Happy Birthday to me and other fall adventures

It feels like I haven't blogged in a really long time, but actually it's only been about a week. With only a little over 2 weeks left before we have a new addition to our family and the ever increasing demands of a nearly two year old, my motivation and energy for things like thinking and writing are waning, but I will do my best to stay the course and keep blogging about our mostly mundane (these days) life.

For my birthday, Jim tried to plan a fabulous surprise trip to Paris, but exorbitant half term prices and my inability to go far from the hospital without feeling paranoid messed that plan up. Then the Paris strikes started so our trip probably would have been aborted anyway. Luckily, my favorite thing to do is to hunker down with my adorable family and I had a really nice and low key birthday with Evie and Jim in London. Evie and I went to paint pottery with some of our friends (she was a super star pottery painter), had some birthday lunch and then napped until Jim got home from work. Then we had present opening, Evie went to bed (always cause for celebration at the end of a busy day) and Jim and I got take out Indian food. It was a great day and I was very happy to be 34!
Another highlight (in my pregnant, out of control, sweet tooth dominated state) were the chocolate cupcakes that Jim made for me. YUMMY!
The next day, with our new found mobility via Jim's UK license and our Streetcar membership, we drove out to a farm/kids' entertainment center to spend some time with farm animals and troop around a very muddy pumpkin patch. Evie held her first guinea pig and was charmed by the little squeaky noises he made. She also tried to touch his eyeballs. We are working on this touching eyeballs obsession...eyes are very exciting, apparently.

But the real highlight for her were the 'BABY CHICKENS!!!!!!' If she could have gotten into the cage with them, she would have.

Additionally, Evie was thrilled to squelch around in the mud and find the perfect pumpkin. In fact, she found TWO perfect pumpkins and somehow managed, with her cuteness and enthusiasm, to get away with two pumpkins when only one was included as part of her ticket. Pumpkins are a new favorite obsession during this pumpkin focused season and she is very eager to announce to anyone around who will listen that she sees one.
A pumpkin patch family picture (in which I kind of look like a pumpkin myself at 37 weeks pregnant):

She also scored a free rubber ducky (it pays to be cute and smiley), which we raced down a trough by pumping a water pump. This was cause for great happiness!

At the end of our visit, Jim and Evie went down a big slide...and then, to my surprise, Evie did it by herself! I have video footage (you can see by my jerky videoing how unprepared I was to see an elated Evie sailing down the giant slide by herself ), which I will soon be able to share on this blog because we finally bought the program we need to get the videos off my camera. Stay tuned! For now, you have this not so great picture of Jim and Evie on the slide to prepare you for the excitement of the video.
Happy fall!

My First Celebrity Sighting

So, usually Jim sights the celebrities and I don't know who they are or don't notice them, but today I had my first celebrity sighting, during which I saw and recognized the celebrity without any help! The only problem is that I don't know his name and I don't know what the show I know him from is called. Oh well. I'm proud for noticing him in the first place!

UPDATE: With a little internet research, I discovered that the funny show is called Peep Show and the guy I saw today is Robert Webb. As a side note, he appeared to be muttering to himself.

First Halloween Event!

Well, technically, this was not Evie's first Halloween event because she was around for Halloween last year and played her part, reluctantly, in the family Halloween costume plan as a baby roach. But she couldn't walk yet and also couldn't talk or say things like "Trick or Treat!" and "THANK YOU!!!" This year, she was actively involved in picking out her costumes (sort of) and she is old enough to 'get' Halloween. So, this morning we attended a Halloween parade and movie to kick off this most excellent of October holidays.

One of Evie's several costumes is a ladybug costume, which she was very eager to put on this morning. Here is the ladybug at home:
And admiring herself in the bathroom mirror. Shockingly, she allowed me to put the antenna on her AND she kept them on for the entire event. Plus, she let me put her hair in ponytails, which is also a first.
For weeks, she has been convinced that her trick or treating bucket is for the sandbox. Now she knows what it's REALLY for, although we haven't actually let her have any of the candy she got today due to lingering memories of what happened the one time that we let her have a lollipop.
Making our way to the Halloween Parade (I am 36 weeks pregnant in this picture):
The ladybug from behind.

Eagerly anticipating what is going to happen next!

Scared ladybug with her Daddy. Another dad was wearing a gorilla mask behind us and we also know from experience that Dad's (or Grandpa's)wearing masks fall into the 'very scary' category. So we moved away.

It didn't take long for Evie to figure out the whole Trick or Treat thing. Here she is with the big kids, saying 'Trick or Treat' on her own!

And finally, we went to the movie, which was The Wizard of Oz. We figured that Evie would be scared of a lot of it, but she actually only got anxious during the tornado scene and when the tin man showed up. She is not a fan of robots--they are part of the 'pretty scary' category-- and we had to coax her a little into believing that the tin man was a. not a robot and b.nice. She accepted our explanations and didn't even flinch when the flying monkeys came along, although she did say, "UH OH!" every time the Wicked Witch appeared.

Here, the brave ladybug gets ready for the movie:

It was a great morning out and a fun way to kick off several Halloween celebrations! Tomorrow we head to the LPO's Halloween themed children's concert. Fun!

A trip to Ikea

Today Evie had her first trip to Ikea. Jim expertly maneuvered the streets of London in our City Car and Evie and her bunny bear were VERY excited to load up into the giant shopping cart and hit the overwhelming-ness that is giant mass consumerism on a Saturday morning. Staying in the cart didn't last long, though, because Evie wanted to try out every single chair in the desk chairs section and then felt that it was important to be involved in the selection of a filing cabinet, which we didn't get. She was focused and thorough in her testing of the Ikea goods.
No bed was left untested either and a minor meltdown ensued when I finally insisted that she get back into the cart so that we could actually get to the section we came to visit. As usual, our trip to Ikea was filled with diversions and we ended up with way more stuff than we intended on getting. A bed, though, we made it home without (barely...Evie really wanted a 'big girl' bed, but we are planning to continue to enjoy her being trapped in her crib for as long as possible).
Oh the excitement that is the warehouse! By this point in the trip, I was actually sitting on the floor, but Evie was still full of energy and astonishment. Jim was off gathering all of our purchases. By the time you get to the warehouse part of Ikea, everyone has that 'been in Ikea for three hours and have to get out of here as soon as possible' look in their eyes.
But we all know that you can't just buy your stuff and leave Ikea. Oh no, there is always that ONE item that has to be collected at a different point and on a Saturday morning there are always about six million people ahead of you waiting for their one special collection item, too. So Evie and I ditched Jim and went to the merry-go-round outside. First she drove a pink Barbie car (she takes her driving very seriously):

Then she drove a London bus:

I am not very good with things that go around and around (motion sickness has plagued me late in life), so the merry-go-round only managed to kill about five minutes of the thirty or forty it took to get our special collection. Luckily there was a playground outside of Ikea, too, so we spent the rest of our extra time there. When Jim finally found us with all of our stuff, I didn't think we were going to be able to fit it all into our hatchback, but, using his master packing skills he made it work.

The drive home was a happy one (happy to be out of Ikea, happy to be going home, happy to be all together, happy that Jim can drive in London and we can do things like go to Ikea...but we definitely decided that our next driving outing is going to be OUTSIDE of London into the country or something).

And for Evie, it was nap time: