A Saturday to Remember!

Today was simply a perfect day. This morning we took Colin out to the Pumpkin Patch and we had a wonderful time. This place was just unbelievable...I ended up with a half ton of pictures. There were hayrides, bounce houses, miles of pumpkins, mazes, food and drinks, and everything from Disney characters to scarecrows to get your picture taken with. It was a beautiful day met with bright sunshine and just the perfect time to play in the pumpkins. We met Colin's Mom Mom and Pop Pop out there and everyone had a good time. Colin was beyond ready for a nap by the time we left and he passed out immediately in the car and slept the whole way home. Here are some of the pictures...there were so many cute ones!!








After a quick trip home, we headed back out for another fall festival. We live next to a tiny town called Roanoke and they had their annual fall festival today. They have one tiny little main street and that was roped off to traffic and they had all kinds of things set up for a fun afternoon. I absolutely adored this and it reminded me of exactly why I love small town Texas. We had corn dogs and funnel cake for lunch and big glasses of the best homemade lemonade you ever tasted. They had all the firetrucks out for the kiddos to look at, as well as live country music, clown shows for the kids, face painting, bounce houses and even water balloon fights. Here is a picture of Colin enjoying his corn dog and our view from the picnic table we were sitting at. I plan to make this a yearly event for us and hope to have many more pictures in the years to come of our Pumpkin Patch/Fall Festival weekends.


As if all of that was not enough, the Fort Worth Air Show was also today. We live very close to the airport and decided to take our lawn chairs out to an empty stretch of land close to our house to watch the Thunderbirds. There is a new subdivision that has the streets paved, but the houses have not been built yet. It literally overlooks Alliance Airport, so it made the perfect vista to enjoy the show. There were loads of our neighbors there with the same idea and there were folks in their chairs and on their tailgates watching the show. The Thunderbirds took our breath away...it was amazing!! I thought Colin might have been scared with all the extremely loud air tricks, but he had a great time. It must be in his blood. :-) That finally concluded our day and Colin is sound asleep now. I can tell you that days like today remind me how very blessed I truly am. Just an amazing day.

Thursday Stuff

I knew that I needed to keep Colin busy this afternoon so that he would not think about being sleepy. I did a good job with that! First, we took a trip to Target to get sneakers and socks with grips for Colin. The mornings are slowly getting cooler in the house as the temps are dropping and I broke out my own house shoes for the first time in months today. The time for socks is growing near! After a fair amount of digging, I found some with grippers at Target and I hope there is enough grip to keep him from falling on all of our laminate flooring. The sneakers are pretty cute, but they don't seem nearly as comfy (obviously) as the expensive sandals that we got from Stride-Rite. Colin wears those everyday and they are so nice. I need to make a trip back there for a fall pair, but I have been holding off to make sure that I get a size that will last through the season.

When Jer got home, we all went back out to get Jer a new pair of dress shoes for work. DSW is right beside Central Market, so we headed over there afterwards for dinner on their patio. It was a special treat with the weather being so nice and Colin really had a great time. They have a great playground that uses torn pieces of tire for the flooring. It is very soft and springy, which is great to avoid injury, but boy was it dirty! Colin did not want to do anything but play in it and his hands were solid black. He then started running around the whole patio, which made several people laugh. One woman stopped me to tell me that Colin looked just like me. I get a lot of that, but I also have people that say he is an even mix of both of us. I always enjoy hearing the different takes people have on that. I think he smiles like I do, which is probably why the woman thought he looked like me last night. Colin and I were both cracking up at the time.

After Colin went to bed, Ellen and I went over to my friend Sally's house to basically watch her set up her garage sale, drink a margarita and rifle through her stuff. I did not get home until after 11pm, which is really late for me. I feel a bit like I snuck out of the house. :-)

Naps Continued...

I need to send out a great big thank you for all the comments about the naps. I find it incredibly helpful!!!! After hearing from you all, I see that Colin is right on track with the timing of losing the second nap. I have been really nervous to start the schedule change officially, but I see that it is time and I need to go ahead and follow his cues. Yesterday was the same pattern...he showed signs of being tired, but when put in his crib for the first nap, he refused to sleep. After an hour of playing in the crib, I took him back out. He was awake for maybe two hours and then finally passed out for an afternoon nap that was one hour long. Once again he had a fussy night and went to bed shortly after 7pm. Today I waited until about 10:15 to put him down. (the normal morning nap starts at 9:00). I rushed to take a shower thinking that he would probably not go down, but after 30 minutes of crib play, he did finally go to sleep. He slept until 11:45. I doubt that he will take a second nap, which will mean a fussy evening. Tomorrow I think I will attempt to push the nap until after 11:00am. If he could get two hours, I know he will be less upset in the late afternoon. I am going to try an hour of quiet crib time this afternoon and hope he will relax for a bit at least. Do you all have crib toys? Colin sleeps with two small stuffed animals. Maybe I should add a couple of toys in there to encourage quiet play. What do ya'll think?

We are also dealing with what I suppose is separation anxiety. Colin has stopped allowing me to put him down at all anymore. I can't decide if this is from being tired or not...but I cannot let go of him without major tears. He will walk around me crying the entire time I am trying to make dinner. The entire time. Jer usually gets home when I am finishing up dinner and Colin would play with him while I got everything done. Now he won't even do that...he simply wants me and that is it. In a complete show of desperation, I opened the back door last night and left it wide open while I made mashed potatoes. Colin was pleased as punch to step up and down from the house to the patio and it gave me a brief reprieve to finish my task. There were 10 flies to kill once I got the door shut, but I swear it was worth it. :-)

Naps and Fall Fun

Things are interesting around here at the moment. Colin is on the road to losing his second nap for sure now and I feel like I am just along for the ride at the moment. We have been having all sorts of nap battles for at least the last month. Some days are great and he takes two naps like always, but then lots of days are not so good and he takes one nap and battles the other one. The last 4 days have seen Colin skipping the morning nap. Before that, it was the afternoon nap that he would skip. If Colin is going to one nap now, I need to start helping him move that nap to the middle of the day. When he wakes up from a nap at 11:00am, it is far too long a stretch to be awake until 7:00pm and he gets really upset for the last two hours of the day. We have been experiencing a lot of fussy baby evenings around here lately. I am going to keep trying to follow my instinct and put him in bed if he is showing signs of being tired. He is fighting these naps tooth and nail, but I know he still needs them if he is getting that fussy by 5pm. I think my only option at this point is to hang on for the ride and keep trying to get him sleep. I can certainly see the difference switching up his schedule is making. He has woken up twice this week in the middle of the night, which he has not done since May. Colin is textbook....when sleep schedules get messed with, he starts night waking.

Yesterday Colin and I went on another picnic in the park and it was actually chilly in the shade!! I had us sitting at our usual table under the trees and ended up having to move into direct sunlight because it was too cool for Colin in his shorts!! How great is that?!?! Last night I made dinner with all the windows in the kitchen and living room open and Colin played on the patio with Jer with I cooked. It was so wonderful. Last night we even slept without the air on! I found a local farm that is tucked away behind our neighborhood (I can't believe this place exists and I just now found out!) and I plan to take Colin over to check it out today or tomorrow. This weekend we are taking him to the Pumpkin Patch (if the rain holds off), so we have a lot of fun outdoor activities to do in the next few days. I love fall!!!