Hello Grandma!

From this ....

... to this.

Pumpkins

Some shots of our first family carving experience.

The wide-mouthed pumpkin was a result of a rotten spot. We had to buy new pumpkins at Wal-Mart because our good one from the family farm was stolen off our front porch, which thankfully, Lucy didn't even notice.

Grandma's been here all week so I'm behind on my news but will have plenty to report as soon as she heads home on Tuesday.

Prick or Pete

Halloween in scheduled here in Iowa, and then rescheduled as not to conflict with any college football games, as the case may be. We ended up trick or treating the on Friday the 29th this year. Since Lucy is still pretty little and we don't know a ton of people in our neighborhood, we went to the downtown toddler trick or treat on Main Street at 10am. All the shops opened and had candy for the kids, allowing me to get a glimpse of all the Main St. stores while Lucy got her candy.

Here's my little Tinkerbell. It's a costume that Grandma sent a while ago (not intended for Halloween, I don't think) that Lucy wanted to wear. Not a surprise, really, pretty much everything is Tink right now. The felt on her shoes is actually sewn right to the sneakers to keep it on.
Our partners in crime were Jon & Mariel's kids, friend Gabe and baby Nico, Sarah & Jane's son Silas, and Ayden, who Sarah watches during the day. Sarah had to wait for Ayden to get to her house so Mariel and I had three two-year-olds and a stroller to wrestle for the first forty minutes or so. It was not a crowd to be reasoned with.
Apparently Gabe's shark costume was from last year. His mom & dad put it on him and held him up to the mirror. It terrified him to see his face poking out of the shark's mouth. This year he was much braver. Note also at this point Silas' orange shirt and hat "costume." His mom worked for days to sew a Super Why suit, a labor of love that he abjectly refused to wear. Maybe next year.

One part of this trick or treating (prick or pete as Lucy said) that did not elude my Tink was the fact that the candy in the bucket was hers. She was seen to try and take more candy out of the trick or treat bins, wrestle candy out of the hands of the storekeepers, and steal from other kids buckets. I'm prettu sure that the lollypop on the ground here was hers, but not 100%.

What a great looking crowd!

Halloween at CGA

Here we are, at gymnastics. Lucy's at a new gym in our new town, and it's been a learning process getting used to the way CGA conducts business for the 3-and-under crowd. We've been working hard on being a "patient waiter." So far it's going okay. This past Monday's class was during Halloween week, where all the kids dressed up in costumes. It made what is usually adorable, super adorable.

Every class starts off with some group stretches where the kids use little beanie babies to stretch. "Now touch your animal to your toes" kind of thing. With the exception of an occasional sprint off into the distance, this usually goes pretty well.

We continue every week with an obstacle course. This includes some fun stuff (slides, houses) paired with some gymnastics and coordination skills. I try to make sure Lucy is 1st in line, but even if she's not, we usually cut the other kids anyway. Sounds rude, I know, but she's just so darn fast.
Two of our favorite obstacle course skills: jumping and rocking. The round out the list of top ten, anyway. Lucy can do a 2-foot jump from color to color on this mat without stopping or stepping in between. Yup, I'll brag. She's one mean jumper. Here she also is rocking with one of the twins in her class, Jack. I've never seen anything like these 2-year-olds. They are girl crazy: stare, slide up to, stroke hair, and put arms around the girls in class. Hysterical now, but ask me in 10 years.
After the obstacle course comes our exercise in patience. Turns on the bars and the trampoline must include patient waiting (or else teacher Bree makes the kid go last). This is a big change from Lucy's last gym, where the skill building turns came between other fun activities set up to keep the kids busy. I know that waiting is something Lucy will need to be able to do in the future, but at 2?
After the bars, the beam, and the trampoline, the kids all get to play in the pit, something the gym in Maine didn't have. Lucy likes to slide off the mat, but will NOT jump in feet first.

Mary, Jack, Chase, Norah, Lucy, Corbin, and Mallory.

And my Tinkerbell, posing with the Grim Reaper's horse.

The Other Lucy

Lucy has been spending a lot of time in front of the mirror lately. She looks while she's brushing her teeth in the bathroom. In the full-length on the back of her bedroom door. I've even hung a square mirror about 35 inches off the floor in our living room, where she dances, makes faces, waves her arms, and laughs laughs laughs at herself.

I was thinking that this was a little bit of vanity, discovering that she had control over what she was seeing happen. But then she started referring to the girl in the mirror as "the other Lucy." Amazing how that girl just keeps popping up all over the place.

Pumpkin Picking

Now that Lucy is getting older, I'm having fun bringing her to all the family activities that seemed silly to drag a non-walking non-talking baby to. This past week we went pumpkin picking with our friends Mariel, Gabe and Nico. Since both Mariel and I are home with our kids right now, we went on a Tuesday morning, and boy, did we beat the crowds. We pulled up to Black's Heritage Farm, which according to Mariel, my research support, boasted a petting zoo, pony rides, hay rides, and a pumpkin patch. We pulled up (literally) to somebody's house. There were pumpkins, and a couple of small parking signs, but we were hesitant about just walking right in.

That's when we were greeted my Mr. Black himself, as though we were family friends. He took us to the petting zoo, pulled our kids up on the pony (who was tied to a picnic table before we arrived) for a ride around the lawn, and helped Lucy and Gabe up on the trolley to the pumpkin patch. Never mind he was a total stranger, as well as a bit rough around the edges, Lucy and Gabe took right to him.

Here we are on the pony rides. Gabe went first and was super excited the whole time. Mariel's family owned a ranch in Utah, so this was not the first time Gabe has been around or on a horse. Lucy seemed excited for her ride too, until she actually got onto the pony. Reality didn't quite live up to the hype for this experience, and she got off after half a lap around the yard.

For the kids, I'd say that the best part of the whole farm was the tee-pee: the ultimate playhouse. While Lucy and Gabe played in and around the tee-pee, we got to hear about Mr. Black's winter living homeless in a tent in a park. The story seemed to start out as a social experiment, like the "use a wheelchair to get around campus to see what it's actually like for someone" kind of project, but I've never heard of anyone who did that continuing to use a wheelchair for the rest of the year. Maybe we'll have to go back and ask some more questions. Anyway, the tee-pee was pretty well constructed, though like EVERYTHING else in Iowa, note the colors, totally driven by college sports. Go Cyclones!

And then to the trolley! There were both the trolley car and a hay cart that could be hooked up to the tractor to take us to the pumpkin patch, and we insisted that Mr. Black use whichever was easier for us. This shot doesn't really do the landscape justice, but Mariel and I were talking about how although the farm was less than 2 miles from the edge of town, you couldn't even tell you were anywhere near civilization. It was farmland as far as you could see.


The tractor rolled us around the field and stopped, not next to a pumpkin patch, but in the middle of a hay field. Apparently what they did was pick the pumpkins and then hide them in the hay, which was cute. We held the kids up high and they found a couple of pumpkins to bring back on the trolley.

We finished off our morning with some time with the baby ducks, and then running around the Black's front yard. I think the kids had a pretty good time, and now that I know what to expect, I would definitely go back. Next time, though, on a weekend.

Friend Gabe & Baby Nico

Our first friends here in Iowa are a couple in the same position as we are - left professional positions, a home in Utah, and moved with their family to take a chance on a phD in the great beyond. Thankfully, they are as wonderful as I had imagined when Eric was in contact with John after the orientation last March. It has been great to have not only have built in friends for us, but for Lucy as well.

John and Mariel have two kids, known in our house as "Friend Gabe" (3 on nov 2) and "Baby Nico" (5 months). Gabe is one of Lucy's theoretical friends; she is always super excited about the idea of seeing him but is working on not screaming and running away when Gabe makes a sudden movement, shouts, etc. It's also neat to be able to reference Baby Nico when talking about a new baby here, getting her used to the idea.

Last week I watched Gabe and Nico for a couple of hours while Mariel had a meeting for the job she's starting soon. It was a beautiful day, so I took the kids to the park right outside their apartment. What these pictures don't show is me working to keep track of 2 toddlers, one of whom has a running-away problem, while hanging on to a baby. Perhaps one of the neighbors has a video of me trying to sprint after Lucy while yelling to Gabe to stay put and holding Nico's head steady as he was bouncing around in the baby bjorn carrier? Hopefully not.

Lucy followed Gabe around all afternoon, learning some new tricks. "Watch this, Mommy!"

Nico is such a good baby. He's mellow and goes with the flow, and usually looks like he's doing some deep thinking. Totally unaffected by our two runs after Lucy.

Is this the sweetest? I really do have pictures in my mind of our kids being together for the next five years, maybe a vacation to Disney, etc. I'll post those pictures later.