Our ward Fall Festival and Trunk or Treat was this weekend!
After 3 other ideas, we finally decided on Olivia being a puppy for Halloween! She has had a special place in her heart for dogs forever, so I thought it was appropriate. People are always surprised at how much she loves dogs when they find out we don't have a dog and she didn't grow up with one around. It was kind of a last minute home made costume, but she was pretty cute if I do say so myself :)
She LOVED that she got to wear some make-up. Just a little lipstick and a black nose and whiskers :)
On our way!
I think maybe she's learned how to smile for the camera!
We sat by the Hansen's (there are 2 other Hansen families in our ward, haha) and the Howard girls. Emery was such a sweetheart to Liv and became her big sis for the night.
Going on stage for the children's costume parade
There was quite a turn out and 2 more rows of trunks!
I love seeing all those little pumpkin baskets!
Liv only made it around once and then just wanted to play on the stairs haha!
And now we're off again tonight for Halloween dinner and trick or treating with cousins!
We had a fun pumpkin painting playgroup one week this month. Liv is slowly learning how to interact with other kids. She is always super excited when I tell her in the mornings if we are going to get to play with kids on that day. We've had a lot of kids to play with lately (cousins, playgroup, nursery at church, halloween parties, and a play date with some of my friends from high school). She'll walk around saying "kids" and "bye-bye" meaning "let's go mom!", or when I reply and say"yeah we're going to see the kids today!" she'll just cover her mouth and giggle. The funny thing is, when we actually see the kids, she doesn't really play too much with them. For example on this day, all the kids were painting pumpkins so she went and played on the play set first. I had to start painting her pumpkin for her and then she realized she wanted to do it with everyone else. She marches to the beat of her own drum I guess.
Concentrating very hard:
She loves to line things up. She started with rocks (at our place in UT) and now even in nursery, during snack time, she lines up all her fruit snacks. I stayed with her one week and then was asked to sub the next. So much for teaching her to go in by herself, haha!
Lucy and Laney painting their pumpkins
I thought she looked adorable in her smock. I didn't take it off of her because I knew she'd go back for more painting. And she did.
The other day my mom pulled out some Halloween decorations and let Olivia hang some of the widows stickers. She learned all about witches and black cats (because she already knew what the pumpkins and spiders were).
Do you love the little finger prints all over the window? My poor parents.
She pulled this Halloween welcome mat {that my mom had inside in front of the front door in the foyer} into the living room where she kept saying, "tucky" which is what she says when she wants to get tucked in for bed. She totally pulled in over herself and then pretended to be asleep.
This girl is too funny!
This was also the day that B informed me that there was a spider in the bathroom, but not to be alarmed or do anything like try to kill it when I saw it, because he had been keeping it as a pet for the last few days. He and Liv have been getting tiny bugs from outside and bringing them in to feed this spider. His counter to my first response (which was obviously that we needed to go ahead and get rid of it immediately) was that it eats all the other bugs that might be around. I haven't seen any other bugs so maybe he's right. He also thought we should leave at least for Halloween because it was a good decoration.
I'll let it stay for a little longer, mostly because its so small and doesn't scare me too much.
As I'm writing this, he and Olivia have caught a lizard and are also keeping that as a pet.
My first suggestion was to feed the spider to the lizard :)
Oh and if you were wondering, she doesn't like to wear clothes when we're home. She understands that she has to put clothes on when we leave the house, but as soon as we come back home she takes them off.
Liv always wants to go outside first thing in the morning. Literally right when I pick her up out of bed she says, "outshide". Usually I tell her we have to wait, mostly because we all know I'm lazy in the morning and I don't wake up quite as quickly as she does. Sometimes though, I try to be fun and we go outside together (and if we're really lucky we all 3 get outside together). It is nice to go out in the morning because we've had a few really cool mornings. This particular morning, as you can tell by her clothes, I was tired and trying to throw on anything warm she had. It looks like she stepped right out of an anime cartoon or a Hello Kitty store.
We've done several nature walks and she thinks that acorns are the coolest things ever. Now we just go out to collect acorns (forget about the leaves). Then she brings them back to put on the pumpkins we have on the front porch.
Last week, when Liv was supposed to be in sacrement meeting, she was in a classroom drawing some of her very first smiley faces. They are pretty cute and despite the fact that I was sad she didn't stay in with me, (she had stayed the whole time the past 2 weeks before this and I thought we were done needing to go out to the foyer, especially because both meetings went 30 mins over and she still stayed) I think they're pretty good for a new 2 year old :) Also, I love how her lips pucker out when she's drawing.
I need to mention that the weather dropped 25 degrees and it was absolutely perfect! I've never been to this fair without it being pretty hot, but this day was amazing. Notice my scarf and Liv's cardigan. You don't always get to wear those things in Texas at this time of year.
We continued to "fair" by eating some fried foods. They have all kinds of fried stuff from fried moon pies, s'mores, ding dongs, and apple pie to fried lemonade and beer (how is that possible?). We tried the fried bubblegum because it was the 2011 winner. I wasn't a fan, but my dad liked it.
We walked around and enjoyed some music, first was an Irish band that Liv was seriously digging, then a little more walking got us to a country band. While listening to the country music, B decided to get a nasty smoked turkey leg. Nasty to me, not to him or (apparently) Liv. She was chowing. down. on that thing.
See.
A little later my mom, dad, and I got some corn dogs, and we all walked through a couple of exhibits (arts and crafts and then as seen on tv demonstration stuff). And even later we all got a funnel cake to share, but lets be serious. I ate over half of that by myself. It was seriously the. best. funnel cake. ever. It might be making an appearance later on. Get excited.
We stopped by a magic show where they had the kids sit right in front on "grass" and the adults sat behind on benches. Liv was enjoying being out of her stroller, and entertaining the adults :) She picked just the right time to try and learn how to somersault.
Right in the middle of the fair is the Cotton Bowl football stadium
We headed over to the Midway to look at all the crazy rides and impossible games.
And then we hopped on the Sky Tram to get the bird's eye of it all. We happend to go up during the sunset and got to see the Dallas skyline behind the Texas Star Ferris Wheel (which is HUGE by the way). It was pretty awesome, but these photos are not that awesome. Why have I STILL not learned how to use my camera? Sorry.
Getting tired.
Stopped by the car show, and let Liv get some wiggles out.
She wanted to keep trying for that somersault :)
And then it was time for the laser/light show! Liv stayed down on the sidewalk with my mom so she could dance to the loud music they were playing before the show.
Not a great video, but that girl of ours sure is cute. The first part is her dancing to the Irish band, and the second part is her before the light show. Also, she "lost" her pants somewhere between the car show and here :)
You can see it a little at the end, but kids kept coming over to dance with her.
Here's that funnel cake! Not a good pic because I was too embarrassed to let B take another pic with flash while the light show was going on! That's real chocolate on there folks, no nasty store bought chocolate syrup. And the cream so yummy and cool so it almost tasted like ice cream. Nom nom.
After the show, we checked out the other half of the car show, and then one more exhibit hall. The fair just isn't the fair without cotton candy, so we had to buy a bag on our way out to take home.
Fog coming from some haunted fun house.
Liv had her first taste of cotton candy. She wasn't sure about it because it looks and feels like a ball of cat fur, but we told her it was candy so she tried it. Her face was priceless as it changed from concerned to pure joy! Later she was asking me to wipe her hands because they were sticky and completely covered in the stuff, and while I was wiping she said, "Mama, its candy! Its yummy candy!"
Yes, yes it is.
Grampy and Liv
After the 10 lb weight gain, we were all tuckered out :)
