baby's 2nd Halloween

Unlike Baby's 1st Halloween, which involved dressing G up in various costumes and snapping pics while we laughed at the cuteness, this Halloween we decided to actually do some real celebrating. The Nashville zoo has a fantastic fall fest called Ghouls at Grassmere. Most of the festivities went right over his head, but he still had fun running around like crazy.

G was the dragon, I was the princess (ha), and Dave was the knight. Cute, right? I know it's kind of sick, but we only have a few years to force the kid into whatever costume we want, so we went for it.

He didn't let us put on the hat until later, and those booties had to come off right after we got there. But he was still freakin' adorable.

He was a little unamused on the hay ride. But he loosened up toward the end of it and happily pointed out everything he saw.

How cute is this dragon? I could kiss that face all day long.

I highly recommend Ghouls at Grassmere if you're in middle Tennessee and looking for something to do this Halloween!

wordless wednesday: mommy and G

(photo by my mama)

out on the farm

I've always loved Fall, with its Halloween and Thanksgiving (though Spring is definitely my favorite season). Neither one of us had really done the whole pumpkin patch thing, usually getting our pumpkins from, cough, the grocery store. This year, we decided to take G to a real pumpkin patch on a real farm and have that traditional Fall moment.

I kept my expectations kinda low, but I would say it was definitely worth the drive. G had a blast, and we all got to enjoy the sunshine, which was so abundant it was actually kinda hot. We didn't buy any pumpkins, though, because we're out of town for a good portion of October and just don't have the time to do anything with them. (The hubs is going to a wedding in Connecticut for three days, is home for a day, and then we all ship out to Miami for my cousin's wedding. Yaaay!)

Ahem.

So we went to Gentry's Farm, a totally cute place. I can really see G have tons of fun once he's a bit older and able to do more of the activities.

They had a corn maze. It was rather bumpy, so G had some difficulty walking.

Lots of cute photo ops...

Mama, where are you going?

What is this orange thing?

Come get me now?

They had troughs of grain and corn to play in. G loved this part. Gives me hope that he'll like the sand at the beach too. We've have to make sure to get him a shovel.

He rode a little tractor.

And then we rode behind a big tractor.

All in all, tons of fun. I'm pretty sure we'll go again next year too. Our Halloween festivities will conclude with going to the Ghouls at Grassmere Halloween event at the Nashville. We have our tickets, so I think we're going this Friday. That means I need to hem G's costume - eek!

Anyway, happy fall!

fall = lots of park time

Now that the weather is finally starting to cool down (many weeks of 100+ days, anyone?), we've been really hitting up our Nashville parks. Now that G is able to walk around everywhere, we can kind of put him down and turn him loose at a park. We've been doing without a stroller at the zoo, too, and he knows where he wants to go - first to the outdoor play area for toddlers, then to the indoor aquarium. Of course, he usually refuses to walk after all of that, so he has to be carried out. Heh.

Taking him out and about is quite an adventure nowadays. Sometimes he'll cooperate. Sometimes he'll throw a huge hissy fit at every little thing you don't let him do.

Such as pitching himself into nasty pond water at Centennial Park.

I love this park, and so does G. It's just full of wide open spaces for him to run full-force and explore.

Every once in a while, he'd notice my camera and try to poke at it. I love this serious, curious face.

Poke, poke.

We had a few photo-ops as well. He's surprisingly willing to sit still, especially when he's allowed to sit all by himself.

I zoomed in really close on this photo because his stance and face made me laugh. What, mama? Stand here? Should I put my hands in my pockets?

A guy was singing and playing on his guitar. G went right up to him and stood just like this with the most serious expression on his face. He would have stayed there longer than just two songs if I hadn't nudged him a bit to get him walking again.

And of course, baby loves to swing!

Once he got tired, Dave hefted him on his shoulders, and we all walked back to the car. He was pooped.

Gotta love days like this. They're predicting a hot winter, but I'm hoping this just means we'll have more outdoor days before things get too cold.