Circleville Pumpkin Festival

A couple weekends ago we ventured down to Circleville for their annual pumpkin festival.

My boss told me to keep my expectations low. "If you're expecting some charming Norman Rockwell affair, you'll be disappointed", he warned. He said it used to be like that years ago, but now it's just a mess.

I tried to heed his advice, but I was still expecting something at least resembling a small town fair.

Wrong.

It began with some truly insane traffic. My adventurous husband found a back road that saved us another hour of waiting on Route 23. Then we parked in some guy's backyard for $5 and walked a couple blocks downtown.

It was a mess.

Thousands of people crammed into this tiny downtown area, so many food vendors set up on every square inch of space, it made the Ohio State Fair food alley seem quaint. And hardly any of the food was pumpkin related. I mean, they had everything from fair fries to Chinese food to pizza. At a pumpkin festival.

We did manage to find a pumpkin funnel cake, which was good, but seriously, we couldn't even get close enough to the 1000 pound pumpkins to let the kids see them. Which was the whole reason I wanted to go.

It was a bust. We'll never go again and I warn anyone considering it to rethink that decision.

But we did have some laughs and had a family adventure and learned a tough but valuable lesson - my boss is usually right.

Here's a couple of shots of the kids we managed to get when the throngs of people cleared away for ten seconds.

Trick or Treat in Newcomerstown

After Sam's school party, we headed to Newcomerstown for Mom and Dad's trick or treat night.

It is one of my favorite days of the year to be at my parents' house. It's the cooler weather and the beautiful drive with all the changing colors and hills of trees, the warmth and delicious smells that radiate from my mother's oven this time of year, the fun of sitting on the porch and watching hundreds of kids come by for candy...I just wanted to share it with my kids.

I brought both of their costumes, but Sam didn't want to put his on again. Lena was all about it, though, so she wore hers the whole night.

We had a great time handing out (and eating way too much) candy and seeing all the costumes. It was a wonderful visit!

Sam's Preschool Halloween Party

My boy's first school Halloween party, complete with parade and a couple of songs. Sam's dressed as Bumblebee the Transformer, his very favorite thing right now. Isn't he the cutest?

Grant's Birthday

A little late, but Happy Birthday, Granty Pants!

Grant's birthday party was the day after Jill's wedding. It was a beautiful day, there were lots of kids there and we all had such fun.

I cannot believe that my youngest nephew is 5. Grant, with his tiny nose and big voice and love of anything athletic, couldn't be any sweeter. It was certainly a day to celebrate!

Love you, buddy!

Jill's Wedding

I'm such a blogging slacker lately. I have a lot to catch up on.

First is cousin Jill's shower and wedding.

My photos of the wedding are a little awful. Forgive me. I forgot to bring our good camera, so I had to use our Bloggie, which is a great little camera for ease of use, size, videos, and takes good outside photos. But anything inside is washed out and blurry. Ergo, the dull looking pictures of a fun wedding reception for my cousin Jill and her new hubby, Dave.

Congrats, you two!

Lena...

Peed on the potty! Hip, hip hurray, Lena!

Last weekend she told me she pooped in her diaper, which is a first (her telling me, not her pooping in her diaper), so I thought we'd give it a shot. I made her a potty chart and we tried a few times to no avail.

Then last night before bed, I was just getting ready to put her jammies on when she reminded me, "Potty!". So there she sat, naked as a jaybird, all hunched over looking into the toilet like she was expecting something to jump out of it. Sam, also naked as a jaybird, ran in the bathroom to cheer her on. I was telling him to be quiet when we heard it.

We all instantly fell silent and listened.

Then one of a mother's most precious sounds came tinkling from the toilet - her child's first pee on the potty.

I tend to get a little overemotional about potty training (imagine that), so of course I shouted and cheered and clapped and praised. Sam and Daddy joined in. And the smile on my baby girl's face was so sweet and proud. She put her little hands up over her head and cheered along with us.

I had a few tears in my eyes as we ran downstairs to put a sticker on Lena's potty chart...her very first sticker on her very first chart.

Too Much, Too Little...

Do you ever have so many thoughts racing through your head that you can't iterate a single one of them properly?

I do. All the time.

Especially the last two months, hence the lack of blogging. I have about five unfinished drafts saved about religion ("Fan or Follower"), moods ("I'm Grumpy"), disappointment ("Expecting Too Much?"), among others. I just can't seem to bring one thought all the way through to conclusion. It's so frustrating.

Maybe it's because we've been busy:

Sam is really enjoying preschool and was the class leader one day this week;

Sam is still going to weekly 30-minute sessions for speech therapy, though I feel he's kind of plateaued;

We all got flu shots;

We visited the Olentangy Indian Caverns (waste of money was the consensus);

We also visited the Velvet Ice Cream Factory in Utica (which was awesome);

Lena has been talking up a storm, some of which we can actually understand;

Lena has been cracking us up lately, too, showing her personality a little more (which is such a treat to watch);

The kids are all set for Halloween (Sam will be a Transformer and Lena a little bee);

We had a bag of rotten acorns tucked away on the kitchen counter that I forgot about, which created a very small maggot situation (the most disgusting, unnerving thing for a clean-freak, worm/grub phobic woman like myself);

Sam's class was exposed to head lice last week (that was a fun note to find in the bag after school);

I finished The Hunger Games trilogy and am almost finished with The Passage (both of which have also taken up a lot of blogging time);

Mom had a follow-up test and, so far, she's cancer free (AMEN!);

Mom also found the a doctor who finally diagnosed her trigeminal neuralgia and put her on a wonder drug that has relieved the severe facial pain she's been battling for over a year (double AMEN!);

Dad's busy season is as crazy as ever, but we have seen a little more of him this year than years past, which is wonderful;

We've only gotten to one game per nephew this fall, except Jack (hoping to catch his last one tomorrow morning);

Tomorrow afternoon is cousin Jill's wedding; and

Sunday is Grant's 5th birthday (what? when did that happen?).

Lot's going on at our house and in our family!

And lots going on in my head.

Maybe I'll be able to sift though some of it this weekend...though I'm not holding my breath.