Halloween 2012

Boy, did we have a lot of activities for Halloween this (past) year.  We pretty much dragged it out from the end of September (the Mickey Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World) all the way to Halloween night at the end of October.  Might have been a bit much, haha.  But compared to last year (when she fell asleep on our way to go trick or treating), Sophia was really into Halloween this time around so I thought a little extra celebrating was just fine.  And fun!  Halloween has never rated very high on my list of favorite holidays but celebrating it with my little girl sure has made me like it even more.  And this year she was SO excited. 
First up, we went to my friend Tracey's church for a Trunk or Treat.  It was so cute, and the first of something like that I had been to.  We didn't collect too much candy, Sophia was a little shy at first but had fun following around Annabelle/Rapunzel.  Then we had some snacks and the girls had a blast dancing around and playing some games.  I was so happy Tracey invited us, we really had a fun time and it was nice to hang out with my friend and her daughter (her son was there too, but we hardly saw him at all, he was off with his friends having fun!). 

 The girls on the dance floor.

 What good is a dress if you can swirl it around?!

 Annabelle was SO sweet with Sophia...and Soph loved her!

Playing a game with Ms.Tracey's help.  :-)

Next up was an office trick or treat at my Dad's office.  We went last year too (apparently they do it every year) and it was a lot of fun so as soon as my Dad let me know when it was (by text the morning of) we planned on going.  Another great excuse to wear her cute costume!  Soph wasn't nearly as shy this year (and knows a lot of my Dad's co-workers a lot better this year) and had fun going office to office getting candy in her bag.  And then of course we had to hang out in my Dad's office to eat some of it.  :-)

 Shoving the candy in before I can take it, haha. 

 Yum!!

 LOVE this picture of my Dad and Sophia.  :-)

 And then clearly there had to be some spinning in Grampa's desk chair!

Weeeeee!

After we picked out our pumpkins we obviously had to carve them.  Sophia really didn't want much to do with getting her hands all dirty, so she helped a little...and mostly let Daddy take care of all the work.  :-) We hallowed out three pumpkins but only carved two of them....I had seen something on Pinterest where you could drill holes into a hallow pumpkin and put lollipops in the holes and leave that out for when you weren't home to pass out candy.  I thought that would be perfect for when we were taking Sophia trick or treating and then we could just pass out candy normally after that.  It was a good idea in theory but super messy when Michael was using the drill to make the holes! 

Finally it was actually Halloween!  Sophia got to dress up for school that day and walk in a cute little parade in the gym in front of all the other classes.  I feel super lucky that I am there too for things like that.  I don't have to miss out on stuff that goes on at school with her because a lot of times both of the two year classes (mine and hers) do things together and I am always able to participate in what she is doing if I want to.  After school we napped until Daddy got home and then we got all ready to trick or treat around the neighborhood.  I was SO happy that we were actually in a neighborhood this year.  Last year we had to drive somewhere to trick or treat, and we never really made it because she fell asleep in the car.  And there had been years in the past in our condo that teenagers who weren't even dressed up came to the door for candy....we pretty much didn't even open the door on Halloween night there cause you never knew.  This year was a different ball game.  We got her wagon all set up with blankets and stuff and took some pictures and headed out on our way.  It was AWESOME!  Sophia LOVED going up to the doors and saying 'trick or treat' and then opening up her bag for candy.  We were out for almost an hour (our neighborhood is huge so we could've been out longer, but felt that was plenty long enough and her bag was more than full of candy) and she was great the whole time.  She even remembered to say thank you most of the time and a lot of the people handing out the candy said how polite and cute she was.  :-)  Even the scarier houses didn't really scare her that much and she liked calling them the 'haunted' houses, haha. 

 

 

Halloween was a success and I am actually looking forward to next year. I will probably stay in with the new baby and pass out candy while Daddy takes Sophia out...but I think we will still have a lot of fun activities related to Halloween in the future. :-) Halloween 2012 was so much fun!  Looking forward to Halloween 2013! :-) 







The Pumpkin Patch 2012

I thought I was going to be able to just post all of Halloween in one post, since it is really the only other significant thing that we had going on in October.  Turns out, we really did Halloween up last year.  Sophia wore her costume to Mickey's Halloween Party, to a trunk or treat at my friend Tracey's church, to my Dad's office Halloween trick or treat that they do every year, to school and for actual trick or treating on Halloween night.  If Michael thinks we didn't get our money's worth out of Soph's Disney store Minnie Mouse costume, he is crazy. 
I have the most pictures of when we went to Burt's Pumpkin patch mid-October so I figured I would just separate that one out as its own post and put all the other Halloween events together in another post. 
Burt's is kind of a tradition in our family.  My parents started it a long time ago, when Dillon was little, and after Michael and I got together we kind of took it over.  And have gone every year we have been together, except the year Sophia was born (she was a little over a month old, just too little).  I always see lots of posts on Facebook of people going there.  But I think this was our last year.  It is such a long drive (even longer for us now that we have moved) up to North GA for one thing.  It always ends up being too warm, even if it is mid-October in North GA.  And every year, it gets more and more crowded.  The parking is just ridiculous...we had to walk a good way in, which wasn't terrible....but walking back to the car, pushing a wheel barrow full of pumpkins up a hill in the heat is awful (for Michael, the wheel barrow pusher...but walking up the hill with a slow 2 year old is unfun too).  Also, the pumpkins are super pricey.  Some seem ok priced, but the really cool big ones are ridiculously expensive.  We ended up picking some from there (not a giant one) and also getting a couple from Publix because they looked just as good and were way less expensive.  It is kinda fun walking amongst the hundreds of pumpkins and stopping for photo ops with the kid....it would be more fun if you weren't sweating, I guess.  And if the bees weren't swarming everywhere.  This time, Soph actually had a bee on her hand, tried to brush it away, and it stung her little finger.  :-(  Poor thing.  She didn't cry, just kept saying her finger hurt and the bee bit her.  It got pretty red and hurt her a lot, so we had to stop on the way back at a drug store to get her some tylenol to help with the pain.  She still talks about that bee that bit her, haha.  This year (2013) I can't see us trekking all the way up there with a new baby and a 3 year old just to pick out pumpkins.  I do like these pictures though, some turned out pretty cute (even if it was annoying to me that there always seemed to be a crowd of people in the background, messing up my shot, haha) and I like having the documentation of our last trip to Burt's.  Who knows, maybe some Halloween in the future we will miss it and go back...but I'm not so sure about that.  I'll just keep the good times we went in my memory....and keep in mind the reasons we stopped going! :-)  Here are our pictures from our last trip to Burt's Pumpkin Patch....

Visiting My Brother at College

At the beginning of October, we took one day and drove down to visit my brother at Columbus State.  Sophia misses her uncle SO much and I was missing him too.  It is a big difference with him at college, not getting to see him and hang out with him whenever we want to.  But I am glad he is at a college that he likes and is getting adjusted to.  I think the first year of college can be tough for everyone....getting used to being on your own, not being around all your familiar friends and family.  I think I felt a little homesick and lonely at times during my first year of college.  Even though we knew we'd see him at Thanksgiving the following month, we wanted to just go down and visit him in his atmosphere and have him show us around the campus. 
It started out pretty cold...actually the sun felt nice but it was so windy.  We wanted to find a place to eat lunch (about the time we arrived)....a lot was closed since it was on the early side of lunch on a Sunday!  We ended up eating at Mama Goldberg's and it was delicious.  After that, it started to warm up some and we decided to walk around the campus. Perfect time for a little photo shoot! :-)

 Sophia loves her Uncle Dillon SO much!

 Has to do everything he does, haha. 

 Big hug...

 ...and a little kiss too!

 Totally done sitting there, on to something else. 

 Which consisted of picking up sticks and whatever else she found on the ground. 

 Love this guy. 

 Over at the clock tower in the middle of campus.  Soph had to keep going up these brick stairs...

 ...and then down the other side.  Glad Uncle Dillon grabbed her hand finally. 

 Cool view from the bottom of the tower. 

 And it looked like someone proposed there the night before!  They left all the little candles there...pretty sweet though. 

After that Sophia was ready to move on to somewhere else. 

We had some fun picking up pine cones for my class and then we went to Walmart to get some curtains for Dillon's dorm room and then had a sort of late lunch before we had to head back home.  I would've liked to stay a little longer, but I think we didn't overstay our welcome and got to enjoy most of the day with my brother.  I am probably always going to worry about him so I am glad he is only a couple of hours away, in case he needs anything, or in case I just need to go visit him. :-)  Dillon was probably around Sophia's age when I went to college so I just want to make sure that she gets a lot of chances to talk to him and visit with him...she loves when he is here to play with her (he always plays whatever she wants to, even if it is dollhouse or tea party or whatever, he is such a good uncle!) and I want her to grow up close to him.  And I want to continue to stay close to him too!  He is my only brother and I got lucky to get a good one....him and me and my sister all need to stick together, we are the only siblings we have!  Anyway, we had a fun day down at Columbus St and I can't wait until we can go and visit again...maybe as soon as the weather gets warmer?  Love you, Dill!! :-) 

Finishing Up Our Orlando Trip in September

When we weren't at a Disney park, we were relaxing at the resort at the pool.  I loved the pool, it was perfect for Sophia since the shallow end was just a walk right in style.  The day after the Magic Kingdom, we spent some time swimming. 

The day after that, we went to Sea World.  It was SO HOT.  The year before when we went, we purchased a year pass and had gone a couple of times since, but it wasn't going to cost us anything so we decided to go this time around.  Sophia really likes the dolphins and whales and other sea creatures (and I do too).  But oh, my gosh, it was unbearably hot.  We caught the few shows we wanted to see, Michael and his brother rode the rides they wanted to ride, and we probably were home by lunch time.  Sea World is nice, but not quite up to Disney par.  There just doesn't seem to be enough shade or something.  However, the baby changing facilities are super nice, which surprised me.  They are set pretty much in the back of the park, so a bit of a walk to get there....but they have everything the Disney baby changing stations have and in the bathrooms in there they have a normal sized toilet and a tiny kid-sized toilet too!  It was pretty cute, haha.  Even the sinks were big and little for the adults and kids.  :-)  Kinda lame if that was a highlight, haha.  We did have fun, but the heat made it so we couldn't really totally enjoy the park.  We didn't even take as many pictures as usual, but here is what we got. 

 Before the dolphin show (not sure why this pic is fuzzy)

 Soph and I spent a lot of time at the underwater dolphin viewing.  For one, there was cool air blowing and it was out of the sun.  For another, Michael and his brother were on rides that we couldn't ride anyway. 

 She was excited every time the dolphins swam by. 

 Mommy/Sophia self portrait.  I guess I could've asked someone else to take it, haha. 

 She wanted to touch them.  Once she is old enough, her and I will be able to be able to feed them together...that is one of my favorite parts of Sea World, the dolphin feeding area. 

Waiting for the new Turtle Trek exhibit.  It was pretty cool, but a lot of just standing in a line and walking along.  Not quite what I expected. 

Once we got back from Sea World, Soph went in for a nap and I spent two uninterrupted hours all by myself reading at the pool.  It was AWESOME!  It's ok if it's super hot if you can lounge by the pool.  I could probably spend days on end reading by the pool...but you can imagine how often that happens with a two year old so this was a really nice relaxing treat for me.  Basically after that we ate and packed up for our trip back home the next day.  I would say overall our trip to Orlando in September was GREAT!  Sophia loved it for sure and still talks about it to this day and asks us to tell her stories about it.  I am very excited to bring her back (we won't have to wait long, we are going in May!!), she is just the perfect age for all things Disney.  :-)