HAPPY FALL!

We took Emma to a place called Vineyard Gardens for a fun fall afternoon. This place is a garden center but they also have a pumpkin patch, corn maze, playgrounds, and animals. Emma had such a good time there. She got to see bunny rabbits, turkeys, goats, and ducks (her favorites!) After we played, we picked out some pumpkins, and loaded them into a wagon. She loved her ride with our pumpkins!

After taking our pumpkins to the car, Emma helped Sampson take the wagon back to the store.

Aaron takes Emma for a ride on the swing at the Vineyard Gardens playground.

Emma tested out the water temperature in the reflecting pool at Temple Square. (She came kind of close to falling in!)

Sampson, Aaron, Emma and I went to Temple Square since Sampson is out here visiting us. He gave Emma some pennies to throw into this fountain. She didn't really want to throw them in, but she eventually gave in and let them go.

Emma likes wallets, and Sampson left his in her reach. She opened it and went right for the goods: cash and any kind of cards she could find!

And here is the dirty look that Sampson has been greeted with since he came to visit us. Poor kid, Emma can't figure out who he is or why he is on her couch every morning when she wakes up!

This is "Emma's Cabinet." It is the cabinet where I keep all of her food and she likes to get in it and scare me. Lately she has been cleaning it out so that she can crawl inside.

There is a duck pond close to our apartment that we have been taking Emma to lately. We have been letting her feed the ducks our old bread. They come so close to us! There was one duck that would eat the bread right out of Emma's hand (and even nibble on her fingers a little bit).

This is one of the funniest pictures that I have taken of Emma. We were on our way to church playgroup and I got her all dressed up in what I thought at the time was a cute outfit. (She added the necklace herself) I thought that she looked so cute that I took her outside for pictures. She was making the funniest faces and I happened to catch this one with the camera. She looks like a little old lady saying "Look at these little helicoptor things I found on the ground. Heee! Heee! Heee! Heee!"

She looks so happy here, but earlier in the day was a different story. This was the Babies-R-Us day. I had been to Babiea-R-Us looking for the perfect sippie cup (it doesn't exist) and Emma won't really sit in the front of the cart in the seat. Yeah, I know they have straps, and I strap her in as tight as I can but she still manages to stand up in the seat. And thinking how dangerous that is, Aaron has taught her a new trick...cart surfing...where she rides in the big part of the shopping cart and hangs on to the edge and just rides while we push the cart. Well, on this particular day, the cart surfing trick was a must, and we shopped a bit, and then we got in line to check out. The line was long and the checkers were in no hurry, so I was kind of in a daze, staring off into space while Emma played with the sippie cups we were buying. All of the sudden I looked up to see Emma's feet where her head is supposed to be, and her head where her feet should be, on the outside of the cart. I had enough time to brace myself for the moment, and she hit the floor and let out the most terrible scream. She dove out of the cart and hit the floor, head first. As soon as I picked her up I could see that it was not good. She had an enormous blue knot on her little forehead and her mouth was bleeding. I ran out of the store with her (and away from the stares of everyone in the store) and to the car, where I called my mom and then my doctor's office. Aparently this is pretty common and she wound up being okay. This is her in the bathtub that night. I tried to take a picture of the bruise, but it didn't show up very well. And she obviously got over it pretty quickly...much more quickly than I did...the feelings of "bad mom" lasted for a few days.

This is my dad's glory moment. I was actually on the phone with him when all of this happened. I have a cabinet that I keep Emma's crackers and food in and it is kind of her cabinet. (I don't have any kind of locks or anything on it.) She empties it several times daily and her new favorite trick is to get inside of it and "scare" me while I am doing dishes or cooking. Well, on this morning, I guess I was taking too long with the nursery stuff and she decided to take breakfast matters into her own hands. And Cheerios must have been the food of choice. She dumped the bag out and then scooped the Cheerios toward her and then would scatter them everywhere. I was giving Dad a play-by-play commentary on the action as it happened and he was laughing so hard saying "you deserve it! Every bit of it!" Thanks for the sympathy, Dad.

The dryer picture...Somehow Aaron found out that Emma likes playing in the dryer, with adult supervision of course. I had dried a load of towels and she got in and played for so long in there. Aaron would close the door (not letting it latch) and then she would push it open and say "BAAHHH" and then pull it to and then "scare" us again! She is fearless...she wasn't scared of having the door closed and being in the dark dryer. Maybe it was because she could hear us laughing so hard while she was in there!

Here is Emma before church one Sunday. She looked so cute in her plaid dress that Erin Summerill gave her and she has her bunny from Carolyn Kunic. Funny story about the bunny...up until now I have kept the bunny up on a shelf in Emma's room because it matches her quilt and all her bedroom stuff. I didn't want to let her play with it so it would stay nice and she could have it when she was older. But I guess that things up on shelves (out of reach) have quite the appeal to a little kid. It is the only toy that she will "beg" for saying "buh...buh...". So Aaron, being the doting dad that he is, gives in to the pleadings for "buh" and Emma now sleeps with the "buh". Lesson learned: things that are "off limits" are way more enticing than those things that are within reach!