Thursday, October 30, 2014

Fall Fun - Leaves!

I. LOVE. FALL. 

And with the Fair finally over I feel like I can really enjoy it. After our Fair outing on Saturday, I was ready for some relaxing on Sunday. But it was such a pretty day! And there were leaves. Grant has been waiting for the leaves to fall, talking about a leaf pile, for months. And his little face lit up when I suggested we make one Sunday (side note: Sunday felt, to this Yankee, like it was a million degrees outside but it still looked like fall so I was happy-ish).

We got out Grant's tractor with its new wagon and I dug out the rake and we went to work.



Eventually he decided to remove the wagon and
use it like a wheelbarrow.
It was very effective.
It's still early enough in the fall and we don't have a ton of leafy trees around that our leaf supply was slim. I was raking leaves from all over the yard and getting quite a work out! (AND I remembered work gloves this year - no blisters!) Every time we would add the tiniest bit of leaves Grant wanted to know "Is it time to jump now?!" When it was ready, it was smaller than I'd thought it would be but Grant didn't care. He was ready to GO!






Over the years, Husband has gotten me some pretty great gifts. A while back I probably would have told you my favorite (and possibly most-used) was my Kitchenaid mixer. But the camera that he surprised me with a couple years ago is most definitely my favorite now. I love it and I had SO much fun taking pictures of Grant with this leaf pile!


I love this happy boy :)





Our already-not-huge leaf pile diminished rather quickly with all the jumping, as you can see from the above picture. Even though I kept piling it up, at some point I had to ask Grant not to jump so hard in it because I was worried about how hard he was hitting the ground! He didn't care when he couldn't jump anymore. Because he could still Hulk Smash the leaves...


One of my favorites of the day! He's the best.


And you can always just throw them...



What a fun morning! The lawn was mowed the same day so our leaf pile is long gone but I'm sure it won't be too long before we have enough leaves to do it again. And I think I can handle it again now that my muscles have sufficiently recuperated from the raking workout!

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

2014 NC State Fair

Grant was jazzed about the idea of going to the fair this year. Since he remembers some of what we did last year at the fair, when he found out we were going this year he talked a lot about what he wanted to do. This year's trip was a little shorter than years past. I work at the fair for my job and I've spent entirely too many days at fairs this year. But I couldn't not take him, he was just too excited.

Usually we go on the last Sunday. This year I decided we should go on the last Saturday and I could have Sunday to recoup before work on Monday. Bad idea. Saturday at the fair when you're already anti-fair is just plain silly. 

Grant's Fair To-Do List:

  • See animals
  • Eat a hot dog
  • Eat ice cream
I used our staff parking (yay!) and the poultry stuff was closest to us, so we visited that stuff first.

Checking out the pond

This thing was big and mouthy 
Check out the one-legged guy in the middle (it's not
standing on one leg...it only has one leg)
And there was more interesting stuff inside the poultry tent:

Purdy duck
Baby things
Fun spotted things
Poultry with fun hair-dos
Grant's favorite were the big turkeys. Loved 'em and had
to point out all of them for us.
I find them creepy and slightly ugly.
We made our way towards the kids tent which was pretty crowded but Grant got to see the T-Rex skull in there so that was exciting for him.



We meandered through the building with the dairy cows (and to say hi to my co-worker)...

Best seat in the house!
And then over to the Expo building to get a better view of animals and some over-sized produce.

Fun balloon display!
Huge pumpkins!
My friend & co-worker, Penny, was set up in the Expo building which is also where the milking booth is. She asked Grant if he wanted to pet a cow. Of course he did. So Grant got to go behind-the-scenes to see the dairy cows that weren't being milked right then.

See animals: check.
Telling Penny "It's so soft!"
I was kind of amazed that he was so willing to pet her. Penny asked if he wanted to milk one and he said yes. Again...kind of amazed. So after his VIP cow petting experience, we hopped in line to milk one. He'd been very shy that day, maybe the crowd intimidated him. But he sat right down with the girl and she showed him how to do it.


He says he sort of got milk to come out :)
After that we got some lunch and walked around trying to avoid the busier spots.

Hot dog: check.

There was a fireman giving out hats...he wears it all the time now.


Grant remembered going on the kiddie roller coaster last year so we stood in a crazy long line to do that again. It acutally moved pretty fast though.



Sadly, that's where our fair experience ends. One ride. We were there for about 3 hours and after walking back through a crowd...I just kind of had had it. I felt terrible because Grant was disappointed but I had to go. We didn't get ice cream at the fair so we took Grant to Cold Stone when we left. As it turns out, chocolate ice cream makes you forget that mean Mama made you leave the fair early :)

Friday, October 17, 2014

High Five for Friday

Today I'm linking up with Lauren and Jennie to share some of my favorite stuff from the past week.

1) Friday I got to wear a new scarf that I made!

2) Friday night Grant spent the night with his Gramma & Grandpa so Husband & I could go to the Hurricanes home opener. We were very excited! Then they lost. But we haven't had a date night in a while so it was nice to just spend some time together.


3) We practice a lot at home with Grant helping him learn to write. He's gotten so good at writing his first name (I can't believe it's not all over our walls yet because he loves to write it!). Now we're working on his full name and he's even more excited about that!
He was so proud of himself!
4) After consulting with a friend who told me how to make real chicken & dumplings, I tried it out on Sunday (since I had a chicken in my freezer). It turned out great! Seriously, I've been eating it for lunch all week. The best part of making it, though, was my helper. Grant begged to help me. So when it came time, he was the official adder of the dumplings (and stir-er...very important jobs). 

5) Our State Fair started this week. Which I sort of dread since I have to work out there. BUT this will be our last fair of the year. I am looking forward to taking Grant, though. As much as I don't enjoy it when I'm working out there, it's much more fun when we get to watch Grant enjoying himself!
Throwback to my first year working at the fair...back
when I still got excited about it!
Happy Friday everyone!
Have a great weekend!
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