the county fair this summer and we didn't get around to taking that carriage ride at Cade's Cove I was hoping for on our vacation. So she met a donkey...forgive me, I've forgotten his name! Sweetest donkey I've ever met though!

There is good reason why we were so far out of the city at Linda's house this week---the 100,000th annual Westside Nut Club Fall Festival is going on this week on Franklin Street. Now for those of you who are not from around here (and it's not really the 100,000th annual, but it's been around for a long time!), you need to know about this festival. It's not just any old carnival or Fall gathering...it happens to be the 2nd largest street festival in the US (1st is Mardi Gras)! Impressive for a city like Evansville, huh?

There are hundreds of food booths with items such as Fried Oreos, Chocolate covered bananas on a stick, Haystacks, Pronto pups, Chicken and Dumplings, Fried Green Tomatoes...basically anything fried and not good for you. It was heaven last year when I was 6 months pregnant! The good thing about the fall festival is that it's close by: approximately 4.5 driving minutes from our house, 2 walking minutes from Chris' work, and 1.5 walking minutes from our church. The bad thing is that it's close by: approximately 4.5 driving minutes from our house, 2 walking minutes from Chris' work, and 1.5 walking minutes from our church. We're excited about it the whole week before it's here and by about Tuesday (the 2nd day), we're over it, Chris especially. Carnie campers line the streets down by Chris' work and it is just no fun to navigate around that area when people are trying to park places they shouldn't, etc. Enough of my babble.

Here is Addie during one of her 3 outings to the Fall Festival. We only went one evening (Monday) and the other two times were at lunch when it was less crowded (hahaha, no such luck).

Today is Friday and it's just been one of those boring, ho-hum kind of days around here. Addie and I have caught Chris' cold and we are both a bit stuffed up and congested. In fact, she is just waking up from a 2-stage, 2 hour nap. 2-stage meaning that she woke up after the first hour and I rocked her back to sleep for the second stage. She seems happy now, despite the dried, crusty snot beneath her precious nose. I'm going to invent an aspirator that has as much strength as an electric breast pump, for goodness sake!

So this afternoon amidst playing some of the usual games like "crawl over Mommy" and "chase the dog across the room," she decided to eat the coffee table. My mom is deathly worried that she is going to injure herself on the corners of this thing, but I say, "Lookout coffee table--there's a Nonner on the loose!" I'm pretty sure we don't have to worry about termites eating us out of house and home in the literal sense, we have Addie to do that!

Who Pooped in the Park?

Yep, that's right...I've solved the mystery of the animal poo we saw while hiking on the Grotto Falls trail in the Smokies. I'm sure so many of you who saw our vacation pictures have been losing sleep because I didn't label the poo picture with the type of animal from which it came. Well, I've been doing my research both online and in the book, "Who Pooped in the Park?"

For a minute while we were hiking on the poo filled trail, we were just sure it was bear doody (kind of wishful thinking because we wanted to think a bear might be nearby, but not actually visible). Then we thought it might be llama poopers because apparently they use llamas for transporting goods on this very trail and it is not uncommon to encounter them on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays close to dark. Nope...not bear or llama doody.

After looking at many pictures and reading about animal "scat," the more formal name and a little nicer to say than poopy or doo-doo, I've concluded that it must be deer scat. I always thought deer poo was smaller than these piles, but I guess not.

I know, I know, it's pretty sad that I'm blogging about animal doody, but this has had me puzzled since we hiked this trail. By the way, the book, "Who Pooped in the Park?" was purchased by my dear mother out west and it refers to the animals of the Grand Teton National Park...but I'm pretty sure most deer have similar looking poopy regardless of their location.

One GREAT BIG Week!

Wow, it was really a HUGEMONGOUS week in the life of little Addie Ruth and our whole little family too. It all started last Sunday when the darling beauty was baptized at church. As you see in the picture, she is more than blessed to have THREE wonderful Godmothers (who are her PGAs (Prayer Group Aunts) and Fairy Godmothers also). Her latest "Addie-ism" is holding her hand up in the air towards the ceiling like she's giving a true "Praise the Lord" kind of shout out...and that's exactly what she did throughout her baptism. A classic that thankfully was caught on video and we will have forever and ever. Priceless. Soon after little sweetie was baptized, Mommy and Daddy frantically finished up some last minute packing and we headed south to the Smoky Mountains for our first family vacation. So far, this was the most wonderful vacation I have had (sorry Mom and Dad, but other than all the responsibility and planning, being on the parental side of things seems to be much more enjoyable than when I was a kid!). Addie survived the drive down there, other than the last hour in the car the first night when she cried so hard so worked up some vomit (and I'm talking the big KID kind of vomit, this is no longer the little baby "spit up" version of sorts!). Good thing the car seat cover is washable!!!

The first day in Gatlinburg, we ventured to the Ripley's Aquarium and it was pretty cool. I'm not sure it was $45 cool (call me a tight wad, I don't care), but we all enjoyed looking at the different sea creatures and I especially liked the sharks that looked like they had hedge trimmers growing out of their mouths. After all the excitement at the aquarium, we made our way up to the top of the mountain (one of them, not sure which one though) to our cabin. It was WONDERFUL...although we didn't end up spending much time there.

On the second and third days we spent time hiking on three different trails in the gorgeous mountains: Abram's Falls in Cade's Cove, Grotto Falls on the Roaring Fork Tour, and Laurel Falls. All three trails were completely different from one another, except they all had the end result of seeing some kind of waterfall. Abram's was the most challenging, but completely satisfying and Chris' favorite. My favorite was Grotto because the temperature changed at least 5 degrees (I honestly have no idea how many degrees, so this is a ballpark guess) by the time we made it up to the falls. Our least fav was Laurel just because it was paved and it sure didn't feel like we were in "true nature." The falls were beautiful though. Addie rode in the Ergo carrier (another MUST HAVE for parents and I know I could make a commercial for them and sell them along with Fuzzi Bunz!) and she was quite content the entire time we hiked. Chris did all the lugging of her and I thank him for that...but I surely think all that Daddy sweat she was drenched with by the end of each hike created a stronger bond between them. She turned into a true Daddy's girl over the course of this trip. :)

We made the long haul for home on Thursday after stopping to get some of that wonderful foothills taffy Chris adores so much and letting me get my Gymboree and Baby Gap fix at the outlet stores (I tell ya, that wore us out more than the hiking, no kidding!). Grandma and Aunt Minky will appreciate this one...We were home-free (about an hour and a half away) when suddenly I got the urge to fail as navigator and cause us to miss our turn because I just couldn't stay away from Paducah (where the quilt show is in April every year). No really, it just so happened that our turn was where we stopped to eat dinner and neither of us were looking for signs after that deliciously scrumptious Wendy's food. Oops!!! So we turned a 6.5 hour drive into 8, that was totally expected with a 9 month old (although she didn't have anything to do with it, for crying out loud!).

So home at 8:45ish on Thursday night and then turned right around and left for New Harmony to go camping on Friday afternoon. What were we thinking??? Actually it was a great "introduction to camping with a baby" as our friends put it. We were so lucky to have borrowed my uncle Tom's 1986 (yes it's almost as old as Chris and I) Viking pop-up camper. Boy, it was an experience to remember. We definitely couldn't have done it with Addie without the camper. Out of firewood and running on a few hours of sleep, we decided that one night of that was enough and we headed home on Saturday afternoon to enjoy our own beds for a change.

Among all the busy-ness this past week, Addie has decided to start crawling on her hands and knees rather than doing the army crawl. She also pulls herself up to standing in the pack-n-play...and the final new trick goes something like this: "How big is Addie?---So Big!" She finally gets it and realizes how silly Mommy and Daddy are for thinking it's so hilarious!

All in all, we had a truly magnificent time and I'm sad that vacation is over. We created so many memories just in this one week that will be cherished forever. There will never be another "first family vacation" again in the lifetime of the Knight family. Big cheesy smile :) THE END--whew!