Poppell Farm

My friend Mel had invited Grayson and I to join her family at Poppell Farm today.  It was a farm about an hour away that has a pumpkin patch along with lots of activities for kids.  The weather has been cooler lately so it was a perfect sunny day in the 60's and the kids had a blast!  

One area was the petting zoo.  There were all sorts of animals from chickens, calves, ponies, pigs, goats, and llamas.  

There was a momma goat that had babies just yesterday! 

Of course there was the goat bridge where you could put food in a can and lift it up on a belt to the goats to give them a treat.  Grayson thought it was hilarious to see the goat up there eating.  

They had a cow ride that the kids got to ride.  I wasn't too sure how Grayson would do alone.  Behind him was a kid probably a year older than him that was scared to go by himself and his mom sat in the cow train with him.  I'm glad Grayson didn't get upset and need me to sit with him!  I don't think that cow would have held me, my big belly, AND Grayson! :)  

As he came back around I could see he had a lot of fun and of course asked for "more" when he was all done.

There was also a big dome tarp thing that kids could climb on and bounce.  Grayson touched the bouncy thing, but quickly said "all done" and didn't even want to try it out with Mel holding him at the top!

One spot Grayson LOVED was the "Corn Crib".  They had a small shed that they filled with corn for kids to play in.  Grayson  loved feeling the corn and walking around in it.  He definitely wasn't ready to get out when I told him to, but mommy quickly pulled him out regardless since a wasp came in and joined him!

Grayson saw Mel riding on the long tube swing with her daughters Harley and Shelby and wanted me to get on with him.  Of course the only spot open was in the middle.  We tried it, but of course I ended up weighing it down in the middle and then the tube wouldn't move!  Whoops!  Thankfully, Grayson didn't mind having Harley hold on to him so he could swing with them!

There was also a fish pond with large catfish that you could feed.  The owner came by and Mel asked if they fished out of the pond.  He said that they just kept them as pets.  They were some pretty big catfish that you could tell were well fed! :)

They owners of the farm made a "duck race" area with water pumps and tubing.  You could grab the rubber ducks, put them at the top of your tube and then use the water pump to push the duck to the other side with the water.  Grayson loves water pumps as well as duckies so of course he could have stayed there all afternoon!

Last, we took the hayride over to the "pumpkin patch".  There was music played and Grayson had a fun time clapping along to the music and dancing his feet as we went along.

Of course it wasn't a REAL pumpkin patch where the pumpkins grew.  The owner explained on the way over that in the 11 years they ran the patch, they were only able to grow pumpkins 2 years.  The weather just isn't cool enough for the pumpkins to grow so they end up getting their pumpkins from another farm up north.  Charlie Brown, Linus and Lucy were there ready to great us when we arrived since they were waiting for the "Great Pumpkin" to arrive.

Grayson couldn't decide which pumpkin he wanted and loved the fact that at this patch he could walk all over and pick up almost every pumpkin!  

His friend Shelby was doing the same thing and neither one of them would stand still long enough to look at the camera for a picture.  :) 

While Grayson wasn't in the mood to get a picture with Mommy, Mel managed to snap a few pictures of me with Grayson before he really started to protest and want away!

We headed back on the hayride to the farm after everyone picked their pumpkin

Grayson and Harley waived goodbye to Charlie Brown and his friends as we left

Once we got back to the farm, we picked out a big pumpkin to take home and carve sometime this week.  Mommy just couldn't pass up the "perfect" pumpkin with a nice big green stem.  She figured Grayson would have fun playing in the "pumpkin guts" and will just deal with the mess that's made!

It was a fun day and a much better trip to the pumpkin patch than our first attempt!

Twinkle Twinkle

Grayson and I found a book at the library that is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  For the past two weeks Grayson has been wanting to read that book before bed and sing the song with me.  We'll end up reading it 2 or 3 times before moving on to a new book.  He'd read it all night and never go to bed if I let him!  This video was taken in the afternoon before nap time.  

Animal Signs

Here's another video from Arizona.  I believe it was our last trip to the zoo the week before we moved.  Grayson had just started signing more animal signs so I tried to get some of them on video.  Of course, that day he would not put down his sippy cup so getting him to do the signs the way he normally would was challenging! :)  

Playing Cornhole

I found some old video I never put on the blog.  This is from early summer.  Will painted his own corn hole set before leaving AZ.  Grayson found it lots of fun to have Daddy throw the bean bags and he'd finish getting them in the hole for Daddy. 

28 week ultrasound

side profile

I had an ultrasound today since I hadn't had one yet from the doctor since 10 weeks.  They sent me to a clinic in Savannah, rather than getting it done on post, due to the fact that the cleft palate is a genetic trait that seems to run through my family.  This particular clinic looks more closely at abnormalities like that in the ultrasound to see if they can detect anything.  Of course, due to the nature of the cleft palate that runs through my family's side, it was near impossible to tell if there was one.  It was clear that there is not a cleft lip with the little guy and we'll just have to wait till he's born to know if he has the cleft palate at the soft part of the palate like Grayson and I did.  He's a healthy little boy though and was VERY active during the ultrasound!  During ultrasounds with Grayson, I don't remember him moving so much.  It was fun to watch this little guys foot kick on the screen and feel it at the same time.  Now I know exactly what's kicking or punching in certain locations of my belly these days.  During the ultrasound, she could see white fuzz on his head which she said was hair.  Again, I don't remember seeing that with Grayson so we'll see if this kiddo comes out with more hair than his big brother did!  I asked her if he has a big head like Grayson did and she said it wasn't overly large, but when looking at measurements, she said some measurements were measuring more at 29 weeks rather than 27.5 weeks where I'm supposed to be.  Of course due date isn't changed, but maybe Will will get lucky and maybe the baby's due date is a week off and he'll actually come before the new year!  Will of course being ornery like he can be, keeps asking if I'll talk to the doctor about inducing me on Dec. 30th.  I told him if he's giving birth to this kid, then he can go right ahead and ask to be induced or have a scheduled c-section.  But as long as I'm the one going through the pain again this time... he doesn't get to ask for any ridiculous request like that from the doctor just for taxes! :)  I scanned some pictures from the ultrasound and some are duplicates with annotations I wrote on there so Will, or anyone else, could tell what they're looking at.  My sister has also been bugging me for a picture of myself so my nieces can see how big my belly is so I put one in just for them!  I can't wait to meet this little guy in less than 3 months!  Can't believe time has gone by that quickly and he'll be here before we know it!  

front of face

side profile 2

his little foot

28 weeks

October Fun

The other day Grayson found 3 of his 4 blankets around the house.  He tends to leave them numerous places and saw one in the dirty clothes basket so he had to pull that one out too.  While carrying them all around he kept looking up at me and saying "nine" which is his way of saying "mine".  The kiddo doesn't call his blankets "blankie" or anything of the sorts.  He knows exactly what I'm talking about when I ask him to go get his blanket for nap or something, but I think he has officially nicknamed his blankets "nine".  On this day when he was carrying them all around I asked if he was going to share his blankets with his baby brother and he promptly said "no.... nine!"  I think we may have a problem!  Grandma or mommy may need to get to the fabric store and make a couple more for baby brother to be on the safe side! 

We also headed to the pumpkin patch this weekend.  Definitely found a downfall to GA.  The fact that pumpkins don't grow great here so finding a pumpkin patch is near impossible. :(  I managed to find the only one in the area that said they harvest their own pumpkins.  Guess I had higher expectations that we'd get there and find a pumpkin patch like you would in WA or the midwest.  Instead it was dirt mounds with small pumpkins on top.  They didn't have any big pumpkins which was ok since we were there to find Grayson his own little pumpkin.  There was supposed to be a "festival" too so they had inflatable jump things there, but not anything like you'd find at a fall festival in WA with haystacks, tractors, and pumpkins all around.  The pumpkins you see in this picture were all there were.  Needless to say, I was disappointed, but saw online there's a fall festival that begins this next week through November.  There's supposed to be duck races, hayrides, and everything so we'll have to make a trip to that farm and check it out when Daddy gets home!  

We did manage to find a small pumpkin that wasn't rotting in a spot, lopsided, or have warts all over it so we snatched it up quickly!  Grayson liked trying to pick it up, but struggled a big since it was just a little too big yet for him to pick up on his own.  

I tried to get him to sit with his pumpkin we found for a picture of him holding it.  However, he thought it would be more fun to be his silly self and started licking the pumpkin instead.  He's definitely harder to get pictures of these days since he doesn't stay stationary and just smile at me like he used to do when he was still a baby. :)  Good thing my camera is pretty quick at taking pictures so I manage to still get some pictures of his adorable smile at times before he looks or runs away!

Yesterday we pulled out the permanent markers for him to decorate his pumpkin with.  I was hesitant to pull out sharpie's, but he actually did really well and stayed at his spot with a rag towel laid down and didn't try to color anything else!  He only got a little marker on his fingers from trying to put the lids back on the each marker after he'd color with it.

For some reason, after EVERY color he'd use for a quick scribble somewhere on the pumpkin, he'd stop and clap for himself and say "yay!"  This went on for about 5 minutes probably. :)  

I found some face stickers at Target for him to put on his pumpkin.  We picked the Frankenstein face.  Of course getting him to put the stickers on and leave them there was more of the challenge!  He kept wanting to take them off and move them. 

Once the stickers were on, he decided he needed a little more marker now on the stickers and kept pointing to the different parts and telling me what they were.  In this picture he's telling me "no" for the nose.  

Mommy quickly got the pumpkin out to the front porch when he seemed to be done decorating and once again just wanting to take the stickers off.  After many attempts and trying to get him to look up at me and smile with his pumpkin... I gave up!  He was more interested in just staring at me or checking out his pumpkin.

Despite Mommy's disappointment in the pumpkin patch, Grayson seemed to have a good time and of course a pumpkin is a pumpkin and he had fun coloring it!  I'll have to pick up a big one to carve with him sometime at the store, but still debating on that.  Daddy thinks Grayson needs to carve a pumpkin too this year, but Mommy just sees the headache of trying to carve one on her own without Daddy home to help "tag team" and keep the mess of carving in one spot.  I'm sure I'll end up getting one and carving it with him, but for now his little pumpkin is just fine! :)