Halloween

Michaela was very excited for Halloween this year, especially after she found our bowl of candy that was supposed to be passed out to the trick-or-treaters. She kept going back to the bowl and digging out another piece to bring to us and say "open it?"

We didn't get many pictures of her that night. She was so busy we couldn't get her to stand still.
Our pumpkin looked great at the end of our front walk.

The next morning Michaela had me take her for a spin around the kitchen on her plasma car.

Then we fed the geese in the backyard. This Canadian goose has a broken wing and often hangs around our house. Michaela calls him Mr. Goosey, I call her Lucy. Obviously we have no clue if it's a boy or girl. Anyway, Lucy is always so friendly and polite and never pushy. I love how she looks like she's smiling in this picture.

Now this white goose is another story. He's always so obnoxious and hisses non-stop. If he sees us feeding Lucy he'll honk loudly and half run/half fly over to us. He'll then crash land and start chasing Lucy around the yard, biting her on the tail or her broken wing. I wish we could convince this goose to leave, but it looks like we're stuck with him.

Zoo with Nana

My mom came up for the weekend and spent Saturday at the zoo while Craig and I worked. Their first stop was the lorikeet exhibit, where Michaela sat patiently and waited for the birds to eat her nectar. Apparently she was as still as a statue the whole time.

How many 2 year olds can be this good with birds?
Then they visited the goats. Michaela and this goat took a walk around the enclosure together. My mom said it was as if Michaela thought she had a leash and just led the goat around.

Up next was Michaela's favorite part of the day. My mom had promised that Michaela could ride the carousel as many times as she wanted. I warned her that they may end up sleeping there. Mom said she didn't care - her job as a grandmother was to do these sort of things.

Well of course Michaela was excited about this!

So how many rides did they take? 14!!! Each ride was a different animal, and Michaela would plot out which was next. As they got off of one Michaela would immediately head to the next.

My mom got pictures of 13 out of 14 animals, but I won't bore you with all of them.

I just love this picture. You can tell she's having a blast.

Michaela loves to watch the gears spin while she rides.

I arrived just in time for lunch and we enjoyed the rest of the zoo together.

Michaela said she wanted to feed the giraffes, but when he stuck his big tongue out at her she got scared and made me finish.

She's so cute sitting on the elephant's trunk.

Michaela's favorite part of the elephant exhibit is the rocks that she can climb on. She had so much fun telling her Nana where to go and what rock to stand on. I think Michaela loved being able to show Nana her favorite place in Jacksonville.

Pumpkin carving

We waited a long time to carve our pumpkins this year, but it was a good decision. I carved them on Friday night, and by Monday morning they were already looking deflated. Michaela had fun watching me carve. She loved the "ooey gooeys", aka the seeds and innards.

The end results. I did use a guide for them, which was a good idea. Normally my pumpkins look like a 5 year old did them.

Cutie

Last Sunday we checked out a fall festival that was taking place at one of the state parks in our area. Michaela insisted on bringing her horses along for the ride.

The walk in was slow going, as Michaela insisted on riding the horses along the driveway.
There were a bunch of kids games and Michaela won lots of prizes. Her favorite was the "big scary spider" ring (those are her words, not mine). We also enjoyed a kayak trial and Michaela did great for her first ride. She sat in the front seat of the tandem kayak all by herself and stayed still for a while before realizing that she was wearing a life jacket. She still hates that thing. We also had a nice hayride through the old Florida oak trees. The guide told ghost stories and the history of the area and Michaela had fun playing with the hay.

When we got home I was busy working in the kitchen when I heard "Rainbow!" Michaela discovered a prism from the front door on the carpet and was so excited to see the rainbow.

I love how the little things make children so excited and happy.

Michaela told Craig to climb in the dinosaur, which he did very slowly. She doesn't quite understand that we're not her size.

She was so excited to have both of us in there to play with her.

She loves this thing!

Michaela still loves her cow. She tried to put it in her doll stroller today and was very upset that it didn't fit.

She's such a daredevil, but she does have good balance.

The following morning we all stayed in our pajamas and played in the living room for a while. Michaela let me put pigtails in and even managed to keep them in for about an hour and a half. Usually she pulls them out in about 10 seconds.

I wish she let me do her hair more often. She looks so adorable!

The funny things she says...

I just wanted to write these things down before I forgot them. Michaela has been quite the chatterbox lately, and some of the things she says are hilarious. I don't know where she gets them, because some are things we never say. I can only guess she learns some of the sayings at school.

Yesterday I was trying to get Michaela to leave her toys upstairs and come downstairs with me so we could get ready to go out. She turned to me and said "Oh Mom!" I thought I had at least 10 more years before she got to the sassy teenager stage.

When I'm leaving for work and she doesn't want me to go she will drag me away from the door and say "Sit Down Mommy!" while pointing at the floor. She can be a little bossy at times, especially if she thinks I'm abandoning her.

Michaela is very good with her manners, and remembers to say please and thank you about 80% of the time. But she makes me laugh every time she wants something really bad and will run up to me and say "Please Mommy, PLEASE" with a very serious face like her life depends on whether or not I give her whatever she's asking for. Her Daddy has a real hard time resisting that one.

And tonight she asked me if she could "Tickle Sony". When I said yes, she ran over to Sony and tickled her chin while laughing and saying "tickle tickle".

My all time favorite happened last night. Michaela was running around like crazy in the living room and being all together silly. Then she all of a sudden stopped and leaned over placing her head on the floor with her butt sticking up in the air. She then said "Shake your booty!" and started shaking her little hiney. Craig and I both about died laughing. We seriously don't know where she learned that saying or what it means, but she just kept wiggling her butt and saying "Shake your booty" over and over. I have a feeling we're headed for trouble when she does finally become a teenager. Can't they stay innocent just a little bit longer???

Halloween sneak peek

By a strange fluke, Craig and I both had this Thursday off. We decided it was the perfect time to go to the Halloween festivities at the zoo. Thursday was the first night of Spooktacular, and we hoped that the crowds would be smaller since it was a weekday. Michaela got all ready in her Cinderella dress and accessories. What a beautiful princess!

She wasn't too fond of the tiara, so we took it off and went for a bun instead. I can't believe how grown up she is.
We headed outside and Michaela had a little chat with her pumpkin. I love how it looks like she's whispering a secret here.

Then she waved and said "Bye bye pumpkin" before heading back inside.

When we went back inside she insisted on taking her dress off, so instead we put on her scrubs and she was a zoo vet. Michaela wasn't too into the whole Spooktacular thing when we first got there. I think she was really confused about what was going on. But she enjoyed looking at all the pumpkins as we walked down the path.

The number of carved pumpkins was amazing!! They lined both sides of the path throughout half of the zoo.

This rhino pumpkin was my favorite. I'm tempted to try one myself, but I'm sure it will just look like a blob when I'm done with it.

As the sun went down the pumpkins were even more spectacular to look at.

Michaela's favorite thing at the zoo is the carousel with all the cool animals on it. Usually when we walk past it she stops and yells hi to each animal as it spins around. Her favorites seem to be the okapi and the alligator. When Michaela saw the carousel on Thursday she ran right for it and begged for a ride. Craig handed me a dollar and Michaela literally danced her way to the end of the line. Then as we stood there waiting to get on she bounced and giggled from excitement. When it was time to pick the animal she was very sure of what she wanted. Every animal we passed she would say "Nope!" as I pointed to it. When we got to the alligator she yelled "Alligator" and tried to climb on. She buckled herself in all by herself then waved and yelled "Hi Daddy!" As we rode Michaela clapped and sang along to the music, stopping only to yell hi to Daddy every time we passed. She cried a little when it was time to get off, but she stopped long enough to yell bye to the alligator.

Michaela's favorite part of the night was the dance party in what is normally the splash zone. The fountains were all turned off and they had bubble machines going instead. Michaela had a blast running around and sitting on the various animals. She headed right for the manatee when we got there.

I was amazed when she did this split on the whale. She's a little gymnast!

After a while running around dancing she took a break on this dolphin's flipper and tapped her hands on her knees in time to the music.

Of course the bubbles were a big hit.

What visit to the splash park wouldn't be complete without a dolphin ride?

Poor Michaela would have stayed there all night if we let her. She loves to dance, and bubbles make the dancing even more fun. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and we had to move on. The rest of Spooktacular was fun, but Michaela was a little scared of the pirates at the end. We all thought it was a fun evening out and would do it again.

Pumpkin decorating

This morning at breakfast Michaela helped decorate her pumpkin. We picked it out yesterday at Lowes and she wouldn't stop hugging it. She insisted on carrying on her lap once we got in the car. So this morning we decorated it with a little kit I got at Walmart. Michaela picked out the eyes she liked, then the nose, then the ears. But when we got done with the first face she wanted to do another. So I turned the pumpkin around 180 degrees and we did the other side. She still wasn't satisfied, so we ended up doing all 4 sides. The best part is that she picked out all 4 of the faces by herself so none of them exactly match up, as you will see below.

Here we have a pig nose with cat ears.
And a dog nose with pig ears and a pig tail.

I think this is the cat nose with dog ears.

And this may be the bunny ears and nose, although these ears look like dog ears too. I don't know. All I can tell you is that they're cute and Michaela loves them.

See how much she loves her pumpkin? She gives it lots of hugs and kisses.

I swear I didn't prompt these pictures. She randomly goes around giving kisses to pumpkins, rocks, stuffed animals, and of course our real live animals. She is very loving. Anyway, I thought this was a cute solution to carving pumpkins with a 2 year old. Plus, I'm hoping this pumpkin will actually last. The downside to living in Florida is that the warm weather means moldy melty pumpkins about 2 days after carving them. So I plan on doing some pumpkin carving just before Halloween. Until then, we'll enjoy our mismatched animals faces.