Fall Fair

This week we went with my MIL and SIL and her family to a fall fair.

Steve and I poked through the barns to see all the prize winning crafts, baked goods, preserves, produce, crops and farm animals. The fall fairs are my favorite. As a kid I used to enter my rug hooking and needle points, my mother entered her birthday cakes baked from scratch then painstakingly iced into characters like Sesame Street's The Count or Raggedy Ann into the fair contest. We were so excited to win any ribbon - the best was the coveted blue one! Each province and state have their own specialty crops and livestock. My home town in eastern Ontario showed dairy cattle, wheat and sunola. This Fair in Eastern NC exhibits cotton, tobacco, soy and a wide variety of PORK products!

Beans, okra, jam, peppers.

Steve and the BIGGEST watermelon.

Aaaaaaah look Lucky! It's a mini pony!

Uncle Peve & Gavin ride the roller coaster in the front car.

The Finster and I - her FIRST time - on the Merry Go Round.

The tickets to ride were reasonable - a wrist band was $20.00 all you can ride. Most rides are 3-4 dollars each. There were no line ups which was great for our nephew Gavin. At 2.5 years was able to run from ride to ride with out having to exercise patience by standing in a line up.

We watched racing mini bulls, fed goats, looked at a variety of rabbits and hens in the 4-H barns, ate tacos, ( is it wrong to talk food in the same sentence as barnyard animals? Do they know they are part of the food chain?) corn dogs and I even tried a cob of corn roasted in it's husk, shucked and dipped in butter then sprinkled with Parmesan cheese! Delicious! I wanted to try a fried Twinkie but despite being advertised over the loudspeaker they were not available. I guess I'll have to head to the state fair to try one of those!

Happy 5 Months Baby P!

This is Baby P at 4 months

This months milestones include:

Screeching, mimicking, smiling without huge prompts, teething BIG TIME, her bottom left tooth is in, sitting up on her own, FINALLY going to others to be entertained, she used to just stick like glue to mommy and daddy.

She has discovered that if she drops a toy off the highchair it lands on the floor- it doesn't just disappear. This is based on her discovery of the dog below the chair. She loves to watch the dog and lunge after him when she is on the floor. This has resulted in a face plant. Poor kid.

She waves her hands at us for attention and she will raise her arms up to us when she wants to be picked up or go from one person to another.

She has STOPPED sleeping in her swing and wakes the second I leave her or put her down if I have nursed her to down sleep. This is a big step backwards. I used to get to shower and do some yoga while she took her morning nap. Now She is taking those naps while in the ergo. Back to square one. But, this may be a result of her being more independant while awake. She might want me nearer when she sleeps. It's a phase and it too shall pass as quickly as it started. I don't want to wish it away because she's getting so big and I will wish to snuggle her closely one day and she'll be off on her own.

The other AWESOME thing she has started to do is ARCH her back when I put her in the car seat and then scream and cry until she is hysterical while I try to drive anywhere. This week's visit to see Grandma a one hour car ride away took 1:4o minutes to get there and 1:20 minutes to get home as I had to pull over and take her out of her seat to calm her down. JAYZUZ.

We are continuing to work on:

Getting Finley to drink from a bottle or sippy cup, take naps independently, in our bed or her crib, and socialize with others.