Baa Moo Farm

I want a farm. A real one. Just like the one Lillie's class visited in late October. The Baa Moo Farm is a real working farm complete with the barnyard cat and her baby kitties. This place is the real deal and is exactly what I always dreamed a farm would be like. Now that I have visited one I really, really want one. I am not sure who will work it for me, but I really, really want one.

Lillie makes a pretty cute farmer.

This is the oldest known breed of sheep. It is called a Jacob Sheep because it's genealogy dates back to the time of Jacob in the Old Testament.

Squeeze and Pull Lillie, Squeeze and Pull

Lillie visits the Fire Station

Lillie's first field trip. The Fire Station is within walking distance of the school, but it still counts as a field trip.

Addie turns 2!!!

Addie turned two on October 15th. I really can't believe she is two. Where does the time go. It feels a little weird I have always had another baby or one on the way when the youngest turned two, but not this time. Addie is still the baby for a little while longer. I feel like two will be a whole different experience this time around.

When I asked her what kind of a cake she wanted for her birthday she said "Cupcake?" and thanks to my dear friend Cortney and her giant cupcake cake mold Addie was able to have a big cupcake for her birthday. She loved it. She carried around the pan the whole day and then once I made the cake she just kept following me around saying, "my cupcake, my cupcake, eat my cupcake." She was too cute with the Happy Birthday song too. She kept singing "Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me" all day. I think Whit has a video of that on facebook, but it is beyond my technology abilities to get it from there to here so checkout Whit's facebook to see just how cute she was. She got some new clothes from mom and dad and a baby doll from Grandma and Grandpa Erickson. She was pretty excited about the baby.

No Addie it's not a good idea to gouge the babies eyes out. She really was just fascinated that they opened and closed.

Look at me. I'm a big girl now. I have meaning to post this picture forever, but kept forgetting. Addie started wearing big girl panties in September. She wanted to be potty trained long before that, but I wasn't ready. Earlier in the year she started telling me when she needed to go poop and then she would go poop on the party. I figured she must be ready, but I kept putting it off. She did really well. She was my easiest to train, but she has started having accidents again recently and so I feel like I am the one that is potty trained and not her. Oh well. Cleaning up her accidents is cheaper than buying diapers. She does pretty good at night. She had a week or so where she peed every night (I'm not sure what was up with that) but now seems to have that under control.

Addie really is a big girl. Two is such a fun age, but such a hard age at the same time. They are so sweet and I love watching them learn so much at this age, but they also start to develop their independence and that can be frustrating. Addie is very tender hearted and gets her feelings hurt easily. I think she may have picked up some drama from her three big sisters. She has learned to throw fits, but they are very short lived, which I think is adorable. She runs away and cries for a minute and then comes back as though nothing happened. Addie really loves her big sisters and copies everything they do. She wants to be big so bad and sometimes I think she will get there much sooner than I want her too. She really communicates well. I can understand most everything that she is trying to tell me, which is so nice. She is terrified of animals especially dogs. We had an experience with a couple of lost dogs that chased her and knocked her down and since then she freaks out whenever there is dog in the vicinity. Even when we are inside and she hears our neighbor's dog bark outside she says, "doggie scare me" It has carried over to cats too. It makes me so sad, but we are working on it and she will now go out back and play without me so that is a big step. Poor thing.

Addie is really into being in the kitchen with me and unfortunately I am not one of those mom's that love to cook with my kids. I get frustrated with them easily, but I am learning to let go a little. I have to with Addie. She wants to be right there whenever I am making something. Her favorite job is putting the chopped vegetables in the pot and cracking the eggs. It really is sweet.

I love you Addie and I can't wait to see what the second year of your little life brings.

Ward Campout

Whitney have always wanted to be campers, but in North Carolina camping is so different from out West. You can only camp in the early Spring and late Fall or else it is too hot. We went one year up to the foothills for Memorial Day and we cooked in our tent. It is just harder to go when the girls are in school and you can only go for one night. Camping is so much work for one night, but since we were on the kick of making memories for our children, aka. the fair, we decided we would go to the ward campout. We went up to Hanging Rock campground, which is so beautiful and so close. We got there after dark so that was fun for Whitney. Putting up a borrowed tent with a flashlight was no easy task. Luckily Brother Snow came to the rescue and helped him out. Otherwise we may never have had a place to sleep. The big problem with tent however came later when we realized we had no rain fly. We weren't too worried since the sky was so clear, but one Brother insisted we take one of his tarps with us, just in case. And of course at about three in the morning we heard the rain. Whit got the tarp on, I felt bad making him do all the work, but I was pretty useless since I had forgotten my glasses and couldn't find where I had put my contacts. I did take Addie to the bathroom and got lost coming back. I thought I was heading in the right direction, but ended up in someone else's camp. That was a pretty scary feeling. Someday I will have lasik eye surgery:). But even with no sleep, camping is still pretty great. We did the full breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage on our little Colman stove, all in the rain. After we got packed up and ready to go we went for a little hike where there was a waterfall with a shallow pool and before we left all of the girls were swimming in the water with their clothes on. Making Memories!!!!

Salem Lake 10K

This post is mostly for my personal record, but I ran the Salem Lake 10k on September 26th. This was my second year running it and last year I ran it in 1:06 and this year I ran it in 59 minutes. I really wanted to get my 10k under an hour so I was pretty excited about my time. I was sad that Kim and Marcia weren't there this year to run it with me. This run last year was really the start of our great running moments. Luckily, I have a new running friend, Christi that was doing it and encouraged me to do it too. It was pouring rain and freezing, but I always love runs out on Salem Lake.