punkin feztible

i am so happy that fall has arrived and in full force on this cold, rainy saturday. i love a good stay-in-the-house-cozied-up kind of day but i found myself longing for the outdoor fun we had last weekend at The Four Mile Historic Park Pumpkin Festival—or as marianne says "punkin feztible." we met up with our friends, the andersons, while we were there and the girls (marianne and maryn) had a blast. it was such a great little festival—free admission and both free/very inexpensive fun activities for the kids, plus most of the festival-workers were dressed in wild frontier period costume. we panned for gold; spun wool yarn; played tug-o-war; ate apple cider donuts, hot snicker-doodles and kettle corn; explored the pumpkin patch; rode the horse-drawn covered wagon; and although we passed on making a life-sized scarecrow marianne enjoyed filling her own pants with straw while climbing and clambering all over the hay bales.

panning for gold...marianne preferred throwing rocks in her pan and
then dunking them into the water as opposed to panning silt from the
trough. maryn, however, scored several gold nuggets for her efforts.

there was a huge play yard with several games like wooden stick horses,
stilts, and tug-o-war. the girls pulled each other all over the yard...
giggling the whole way.

marianne was desperate to find a small pumpkin that she could actually
pick up on her own. we scoured the entire patch a few times over with
no success. she was so focused that she refused/ignored my requests to
let me get a picture of her actually looking at the camera.

she tried...but it was too heavy!

from the moment we arrived, marianne saw the wagons and begged the
entire time to ride! at $3 for the both of us...who could refuse. i was
thinking of grandpa george the entire time.

it looks like she's miserable but i assure you she had a blast...but to my
complete frustration she rarely obliges my request to smile for the
camera (much like her daddy).

as you might be able to tell from marianne's rosy cheeks, it was a little too warm to be ideal fall festival weather but it got both of us extremely excited for fall and halloween. i broke out my handful of halloween decorations yesterday and we've been working on some handmade paper decorations to transform this home into a haunt!

jesse corduroy

we've been talking to marianne about her baby brother (due dec 10) as much as we can with the unsquashable expectation that she will welcome him with open arms when we bring him home and become instantly attached to him. it's that easy, right? ok, i'm not completely off my rocker—we are prepared for any possible reaction marianne might have to a new baby in the house but i'm sure hoping that the more we talk about him that she won't be absolutely unnerved when the day comes. over the past six months, her comprehension and interest in the subject has fluctuated from curiosity, to aversion, to excitement, and all in between. she's gone with us to the "baby doctor" (as she calls my ob) for the ultrasound appointments to get a glimpse of him and hear his heartbeat. and although he's hasn't been very cooperative in giving the u/s tech very good profile "photos" for us, anatomically everything is looking healthy. our ob even gave us a follow-up ultrasound at 28 weeks to double-check everything to put our minds at ease given everything that we've been through with marianne's kidneys through pregnancy and postnatal. as a side note, i've switched practices and am seeing a completely different ob with this pregnancy and i am loving how amazing, amenable, and responsive she has been about every concern, every step of the way.

baby boy laflen : 13 weeks

baby boy laflen's feet : 20 weeks

in the last couple of months we've been talking increasingly more about names for the little guy—who has taken on the pregnancy nickname 'hank' since we found out he does indeed have a penis (or, at least, a scrotum which is all that we've seen...even so i think it's safe to assume that the twig is there as well). it's highly likely we won't name him until after he's born. which is when we named marianne, mostly because we simply hadn't decided between our top three favorites. but, in retrospect, having the opportunity to meet her got me to a place of absolute certainty that the name belonged to her, however relatively brief those eight hours between birth and naming her. so we're working on names for hank (which we have decided to keep a surprise!!!) and have periodically asked marianne to weigh in. now keep in mind that she chooses rather transparent names for her stuffed animals ("pink meow meow" for her pink cat, "brown doggy" for her brown dog, "piglet" for her pink/white striped pig...you get the picture) so the first option she gave us was "baby brother". makes sense. then, a couple of weeks ago she decided that "princess" was a viable choice. to which, of course, momma and daddy were not as convinced. yesterday, she pointed to my belly and said "that's my baby brother." i figured, while she had brought up the topic, i'd ask her for another opinion on his name. without hesitation she declared that his name should be "jesse corduroy" — no doubt, derived from toy story 2's cowgirl jessie and the bear from the classic children's book corduroy (a couple of her current favorites). hmmmmmmm.........well, i guess if he comes out wearing a cowboy hat and green overalls we won't be able to argue, now will we?

i suppose i'll subject myself now, to a little humiliation. here's the progress on the burgeoning hank belly:

16 weeks

























24 weeks

...and he is going to KILL ME but i cannot resist to post this : sympathy belly 16 weeks

i'll leave you with something genuinely cute...a "kids say the darnedest things" moment:
marianne has been rather opinionated lately. this weekend, i scored a cute new yellow purse for $8 at the thrift store (thanks to my good friend, amy, who is schooling me in awesome thrifty finds)! i've been carrying the same green purse for 6 months now, so i thought it was time for a change and the price was right. sunday afternoon, marianne and i were on the way to a birthday party and marianne (who, from her spot in the seat behind me, has a clear shot of the front passenger seat where my purse rides) asks, sounding rather disgusted, "where's the green purse?"

i told her i changed to this new yellow purse.

"oh."

several moments pass and then comes a quite definite, "i like the green purse."

for what it's worth, i haven't switched back to the green purse...yet.

marianne (right) with the birthday girl, maia

front porch relaxin'

kickin' back + blowing bubbles on this fantastic autumn afternoon.

boys

i'm not sure what it its but Marianne is some kind of boy magnet. first it was Desmond...then Felix + Kian at her first daycare...and now Max, Andrew, + Gavin at her new school. one of her teachers was telling me that "Marianne is always hanging out with the boys" and that Marianne will put on one of the dress up skirts to dance and before long she'll have 2 or 3 of the boys wearing dress up skirts and dancing right along with her. at least she's learned early how to make them bend to her will.


the other night at dinner, daddy asked her about her day at school and she announced that she had danced with max that day. Jerry wasn't impressed and being the protective daddy he is, he asked her if there are any girls who go to her school...to which Marianne replied, "nope". I met max's mom recently and she told me that max calls Marianne his girlfriend and is always talking about her at home.


honestly, I can't question her taste...he's a cute little guy with dark hair and dark eyes. Reminds me of someone I know. Here she has him running races with her in the school yard. (Running/racing is one of her favorite games!) And then playing with the fire truck...I like how she wanted to operate the hose and he obliged.

also, i added the option to follow my blog by email (get email updates when i post)—find it in the right column. sign up if you'd like. i do my best to post a link on facebook too but i'm hoping to post more regularly and don't want to inundate my fb wall with obnoxious blog links.

and i'm back

i've been working on my blogging comeback...most of which has required getting up to date on filing and sorting photos, which is quite a job when you're a year behind. but tonight i got out of my comfort zone and took some time to get better acquainted with my  smartphone. the apps they have for these things are no joke handy. i am now equipped to blog remotely...and I give you (if there are actually any of "you" still checking/reading my blog) my first mobile post:

sick day

nothing makes me softer than a sick baby girl. marianne's usually not the down and out type of sick kid...it's actually hard to get her to rest & take it easy. but last week she came down with croup and it hit her hard. she napped twice that day and melted to the couch after the late-day siesta. i could barely peel myself away from her...can you blame me with a sad lil face like that? a persistent fever, barky cough, two coughing spasms that turned-her-lips-blue, and a call to the nurses' line later and we were headed to the e.r. at midnight. with that one healthy dose of steroid she kicked croup's ass and called it a day.

can't wait for the bill...

quotable

lately i've been thinking how i need to start one of those "quotable moments" journals for the riotous things marianne is starting to say. and it dawned on me that my (severely neglected) blog is the perfect venue...

...today we were driving past elitch gardens amusement park and she said, "look, momma." to which i replied, "what is it, baby?" and she pointed out the window at the roller coasters and excitedly squealed, "a BIG playground!"

she's been all about distinguishing big from small. little rock. big rock. little cup. big cup. little book. big book. and she's counting to 6...however she has some beef with the number "5" because she adamantly leaves it out every time—"...3, 4, 6." she sings her alphabets and gets just about every letter in there. she loves to sing "baa baa black sheep" and "humpty dumpty" and gets such a kick out of playing ring-around-the-rosies with momma, her stuffed cat (mowww mowww), and her stuffed dog (doggie). she talks about her friends from school, felix and kian, a lot (i think she misses them since she's only going to daycare two days a week now. and they must miss her because the teachers say they ask about her all of the time and they swarm her with hugs and kisses when i drop her off). she's funny and witty and uses facial expressions (esp her eyebrows) to accentuate her words. she amazes me and makes me laugh everyday.

my baby is 2.

what?

it's cliche but it feels like only a blink, a breath, a moment ago i was staring the e.p.t. blue + sign in the face bewildered and thinking "what have i done." which, of course, quickly changed to elation. but that joy was nothing compared to what i've experienced with her everyday since i met her two years ago. her smile warms my belly and her hugs melt me.

i know i owe you a lot more from the past six months but i'm gonna start with her 2-year birthday and fill in the gaps when i can.

this photo says it all. i'm 2. i don't care what you want me to do.

singing chipmunks card from nam-mah and grandpa.

chocolate bunny from uncle dale.

superman costume from nana and papa.

birthday playdate at the science museum with desmond.

couldn't get the two of them in the shot...from afar they were intrigued but up close they were a little bit scared of the three-story dinosaur.

two burning candles just for me.

getting frosted...

brian and brianna came over for the evening to help us celebrate...marianne has quite a crush on both of them and despite the fact that brian keeps threatening to buy her a broncos jersey that they'll keep for her to wear at their house, we continue to trust her in their care on a regular basis.

my bilibo. a hat? a shell? a seat? a stepstool? yes.

disaster zone.

we've had so many birthdays in the past month (daddy, uncle eric, marianne, uncle jeff, momma, papa, madeline, peyton, nana, stella) that she now knows the happy birthday song and sang it for her nana's birthday and stella's birthday. happy birthday everyone.