Pumpkin patch and pumpkin fail

Since Marc has time off this week, we've been able to do lots of fun stuff together as a family. Yesterday we took Teresa to her first pumpkin patch. She loved getting to run around, and was super interested in the pumpkins. She kept pointing to some and chattering about them. Oh, if we only knew what she was saying! She was pretty irritated when she tried to pick one up and couldn't. She was NOT interested in the corn maze, we would get about two steps in and she would make a break for the exit. Maybe next year. Here are about a billion pictures of T with the pumpkins. Seriously, we took about 200 pictures, so this is WAY narrowed down :).





This was our view for most of the visit, actually. She was too preoccupied with all the pumpkin-ness to pay much attention to Mom and Dad.












We didn't buy a pumpkin there, of course, since they were $8 - $15, and Wal-Mart has them for 3 bucks, but we did get some yummy apple cider and local apples. T is a big fan of apples recently, so she was pleased with that.

When we got home, we were feeling all fall-y and wanted to make something with pumpkin. Our friend Lindsey made us a pumpkin roll a few years ago, and it was pretty much one of the best things we've ever eaten, so we decided to try and make one ourselves. I looked up a bunch of recipes online, and they all said it was much easier to make than it looks, so we figured we could do it. Yeah. It was pretty much an epic pumpkin fail. This is what it was supposed to look like:



This is what ours ended up looking like:



It was pretty sad. But, I think I know what we need to do differently, so maybe next time we will have more success. Besides, it still tasted the same, so I guess it wasn't a total loss.

Maryland

We finally made it to Maryland last week! Teresa did okay in the car, although after we got here she started putting up a huge fight whenever we would try to strap her in to her car seat. I guess she was worried we were gonna make her stay there all day again. It was actually a really nice drive from Florida to Maryland, and we were excited to stop in Atlanta to see some friends from BYU. T is thrilled with our backyard, she would spend all day out there if she could. (I'm thrilled that there is a fence, so I don't have to chase her the whole time). She's pretty funny to watch, we'll go outside and she'll just run in circles til she's exhausted. It rained all day Thursday and she just stood in front of the windows all day staring outside, poor girl.

The movers got here with our stuff on Friday, and we're starting to get unpacked and settled in a little. T was very excited to unpack her crib and toys, and especially her books. Our movers were really awesome, they totally contradicted all the horror stories I'd heard about moving with the Army. (They were so good I even forgave them for calling T a boy half the morning, and then finally having to ask me straight out if she was a boy or a girl. Umm, I promise I wouldn't dress my little boy in a bright purple flowered shirt and put him in pink shoes. Also, they knew she was a girl in Florida, so I'm not sure when that would have changed). They actually got here early both in Pensacola and Maryland. I felt a little bad making them haul all our boxes of books up the stairs, since they were both 60-ish. The packers were a whole different story from the movers, though. They literally just shoved all our stuff in to boxes. We unpacked our sheets and comforter, and they had just wadded it all up into a ball and crammed it in a box. We also learned pretty quick that they were very loose with their labeling. Just because they wrote 'clothes' on the box didn't mean there would actually be any clothing in it. At least it made unpacking a little more exciting, I guess, we never knew what we might get when we opened a box! While we were unpacking I realized that this is our 5th move (6th if you count the first time we moved in together right after our wedding)! We haven't even been married for three years yet! Marc has a 5 year stabilization clause with his job, which means we should only have to move every 5 years from here on out (assuming we stay in the Army, of course).

Maryland is totally different. The weather is actually very fall-y up here, we've been enjoying nice chilly mornings and evenings. And it is SO dry. Not to complain, since I did enough of that about the humidity in Florida, but I really didn't think it was supposed to be this much drier up here. We are all definitely feeling the adjustment. Poor T has little dry skin patches going on, and we are going through lotion like crazy. I'm sure we'll adjust eventually, though. Apparently people are supposed to be less friendly up here, too. That's seemed to be true so far, although I suppose it's not really fair to make that comparison since we're coming from Florida. I thought people in Texas were friendly, but when we got to Florida I was totally blown away by how nice and friendly everyone there was. So it's definitely a bit different here. Especially the drivers. They're definitely not afraid of tailgating here.

Oh, and just to make the post worth it, here are some pictures of T. These are from a rest stop in North Carolina. T was so excited to get out of the car for a while. We let her run around for about 40 minutes. She was not excited to get back in the car. She is really into her 'baby' right now, she has to have it with her, or at least within sight at all times. Being the smart mom that I am, I packed her baby away before the packers came so we would have it in the car with us. Then I promptly forgot where I had stashed it. Luckily, Wal-Mart had the same exact baby, but a different color (and luckily it was only 4 dollars) so T put up with that on the drive here. We found her original baby when we got here (tucked safely in the front pocket of her backpack, of course), so she immediately ditched the new baby for her old one.







The rest are from today, in her Halloween dress before church

Pointing out an airplane. It's her new thing.


The cable guy left this in our yard when he came to install the internet, and T has adopted it as her new yard toy. Our backyard has quite a slope to it, so she loves to push it and watch it roll down the hill and hit the fence.




Going into a spin...

Swinging

We took T to the little playground here in our complex last week. It's not too far of a walk, but we really don't go there very often. It's about as toddler-unfriendly as a playground could be. They only have regular swings, and everything else is all metal and rusty. Plus, there are about a billion stickers there. We seriously get at least seven every time we go. We do like that they are one of the few playgrounds to still have an oh-so-dangerous merry go round.

Anyway, I usually just sit T in my lap to swing, but last week she decided that was no longer good enough. I don't know if all 16 month olds are like this, but T is incredibly independent. She has no interest in getting help from us for just about anything anymore. So, since she was so insistent, we went ahead and let her try out the big kid swings on her own. It only took one time of letting go of the handles and falling off for her to figure it out.

And no, she doesn't wear the same clothes every day, these are from the same day we went to the zoo ;)



Doesn't she look so old in these pictures? Marc rudely told me she was almost two last week. Not cool. She's not even half way there yet!



She loves drinking from Marc's camelbak, her water intake has increased by about a thousand percent since she figured out how to use it.


I love this picture, too bad about all the shadows on her face!


In other news, we finally got our orders on Friday! I was totally shocked, because Marc was told that they had come in on Thursday, but they were incorrect so they had to send them back. I was fully expecting it to be another week at least before they got us the correct ones, so we were pleasantly surprised yesterday. The earliest we'll get movers here is Wednesday, but it could even be another 7-10 days before they come. Obviously Wednesday would be our preference, but I'm just so glad things are finally progressing with this move!