Picture trollop....

I have about thirty trillion pictures to upload today, so I'll keep my annotations brief. There are two sets of pictures here. The first set came from Hailey's birthday party at the fun-filled HillRidge Farms in Youngsville. The drive was long, but the hay ride, farm animals, and super long slide made the trip worthwhile. The second set come from Holdenween, an annual tradition in Raleigh where some friends and their neighbors basically block off their street and have a Halloween festival, with a parade and events for the whole family.

Also, if you haven't checked the blog in some time, there's a second entry just below this one that's new as of today...

We weren't able to take many pictures at HillRidge Farms, as we spent most of the time racing after Sadie at breakneck speed, to keep her from hurling herself in front of hay rides and choo choo trains or falling off swings. We don't even have pictures of the birthday girl...

When we first stepped on the hay ride, Sadie was so tired that she half passed out on Daddy during the ride...


James and Emily came with Pippa and Rowan. Here's baby Rowan at two weeks. She's so wee... I had a picture of Pippa, but it didn't come out well....


Mommy, sneaking around wearing her toddler disguise... It's like walking around in a shrub costume...


The kids were able to visit the pumpkin patch and pick out pumpkins of their own... I believe that's Henry in front....


Sadie wants all the pumpkins...

Lila picks out a pumpkin that is as large as she is...

Sadie runs from patch to patch, unable to commit....


A red barn door...


Here we are at Holdenween... Poor Sadie lasted in her elephant costume for all of 2 minutes. She was hot and uncomfortable, and the elephant head fell into her face so many times that she screamed for us to take it off... So here is the one picture we have of Sadie, fussing with her costume...


Holden St, after the parade had ended. I wish I had pictures of the parade, but alas, Sadie was napping in the car...

Best.costume.ever. Our friend Dana is pregnant again. See if you can figure it out.


A bluegrass band provided great backup music...


And Sadie auditioned as the new drummer...


Unfortunately, the band was between songs and we had to retrieve her...



There was sidewalk chalk everywhere for the kids...


The crowd enjoyed the beautiful weather and refreshments...

Griffin the bumblebee was sweet enough to push Sadie around on this tricycle.



This poor dog was shadowed by our daughter half of the afternoon. Sadie so badly wanted sloppy kisses, and the sweet golden retriever had apparently been trained to not give face baths to children. She certainly tried her best to get him to kiss her.


Children hiding in the fronds..

HIKE!

Siobhan and sweet Reilly.


A cute, contemplative butterfly princess Twyla...


The pumpkin judging contest. Note the vomiting pumpkin in the middle...


The pirate pumpkin won...


Sadie's sidewalk is personalized... A lion comes to check it out...


Sadie prepares to abscond with the chalk bucket, sans chalk...


And proceeds to wear it as a hat...


Somehow, she was able to see... Check out the entry below this one to see video of Sadie stumbling around with this box on her head...

This was the reaction I got when I tried to get the bucket back...

A glimpse of Sadie's silliness...

It may take me a day or two to upload the gazillion pictures I took last weekend at Hailey's birthday party at Hill Ridge Farm and at Holdenween, so here are a few videos that highlight Sadie's silliness. The first film shows Sadie at Holdenween, stomping around with a bucket on her head. The bucket once held chalk, but she dumped out the chalk and made it her hat. The second and third film feature Sadie after she pulled Mommy's new boots right off her feet and decided to sport them herself... More to come...

More birthday pics

I'm finally getting around to uploading the pictures off my camera from this weekend. It's been crazy busy around the house all week....

Here are Sadie's cousins Lily and Lucas. Right before Robert, Marsha and the twins left to return home to Chesapeake, we all went on a brief stroll....



Lucas gets in touch with his sensitive side.


Sadie stakes claim of her pink car. We're working with her on the concept of "sharing", but it's a bit of a losing battle with a two year old at this point...


The kids, enjoying our dry, parched, neighborhood...


Back to the party... This picture was taken by Rachel or Dan, and I plagiarized it right from their blog... Sorry, guys! It was too cute to pass up... Sadie has been hitting the cake...

Sadie and Henry are co-conspirators of mischief.... They climbed on the shelf and proceeded to toss all the party favors on the floor....


Marsha lights the candles...


Let's see... Who do we have here? From left to right, Henry, Alex, Molly and her mom, Jen, my mother, Philip and Twyla....

Sean and little Riley....


Missy and Lila....

Mom, Philip, Twyla and Robena...


Dana, baby #2, Griffin and Finley...

Rachel and Claudia...

Pippa, James, Lisa and a hiding Hailey...


Max, Anne, Anne's mother and Elizabeth, sporting a flapper 'do...


Lily, Marsha, Robert and Lucas...

There's my little shoe trollop... Sadie's clomping around in her grandmother's shoes, backwards, of course... This is her newest obsession....

Happy Birthday, Sadie!

Our little bug is two years old! I am really having a difficult time digesting this. It seems like it was just the other day that I held her in my arms for the first time... We always play the "Where's the Baby?"/"Peekaboo!" game, and just this weekend, she became very serious when I asked "Where's the Baby?" and said something like "I no baby!".

We enjoyed having Robert and Marsha and the twins visit us this weekend and the party went smoothly, but I wasn't able to take very many pictures at Sadie's party, as I was running around trying to get everyone fed and taken care of in the mere one hour we were alloted at the Museum of Life and Science. I love the facility, but one hour is not enough time for a toddler's birthday party...

I will upload my pictures later this week, as I have pictures of most of the children and families who came, and several of Robert, Marsha and the twins, but my dear friend Anne was there and dutifully took some great pictures of Sadie, and e-mailed them to me today, so until I can upload mine, here are some of her highlights...

Mom made the cake... Sadie was generous enough to enter this world a month early so that we could always use Halloween as a theme for her parties. Most everything we used to decorate was a witch, spider, ghost or black cat. Sadie, however, loves elephants, so my mom decorated Sadie's cake with an elephant...



The birthday girl refused to wear her nice shoes in favor of her Crocs. The deal with Crocs is that once you introduce your child to them, they will never wear anything else. I pick my battles, and as long as the crocs she picks are in the same color scheme, I turn a blind eye...

One day these shoes are going to stand as a cliched symbol of the first decade of the 21st century, much like mood rings and disco.

Yay! Juice boxes!


Sadie pulled my mother's shoes right off her feet and decided to wear those instead of her own. She is in a serious "shoe trollop" stage right now. Every day, she takes out every pair of shoes she owns and tries them on and then puts on all of our shoes and stomps around the house in them...

These shoes are mine...




Frosted Halloween cake-like cookies were a hit with the kids...



Time to blow out the candles....


Mommy- the 80's called... it wants its hair back...





Sadie required a little assistance in the candle blowing-out activity...


Sadie enjoyed the box turtle that lives in the party room....



All the kids got free admission to the museum for the day. Redmond and Sadie made the rounds after the party...