Frying Pan Farm Park

Fairfax County has a lot of great parks, but Fairfax County is HUGE, so not everything is close.  Such is life in NoVA.  A group of ladies from church went on a toddler field trip today to Frying Pan Farm Park (in Fairfax Co).  It's about 30 minutes from us.  It is a fun park, and Penelope thoroughly enjoyed herself. It used to be a dairy farm and they have horses, cows, sheep, pigs, a playground, wagon rides and a carousel.  P spent as much time as possible out of the stroller (although it rained overnight, so I was trying to keep her out of the mud) looking out of the animals like this:

 There were pigs:

 This pig had a litter of 14 on Oct 10, and P loved hanging out by them.  I tried to show her the new calves, and she wouldn't have any of it!  She went right back to the piglets.

 All the kids loved the piglets:

 See, still watching the piglets eat:

 Randomly all the piglets decided it was time to eat (notice in the earlier pictures only 4 or 5 were eating).  It was funny to watch all of them fight for a teet.  One poor little guy kept getting pushed out of the way by his siblings.

 We finally moved on to the sheep:

 And tried to get a group shot, as much as that's possible with a bunch of toddlers.  All of the kids in this picture are at least 2 or older, so you can see how tall P really is.  She's their same size, and actually taller than one or two of them. :)  She loved to watch all the other kids and tried to do everything they did.

 Penelope went on her first wagon ride and carousel ride.  She really liked the carousel.  She squealed a lot.

 We ate lunch at the park and then played on the playground for a while.  P really watched the other kids and tried to climb on the playground equipment and do what they did.  This is all new for her.  P also took some time to wander in the open grassy areas.  I've got a video of that that I might post if you guys are interested.  I also have a video of the piglets eating.

It was a good Friday morning for Miss P!  She is now napping soundly because she's so tuckered out!  I'd say she's enjoying her new found mobility and being a little bit older.  This is a really fun age!

Hollin Farms

Over the weekend we had Stake Conference.  That meant that Dave was at meetings all day Saturday, literally.  He had a meeting about scouting from 8-noon and a priesthood meeting from like 3-6.  Since Dave was gone all day, Penelope and I took advantage of the fall weather and went to a farm to pick pumpkins, etc.  The instigator of this trip was our friend Rebecca Jex.  She had mentioned finding a place to pick apples and we were in!  We found an even better place, though, Hollin Farms.  This farm had apples, pumpkins, peanuts, potatoes and lots of other vegetables that you could harvest yourself.  The best part:  Penelope could play in the dirt!  She loves to be outside and gets really mad if we don't let her stay outside as long as she'd like.

When we first got there Penelope was distracted by the pumpkins:

 Rebecca and a few friends all piled in our minivan to make the 45 minute trek out to the farm.  Rebecca was all about "picking" peanuts, so we headed there first.  And no, you don't pick peanuts...you dig the plant out of the ground and then pick the peanuts off the roots.  Rebecca's roommate Tiffany explained this to us.  She is a VA native, so we kept passing her off as the peanut expert to everyone who came over to see how peanuts were really harvested.  What did P do while they harvested peanuts, you ask?  She played in the dirt.  Heaven!

 Rebecca with the peanut plant (Tiffany is in the left corner finding the good plants and digging them up with her pitchfork)

 Penelope found a gourd.

 Here's a view of part of the farm.  Behind us are the potatoes.

 The owners are nice enough to explain to the city folk that you shouldn't pick up the green potatoes...they turn green when they hang out in the sun too long.  Unfortunately there were a lot of those, and every time we dug into the ground we speared potatoes!

 Tractor!  P really liked to try to steer (that's Elaina,our friend we first met in Lincoln when she came for grad school.  Now she does fingerprinting for the FBI at Quantico.)

 Hangin' in the pumpkin patch!

 This was P's favorite part, for as much as she loved the pumpkins & dirt: goats!!  She literally squealed and screamed when she saw them, as well as did the full body excitement-shake!  (P also made friends with every dog there.  The dog owners were nice enough to let her pet their dogs when they saw how excited she was to see the dogs, too.)

 She wanted the goats to come to her, but those kids were feeding them apples.  Don't worry, they came over to her eventually.

 Did y'all notice P's cute backpack?!?  That's right, my mom made that for her as a surprise and sent it to us!  She's carrying my keys, a squirt fruit, the camera (when not in use) and a few other things.  I'm hoping to phase out her diaper bag and use toddler backpacks instead!  SO CUTE!!

Sorry about the picture overload.  One of these days I'll learn to do a collage...maybe.

Dave's Birthday

Dave's birthday was on Oct 11th.  This first picture has nothing to do with that.  It is just a picture of P doing one of her favorite things: eating popcorn with Dad.

 For Dave's birthday this year Penelope and I got him a few presents, and we got a babysitter and went to dinner the day after.  I got him some clothes:

 P helped him open his presents:

 For dinner we went to Metro 29 Diner in Arlington, which was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.  We weren't super impressed with our dinner entrees; next time we'll try breakfast and desserts.  They make all their own breads and desserts, so maybe that's a better option.  Our entrees were a little bland.

 Dave got orange glazed duck:

 I got the pork chops.  Yes, my entree came with 3 pork chops, a cup of soup, a side salad, a vegetable and potatoes.  TONS of food!  But, it was an $18 entree.  Dave's meal came with all that stuff, too! Next time we'll share!

 I love taking pictures of my food!  I did it all the time in Germany and Sweden, and they're some of my favorite pics!

 To finish off Dave's birthday I made cupcakes and brought them to his work today.  Since it is Dave we're talking about, and he has a love of all things coconut, I got a recipe from a lady in the ward (AWESOME) for coconut cream cupcakes.  Now I want one of these cupcake carriers, it made things SO easy!

Things Penelope is Into Lately

Here is a photo log of some of the things Penelope is into in her 18 month glory.

She really likes puzzles (but mostly taking the pieces out and eating them.)  But what she really likes is eating ice chips from a bowl at her kid-size table:

 Penelope also likes to use our "travel" high chair as her own personal chair in the front room.  She sits in it and watches tv, plays with the buckles, or just chills:

 She models the clothes I make for her (working the apron):

 She reads up on the election; VA is a battleground state, after all:

 And sometimes she just relaxes by watching the Disney channel, but first she has to get in her chair.  Which she does the same way every time.  She scoots into it feet first, then starts to slowly turn around:

 Once turned all the way around and seated squarely she surveys her kingdom:

 Then she relaxes and watches a little Lion King before her nap:

 Penelope also loves to color right now.  We color at least once a day.  Here she is playing with the container of crayons, and sometimes that's enough.  She doesn't always want to color, she just wants to sort the crayons into and out of the tin:

 Last but not least she likes to do whatever Mom and Dad do, including assemble IKEA furniture:

My Toddler is Walking

Penelope turned 18 months last week (more on that later).  The last few weeks she has started to walk more and more. At this point she walks more than she scoots.  She only scoots when she wants to get somewhere really quickly.  I was telling Caitlin all of this and she requested a video, so here you go!  She's just walking down the hall of our apartment.  Put her in the gym at church and she's in heaven!  It's fun to see, and also kind of weird because we can really see how tall she really is!  She can reach up and pull anything off of any counter in the house, causing a whole new level of baby-proofing.  We are proud of our little walker!