Quest For the Perfect Pumpkin

I think 2 is the best age  yet!   I can't even describe how much I'm looking forward to this Holiday season.  We have a little one that actually gets it and appreciates the festivities.  One of my resolutions this year was to be better prepared and more enthusiastic about celebrating the Holidays.  Part of my preparation has been preparing Kylea for the events by discussing the different holidays and what's a part of them.

Apparently my strategy is working because a few days ago we all went out to dinner together.  As we sat eating and chatting all of the sudden Kylea's face lit up, she got VERY excited and she pointed across the room and shouted, "HO, HO, HO!!"  then looked at me very satisfied.  Across the crowded restaurant sat an older gentlemen who was heavier set and was sporting a somewhat impressive gray beard.  "oh yes!" I replied, "he does look an awful lot like Santa."  I hoped this would be enough and she would drop the issue. This however, was not a satisfactory response, so she kept pointing and excitedly shouting, "HO, HO, HO!!"  Through our stifled laughter we quickly packed up our leftovers and left before the gentlemen could notice that he had been identified as Santa.

Christmas is my favorite holiday and I am counting down the days until I can put up our Chrismas tree and bake every holiday goody there is. But to keep to my resolution, we can't skip Holidays so I decided that we really needed to celebrate Halloween by visiting a pumpkin patch and picking our very own pumpkin.  We live somewhat rurally and not too far from our house we noticed a sign outside of a little family farm advertising a pumpkin patch, so we decided to check it out.

I'm SO glad we did.  This farm was AWESOME! There was a hay maze, slide, farm zoo, pony rides, hay ride and an ENORMOUS pumpkin patch.  It made for a very fun Saturday.

First stop, the farm zoo complete with goats, ponies, turkeys, ducks bunnies and a llama named Daryl that gives kisses.

She was scared of the turkeys and wouldn't leave Daddy's arms

The farmer came out and gave Kylea a few huge handfuls of horse feed and Kylea got to feed the gentle ponies.  She was completely thrilled!

More feeding the ponies.

Here we are meeting Daryl the llama.  Kylea was so confused about what kind of animal Daryl was.  She kept saying, "deer??.....Horsey??"

The ponies got jealous of the llama getting attention so one of them let out a whinny.  This caused Kylea to clasp her cheeks with both hands and declare, "Oh gosh!" then she walked right up to the pony and told him to, "shhhh"  it was hilarious. 

Next was a hayride to the pumpkin patch.

cuteness on a hayride

we got to see the huge pumpkin patch, the bee farm, some horses and some sheep.

Then we grabbed our red wagon and set off to find our perfect pumpkin.

we found it, the perfect pumpkin!

Kylea found a pumpkin too!  ......a small, rotten pumpkin

She was so excited to ride back with our "punkin" as she would say.

We had such a good time!   We are going to make it a yearly tradition.  The farmer even sent us home with a souvenir duck egg, I haven't been brave enough to cook it yet. Although the farmer assured us that it would taste the same as a chicken egg.  Now we just have to carve and decorate our pumpkin, that's our FHE for tonight.   

I Love You!

She said it.  Those three words that will melt your heart.

It was a long week.  Kevin is the Elder's quorum president and still working on chasing down leads and promotions in his career (he's ambitious this will be a never-ending quest).  He was very, very busy that week, lots of meetings and lots of time working on various projects for work, church and home in the office.

This particular evening he had some calls to make and business to attend to and so retired to the office to complete his work.  Kylea (who never gets enough daddy time) followed him in there and prepared to sit on his lap.  I followed her in and gently told her that Daddy was very busy and that we needed to go play in the living room.  "Noooo." she cried heart brokenly.  Then she reached out both tiny arms towards her Daddy and cried, "I yuv youuuu!!"

Of course our hearts were instantly melted.  I put her down and let her run toward the outstretched arms of her daddy.

Moments like that, you never want to forget.  We love you too, little miss!

This is how we eat a burrito