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!

The zoo

We've been trying to make the most of our sitting-around-waiting-for-orders time, and since fall finally decided to come to Florida and the weather was pretty pleasant we decided to go to the zoo yesterday. It was a pretty small zoo, and definitely a little overpriced for what it was, but we still had fun. We got T one of those little kid leashes, so she wouldn't have to be in the stroller, but she wasn't too interested in wearing it. Pretty much any time we put it on her she insisted on being held. She also insisted on pushing the stroller when she wasn't riding in it. We definitely were NOT allowed to help her steer.



They had a little petting zoo area, with goats, sheep, llamas, and pigs. Oh, and they had tons of chickens and turkeys just wandering around freely. T liked the goats, and when we got to the sheep she kept saying 'baa' to them.





She liked the giraffes until they got a little too close. Then she started leaning away and telling them 'bye'.


One of the nice things about it being a smaller zoo was we were able to let T just walk on her own for most of it. There weren't a ton of other people there so she loved being able to do her own thing. She walked on her own until we got to the monkeys. They had some siamangs that were putting on quite a show, swinging around their cage and stuff, and the male was SO loud! He was whooping and screeching a ton, and it really freaked Tressa out. She started saying 'bye' to them and crawling back in her stroller. After that she was happy to just ride for the rest of the zoo. We took a break to play on the slides and ride the train. T kept trying to bail over the side of the train, so that was pretty awesome.





While we were waiting for the train, I thought Teresa might want to ride this zebra. I was wrong. Mean parents that we are, we made her stay on for the whole ride. I mean, we didn't want to just waste our fifty cents!



I'm gonna blame it on the fact that this was towards the end of our visit, and she was pretty tired.

And, in case anyone is interested, here's a 21 week belly shot. I can't believe we're already more than halfway done! This pregnancy has gone way faster than T's, thank goodness!

The Duck Herder

Tressa loves ducks. Especially the ducks outside our apartment. We occasionally go outside and give them a little bit of cereal or other little tid bits of food, and they can't get enough. She loves to throw the food herself and insists on being in the middle of them. We were a little hesitant at first, as the older ducks were very aggressive, but the newer, younger group seems to be a little more easy going and patient. They were still bold enough to eat the cereal right out from between her little feet though. Here are a few pictures from our latest outing:


T loves ducks!


A little too close? Not for me! That cereal looks tasty, though.


I don't know if she's following or herding. :o)




Hey! Get back here!

So much for Mother's intuition.

Because I was so completely sure that we were going to have a boy this time! Seriously, I could not have been more surprised when we found out today that we are having another little girl! I knew Teresa was a girl pretty much as soon as I got pregnant with her, so I thought I had a pretty good track record of guessing the gender. And I was really feeling boy this time. My confidence faltered a little when the heartbeat was 156, cause I know girls usually have a higher heartbeat, but I was still shocked when we saw the proof. That means Marc wins the bet :(. But, I'm super excited, we were hoping for another little girl, I wanted T to have a sister, and now we don't have to buy as much new stuff! Not that I won't still buy her a ton of stuff, I'm sure...it's been hard resisting all the cute little baby clothes at the store lately, so I'm glad we know now!

This pregnancy has been so, so much less miserable than Teresa's. I felt much sicker the first three months this time, but I definitely didn't throw up as many times, which was awesome. I'd rather feel like death all day as long as I don't have to actually throw up! And I've already been feeling a lot better and less exhausted the past week or so, and with T I was crazy sick for the whole first five months. So, that's been a nice blessing. I haven't had a ton of cravings so far, unless you count the time Marc brought home Wendy's chili for lunch and it was the best thing I'd ever eaten IN MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE. And then I couldn't stop thinking about it all day and I made him bring me more for dinner. He was smart and brought enough for the next day as well. Luckily that didn't last very long, though. Unfortunately pretty much everything else I've gotten a craving for are from places in Utah, so that's been kind of a bummer.

Teresa will pat my belly and say 'baby' over and over again, and give it kisses when we ask, but I don't think she knows why she's actually doing it. She probably thinks it's weird that we keep referring to my tummy as a baby now...

The only down side to it being a little girl is that we were pretty much set on a boy name, but have been having the hardest time picking a girl name! We have the list narrowed down to about 14 now, and I'm thinking we'll probably have to actually see her before we choose one for sure. Unlike with T, where we had her name chosen practically before we got married!

The internet doesn't lie, right?

I just took a bunch of different gender prediction tests online and they all say we're having a girl. Hmmm...I really think it's a boy, so one of us is wrong! Hopefully we will find out on Thursday! So if you have any guesses, now's your chance....