Jokes

Evie' s current favorite joke (she thinks she's hilarious, btw): she randomly says whatever word happens to come to her mind preceded by "peanut butter"

For example: "peanut butter daddy!" *hysterical giggling* "peanut butter car!" *more giggling* "peanut butter POTTY!" *falls on the floor because she's so overwhelmed by her own hilariousness*

That girl...

Christmas 2013

Hello 3rd trimester! Hello Baby!

Getting bigger! Can't believe we still have a ways to grow!!

I'm 28 weeks today; we've made it to our last trimester! YAY! So excited that we're getting closer!

In the last week or so baby has been moving a TON, suddenly lots of elbows and knees I think ;) I think he must've had a growth spurt, because it's been really hard to feel him from the outside up until this point, and it's been mostly random little kicks. These days he feels like he's wiggling all over the place! Karl's kind of felt him a couple of times in the past little while, but he REALLY felt him last night for the first time.

It's also been really weird because movements I feel super well from the inside can't be felt from the outside, but some that I can't feel at all are very obvious from the outside. I blame my anterior placenta... It really is annoying some times.

I did my glucose test at my prenatal appointment this week and PASSED! THANK HEAVENS!! I am still anemic, though unfortunately, so I've got to get on top of that better :/ I also finally got my results back about the whole infection thing, and they were negative! Yay!

The other awesome thing about today was that we got to go to our fourth ultrasound and see the babe!

Perfect little profile :) Little arm under his chin. Love that little nosey and those lips!

Evie and Karl came, and while I was getting checked in they were running around the lobby. The old lady at the information desk came up to them and Karl was sure they were in trouble, but instead she gave Evie a cute little baby doll... I'm glad people think she's so cute, I don't think she'd get away with most of her antics otherwise! When I asked her where she got the dolly she told me that Grandma Janice (Karl's grandma) had given it to her, which I thought was funny and cute.

Evie was also SUPER talkative today (maybe because she slept in??), she kept running around saying "I wanna see the doctor!" She got tired of waiting in the lobby and tried to go back all by herself, and was terribly mad when I wouldn't let her. When we got back to the room and during the ultrasound she talked the whole entire time. She kept saying things like, "Mommy sick, got hurt, doctor help her feel better!" and she was really enjoying seeing baby brother up on the screen.

Speaking of baby brother, he is doing really well! Fluid was good and there were no signs of any problems caused by the fall yesterday, thank goodness! He's also growing really well (which is one of the things they were worried about last time), he's measuring a week and four days ahead and supposedly weighs about three pounds, three ounces at this point. I knew he'd been doing some growing recently!

All his little body parts are measuring well and looking good still, and his echogenic bowel is almost completely gone, which is great!

After the tech checked everything, she said, "let me just change over to the other machine really quick". I figured that must mean just a machine with a different frequency or something (ok, I had no idea what she meant, but I just trusted she knew what she needed to do), but suddenly, THIS picture came up on the screen:

All cuddled up :) 3D pic... A little weird, but cool all at the same time, lol ;)

I didn't know they DID 3D ultrasounds at maternal fetal medicine, and since I wasn't planning to spend 80 bucks to get an elective one, I didn't think I'd be getting one. We were surprised, but it was pretty cool! Karl thinks baby looks pretty alien-ish but I think he looks WAY more like a baby than in his alien-demon-skeletor pic... That was pretty creepy looking.

Another side note, we saw a different maternal fetal specialist today, and when came in to check us out, she informed us that she had been the one who had done our ultrasound with Evie. She thought it was kind of cool to see her now on the outside, running around and chattering up a storm!

While I thought this was going to be our final ultrasound this pregnancy, apparently we still get to go in one more time to follow up, just in case, at 34 weeks. I guess I'm happy we get another chance to see him, especially since there aren't any major concerns at this point, but I do feel like I've spent an awful lot of time at maternal fetal medicine! Oh well, I'm just going to be glad I get to see him so often :)

Labor & Delivery, Revisited

We got to go to the hospital a couple of times with Evie, and she was fine, but I really was hoping not to have any reason to do that this time around. My plan was to only have to go to labor and delivery once for the "big day" and to come home with a nice healthy, full term baby. No emergencies, no false alarms, just be there for the birth of my baby and not a minute extra.

Yeah, I'm apparently terribly at following through with my plans. Fate and the lovely winter weather seem to have had something different in store for me...

It all started this morning.

Karl was doing the grave shift and wouldn't be home 'til 12 and I was trying to get Evie ready for church by myself. We were late, of course, so we left the house intending to get there in time for nursery. It had been snowing a little bit, so we were trying to be careful, but it didn't seem that bad--it was warm enough that a lot of the snow was pretty melty. Evie and I got almost to the corner of our street, but that section of sidewalk hadn't been shoveled and it looked like there was enough snow that I didn't want Evie trudging through it in her little church shoes and getting her feet wet and frozen off. So I picked her up, put her on my hip, and we kept going.

Bad idea.

It looked like it was just a bunch of left over snow from the last couple days, so I expected it to be maybe a little slick where the snow had gotten packed down or something, but I took about two steps and suddenly found myself flat on the ground. This was a full out splat kind of a deal too, not one of those falls where you have a chance to kind of catch yourself or fall on your backside, I was just instantly on the ground. Since I was holding Evie, I'd tried to save her and ended up falling sideways onto my hip and arm with her landing on top of me.

Not fully comprehending what had just happened, I tried to right myself while still holding Evie, took kind of a half step, and ended up falling again.

Next to the sidewalk there is kind of a stone retaining wall, and when I fell this time I started to fall towards it, which also happened to be the side I was holding Evie on. All I could see as I started to go over was Evie's head going right towards the rock wall and I was also scared I would fall on top of her, so I desperately tried to get us going in the other direction and ended up right back where I started. This time I managed to land on my knee, hip, and almost kind of caught myself with my hand...

After going down a second time, I started to get smart and set Evie down before trying to get us both upright. I was in a lot of pain, but I got us both up and steady and had a chance to look and see what had happened. Apparently, what I thought was just some crunchy old snow was actually just a thin layer covering a big sheet of ice. Evie and I individually managed to finish crossing it (carefully) all right, but I guess having Evie and baby throwing my weight off was enough to send us sprawling.

I considered taking Evie right back home after that, but we were about half-way to the church and I knew if we didn't go to nursery, I'd have to carry her home, LITERALLY kicking and screaming (which I definitely wasn't up to), so we just went to church and I sat with her in nursery for the last two hours. Since Karl got off of work at the same time church got out, I had him come pick us up and drive us home (seeing as I could barely walk and I couldn't pick Evie up). Maybe this wasn't the most brilliant course of action, in retrospect, but it seemed like the best plan at the time.

We got home, I was in a lot of pain and had a few contractions, but I was fully prepared just to suck it up and ignore my injuries. I didn't though... I'd already used up my brilliant choice for the day. I called the midwife, kinda hoping she'd just tell me to rest and I'd be fine, but she wanted me to go straight to the hospital.

Karl, having been awake for more than 24 hours at this point, was having a hard time staying awake, so I called my parents (who were in the middle of church) and they came down. Evie went home with my dad to hang out with her aunties, and my mom and I headed to the hospital.

What they worry about with falls or similar trauma, is either the placenta detaching and causing fetal distress or that it will cause productive contractions and labor. We got all hooked up to monitors to check on baby's heart rate and contractions, and they did some blood work to see if baby's blood had gotten into mine (indicating a placental abruption).

Baby's heart was great the whole time we were there, the only problem we had was that the nurse would come in, get us all set up with the monitor, and not long after she'd leave the room he'd roll away so that the monitor couldn't pick him up anymore. Then the nurse would have to come back in, search forever to find him, and get us all hooked up again. He did this a few times... Naughty baby!!

My blood work came back fine, and since his heart rate was good and there were no other signs of a problem, it looks like my placenta is fine, which is very relieving!

I was having contractions, some of which were very, VERY uncomfortable, but luckily we got them to subside enough that they were okay sending me home after a few hours. I was given strict instructions that if I noticed a decrease in fetal movement, bleeding, any signs that my water has broken, or if my contractions increased or got worse, that I was to come right back in.

Luckily, since I was released, I haven't had any further issues. I'm just super sore and bruised up, can hardly walk, still can't carry Evie, and I feel like I've pulled about every necessary body part involved in the walking process... But I'm great :)

I guess I should look on the bright side: baby is ok, I got to spend some quality time with my mother, got some super cool accessories (gotta love hospital bracelets), and Evie did really well at my parents' house all day. My one complaint is that they managed to collapse one of my veins while trying to "fix" me, so I ended up coming out of the hospital with more injuries than I went in with. *sigh* The phlebotomist who was stabbing me said, "oops, I guess we should be more careful with your little veins next time." I would have appreciated her being careful the first time, buuuut what can you do...

My beautiful, sore bruise. Not from the fall... but from the hospital.

I am super grateful for all the prayers and good thoughts, and I'm sorry if I worried anyone! I will definitely be a whole lot more careful from now on. I guess I really didn't realize how much of a difference being big and pregnant makes when attempting everyday tasks!

Honesty

All right, I think it's time for a little honesty here... not that I've been lying to you or anything, it's just, I think it's time to face the fact that my public persona is only a half truth. 

Then again, whose isn't?

I guess there are always those whose social media lives are basically a second by second feed of the inner workings of the deepest parts of their minds, but most people fall into a much more private category I think. 

On the other side of the coin there are those who barely share ANYTHING personal via the internet... and in all honesty, they're probably the ones who are best off in this mad world.

In between the two lies the majority of social media users. You'd think this would be the happy medium, the best place to hang out, but it just doesn't seem that way to me. Not anymore.

We are the ones who only share the best parts of our lives with our virtual social networks. After all, who really wants to hear about the crummy stuff?

And you know, it might not be that we are purposely withholding the darker details of our lives, I mean, a lot of times that stuff is pretty personal and maybe doesn't need to be out there for all to see, but it ends up creating a very interesting, if unintentional, culture. 

Suddenly we are feeling inadequate, and even if we would have wanted to share a struggle or a failing, we are now too ashamed to admit to the world that our lives are not quite as shiny as everyone else's. 

I don't know, my brain is mushy from chronic lack of sleep, so maybe I'm completely wrong on all this (and perhaps I'll wake in the morning to discover with horror the gibberish I've thrown out for all to read), but I guess that my point is, I'm not perfect. I have a good life and there are many amazing things in it that I want to share with the world because I'm so happy or proud, but I also struggle... and I wish I didn't feel so abnormal for struggling so much. I wish I didn't feel like my entire social support system would despise me if they knew my short-comings.

Every once in a while I catch a glimpse of what some of my Facebook acquaintances are really experiencing, and I'm often taken aback. To finally see a glimpse of weakness or struggle in the midst of the perfect pictures and humorous statuses... it's almost astounding. You think you know how wonderfully these peoples' lives are going (obviously much better than your own),so to realize that just maybe they are in a similar boat to yours is momentarily earth shaking. 

I suppose maybe the answer is just to distance my self from social media in general... I don't know. I just wish there was a way to find a little bit more honesty in my virtual life...

Birthday #2!!!

My dear little Evie-Cakes is two years old... I can hardly believe it!! Due to the unfortunately small size of our apartment, we had to have two very small parties with just our family... maybe next year we should celebrate in June!

I wish I had gotten more pictures of people, but I was kind of running around like crazy trying to take care of things both times, because that's how I roll.

"Poor Sick Baby"

 

My poor "sick" child ;)

Evie has been "falling ill" all morning. 

It looks a little something like this: phase one: Evie "falls" (very gracefully) off of mommy's bed. She lies quietly on the floor for a few seconds for dramatic effect, then (in the most pathetic voice she can muster) says "Daaaddy, help-a-you" (a.k.a "help me"). phase two: daddy helps the poor child to sit back up on the bed and she says (still in her pathetic voice) "oh, sneezies!" and then proceeds to cough as if she is going to die. At this point we are supposed to say "oh no! are you getting sick, Evie??" Then she lies down on the bed and we have to tell her she needs medicine, soup, and lots of rest, all while putting a washcloth on her forehead and taking her temperature. She usually decides she's better at this point and runs off to play... Until she decides she's coming down with something again and we have to repeat the process.

I guess we haven't been giving her enough attention lately?

Thankful

Welp, it's that time of year again. I'm once more feeling the need to make a "thankful" post with Thanksgiving and all, and especially since I do so much complaining the rest of the year ;)

1. I want to say how thankful I am for this pregnancy. 

I have a couple of health problems that make it harder for me to get and stay pregnant. Knowing that, and with how long it took for us to get Evie, I think Karl and I both thought that once the time came for the next baby, we'd have some time to prepare ourselves. I personally thought I would have to do a lot of mental preparation for the months of negative pregnancy tests. Imagine our surprise when this little guy came about rather suddenly... I honestly never thought I'd possibly know what it would be like to be one of "those" people. 

In addition to all that, there's the fact that I'm kind of living with the whole genetic problem thing hanging over my head, but so far he looks so healthy and perfect! I know this little one belongs in our family and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to have him. This pregnancy has been a difficult one for me mentally and emotionally, but I just wanted to get it out there that I truly am grateful for the amazing chance to carry this child. He is a miracle :)

2. I'm grateful for the Lord's timing.

I did a post about this last year around this time... and it's time to revisit the topic ;) This fall I was supposed to be doing my first semester of grad school. The beginning of last summer I did all the applying and paperwork and was admitted to a program, all I needed to do was finish my scholarship application stuff. I had until June 30th, and not super long before the deadline, Karl convinced me to basically just forget about it (I'm stubborn and hard of listening sometimes)... and I was like, what the heck? Then, a couple weeks later, we found out I was pregnant. I was STILL at that point thinking, well, I was going to be doing online classes and the semester wouldn't have started until I was almost into my second trimester, so everything should have worked out fine if I'd gone for it. Little did I know how the beginning of this pregnancy was going to go... Evie stopped sleeping and has had a terrible time with everything from teething to colds, I was miserable for a lot longer than I expected, and Karl has been insanely busy and stressed. Adding school to all that mess would have been a terrible, terrible idea. I'm grateful that even though, for all my planning, I can't see the future, someone can ;) I'm grateful that I have some direction in my life, even when it REALLY doesn't feel like it.

3. I'm so thankful for my hardworking hubby :)

Karl has honestly been amazing this semester; it has been a rough one! He is working two different part-time jobs (one of which is very... irritating) and is taking a full credit load at school (not easy classes, either). On top of that he works amazingly hard to be a good daddy and make sure Evie has enough time with him. He has been so tired and stressed, but he's so willing to work incredibly hard with little complaint to take care of our family. I honestly don't think I deserve him! I'm so grateful to have him in my life and to have him as the father of my children.

4. I'm grateful for my Evie-Cakes

She has been the sunshine in the dark corners of my life since the very beginning. It sounds weird, but I have honestly had quite the struggle throughout my life to just be happy, and I've got to say, that since Evie has come on to the scene, I am the happiest I have ever been. Ever. She is funny and sweet and so determined. She is the silliness and the joy in our house. I am so thankful I was given the chance to be her momma and so thankful that I have the opportunity to stay at home with her. I only hope I can be the mother she deserves.

5. I'm grateful for "all my many blessings"

There really is just so very much that I have to be grateful for that I don't even have the time to get into, buuuut: I'm grateful Karl is employed, I'm grateful we have a reliable car, I'm grateful for our current living situation, for the chance that Karl has to go to school, for the love and support of our families, for books and knowledge, for sunshine, and the gospel :)

I really do complain a lot more than I ought with so many amazing blessings in my life, I'm glad I can take a few minutes to remind myself of how good things are ;)

Baby. Brother. Smith. ;)

21 Weeks!!

We've made it beyond the half-way mark!

I meant to do a 20 week post, buuuut it was right before Halloween and I was completely overwhelmed by costume requests... So let's just pretend this makes up for that :)

The last week or two I've been feeling a whole lot better appetite/nausea-wise; I actually want to eat again, YAY!! I've now gained 5 lbs total this pregnancy, thanks to Halloween candy and my renewed interest in food ;)

The awesome rib pain that I love so much has made an entrance, however, but the sciatica/pelvic pain has backed off somewhat, so I guess I'm doing ok in that department. I'm not totally incapacitated as I had feared I would be, anyway, haha.

I'm also finally feeling baby on a regular basis and I'm no longer just feeling flutters, but full on kicks and rolls! It's pretty amazing :) It's so weird that in just a couple of weeks I went from feeling nothing, to feeling random little "bubbles", to feeling such definite, regular movements!!

And now for a cute big sister story:

The other day Evie was in her room saying her name over and over again, "Evie. May. Smiff." and giggling about it. THEN she suddenly stopped, looked right at me, and declared "Baby. Brother. SMIFF!!!" It was absolutely adorable.

I know I say it over and over, but she loves this baby so very much! I love it!! Just hope she keeps loving him this much once he actually gets here ;)

Halloween 2013 :)

My Jedi and Little Snow White :)

Yay for Halloween! It's always been one of my absolute favorite holidays, and now it looks like Evie is following in her mother's footsteps ;)

This Halloween season really started for us at the end of September... That's when I made the mistake of leaving Evie with Karl and Christer while I went to the General Relief Society meeting broadcast. They took her to the mall to play on the playground, and while there, Evie discovered the TaylorMaid Halloween shop. Why they put it RIGHT next to the playground, I'll never know. I mean, there were super creepy zombie/possessed/evil/clown/insane automated mannequins in the windows. I was even a little off-put by them. 

Evie, on the other hand, was obsessed with that store...

She really liked that they had cardboard cut outs of Darth Vader and Rapunzel and there was stuff from a bunch of Disney movies she's into, so I think that was the major draw for her, but she was also very interested in the creepy stuff. 

Over the course of the next few weeks we made at least a couple trips a week to the "Halloween store" (which included that store and two different "Halloween City"s). She was very serious and a little unnerved, I think, but she kept wanting to go back and look at everything; I'm still slightly worried that we are terrible parents and have ruined her for life.

Evie now loves everything Halloween and especially creepy things: ghosts, zombies, spiders, mummies, etc. I wish we had gotten some pictures of her at her favorite stores! She was so sad when Halloween ended and all the special stores closed.

By the time we got to the day itself, she was pretty excited! She'd been talking for weeks about "tricken-treating", it was super cute.

The nearly finished product

I really wanted Evie to be Snow White this year; I thought she would make a perfect little Snow White and I figured this would be the last time she wouldn't have a huge opinion on her costume! I got the idea to make Evie's costume from scratch, and I just have to say, I am so proud of myself for going through with it! Usually I have all these ambitious ideas and they never go anywhere... There were so many places along the way where I could have given up, but I didn't! And I think the results were pretty cute ;)

Karl also had a pretty ambitious idea once he saw that I could kind of sew... He wanted to be a Jedi, and he wanted me to make the costume. Considering we've had costume ideas every year, and yet never completed one since we've been married AND I'm not very confident in my sewing skills, I was a little skeptical that it would happen. I have to say, I'm pretty stinking proud that I managed to finish TWO costumes. I'm not a very good seamstress, so it took a lot of late nights and incredible frustration, but they got done (barely) in time! Unfortunately, with the complicated nature of Karl's and Evie's costumes and the lack of free time to work on them, my costume never got finished. So, I was boring this year, hopefully next year we'll get everyone dressed up!!

 

Princess Evie: Jedi Knight

 A couple of days before Halloween, we got to go trick-or-treating at Riverwoods! I honestly didn't know that there were so many places that did trick-or-treating events, but you learn a lot once you become a mom of toddler who needs lots of things to do, lol! We were a little nervous about how many people would be there, but decided Evie would like it anyway, so we gave it a try.

 

She seemed a bit overwhelmed most of the time, but she really liked it! She loved seeing all the other people in costumes (especially the costumes she recognized from movies, haha). My one complaint with the whole experience was that they had very cheap candy... Not that I'm a snob or anything, but it was all the super hard kind that is terrible for little kids, unfortunately. Also, a bunch of shops ran out of candy by the time we got there, which was only about a half hour after they started, and the thing had another hour and a half to go!

 

 

 Halloween itself, we started our trick-or-treating at the mall! Once again, she seemed pretty overwhelmed by all the people and things to see (and I think she was a little tired), but she had such a great time getting candy in her pumpkin! She got a lot of compliments on what a perfect Snow White she made :)

 

Finally, we got to go trick-or-treating around my parent's neighborhood with my little sisters, Mary and Amaia (and grandmama, Susi, and Andy were there too)! This was by FAR the best thing that happened EVER. I wish we had gotten some pictures, but it was already very dark by the time we got out :(

All the other things we had done were great, but this was the real experience Evie had been waiting for. She had a great time marching up to all the doors and saying "tricken-treat!" and getting candy in her pumpkin! She had a hard time keeping up with Mary and Maia, so there was one point where she tripped and fell in street trying to go "fast like a superhero!" and she got an owie, but she recovered pretty quickly (though she will continue to comment on the incident for months to come).

After going just halfway around the block I noticed that she was starting to slow down more and more. It took me a bit to figure it out, but I realized that her pumpkin was getting so full of candy that it was too heavy for her! I tried to hold it for her and even asked if I could just help her, but she adamantly refused to let anyone touch her candy bucket! She dragged that thing along for at least 20 more minutes of trick-or-treating (meanwhile, it's getting heavier and heavier!). I can't believe what a determined little girl she is!

All in all, it was a pretty good Halloween :) We discovered Evie's slightly morbid side and got a ton of candy!!

Ultrasound #3

Beautiful Baby Boy!

Ultrasound #3: complete! At 20 weeks our baby boy is STILL a boy (in case you were worried) ;) He's looking good for the most part; currently growing well and still measuring about 5 days ahead. According to the tech he's weighing in at about 14oz!

I'm still a boy!!

We got to see baby bumping around in there and even practicing his sucking skills (it reminded me so much of newborn Evie!). It was really amazing to see him doing something so incredibly baby-like. I feel like up until now he hasn't seemed "real" any of the times I've seen him in there: yeah, he had the whole basic human shape to him, but still didn't seem like an actual baby. Seeing his little mouth moving in there, doing something I've seen babies on the outside do so many times, was really something.

I'm gonna say that the baby boy I'll be holding in my arms in about  20 weeks definitely became a lot more real to me at that moment. Pretty amazing stuff ;)

Little hand up by his face :)

We ALMOST escaped with this being our final ultrasound this pregnancy, but at the very last minute the doctor saw something she didn't like... So we get to go back at least one more time.

She came in telling me how awesome everything looked and was congratulating me on not needing to come back in, but just as she was wrapping up, she noticed that baby has an echogenic bowel. Basically, his cute little intestines were showing up white in the ultrasound (like bone does) when they should show up dark. 

This could be an indicator of a bunch of things, including infection, trisomy or cystic fibrosis, or something that might restrict his growth later on in the pregnancy... Or it could be absolutely nothing. 

Since we've done a bunch of tests looking for things like trisomy and they've come back with really good results, the doctor wasn't so worried about that, her main concern I think was that it's either an infection (toxoplasmosis or cytomegalovirus) or something that would cause intrauterine growth restriction as the pregnancy continues.

We did a blood test to check out the infection theory (waiting on results) and we'll be going in at 28 weeks to see if it has gone away on its own and to check up on his growth. If it's still there and he seems to be falling behind in his growth at all, we'll have to come in weekly to check his growth and fluids.

The doctor wasn't severely concerned, she mostly wanted to check up on things to be on the safe side, so I'm not super worried, but it's still a little stressful to know that there is the potential for something to be wrong with our little one!

Our next ultrasound will be right around Christmas (I'll be 28 weeks on the 23rd!), so we're hoping and praying for good news!

Final picture: five little toes :D

Pumpkin Land!

I seriously love how much better having a kid makes holidays! We were so excited for Halloween and we wanted to do something special with Evie to get into the mood, so we went to Pumpkinland! It's a little pumpkin patch put on by a local garden center in Orem. My family used to go when I was younger, so definitely a little nostalgic for me ;)

 Evie was a little bit tired and slightly grumpy (which actually just made it difficult to get any good pictures of her) but she loved it! She's really into all things "Halloween" (she's going to be festive, just like her mama!) so she had a great time!

First thing we saw when we arrived: giant inflatable Halloween decorations! They had a ghost that popped out of a pumpkin (which she thought was great) and even a creepy vampire Tigger (she loves Whinny the Pooh AND creepy things... So very perfect, lol)

Next we went out into the corn maze/pumpkin field, which wasn't quite so exciting (she didn't get the point of walking through a bunch of corn...) but they did have a "secret tunnel" and some Halloween decorations that she kept trying to give hugs to, haha.

They had a bunch of these little picture take-y things (I really can't think of what to call them...) out in the corn, and Evie thought they were cool, but didn't quite get how they worked.. She wanted to look through the "windows", but she also wanted to see the fun side! So we have a lot of pictures of her trying to see what's on the other side, lol.

Evie is a huge fan of animals and they had a bunch just for her! There were bunnies, chickens, cows, goats, and all kinds of birds. Pretty cool!

Probably her second favorite part of the whole thing was the little playground. There were tunnels to crawl through, things to climb on, and even a giant pumpkin to go inside!

We tried really hard to get a "family pic" buuuuuut, cranky Evie just wouldn't have it... Love this picture anyway, haha.

Probably Evie's favorite part of the WHOLE experience was the bouncy house... This was her very first time trying one out, and I'm pretty sure we were just reintroducing her to her natural habitat, lol. They had a big inflatable slide that you had to climb up some ladder-y rungs to get too. Evie REALLY wanted to do it, and she tried and tried and tried, but the ladder was too worn down so she kept slipping and couldn't make it to the top no matter how hard she tried. I really couldn't believe how determined she was to do it though, I would have given up after the first couple attempts, but she really wanted to climb up that slide!!

At the very end, Evie got to pick out her very own "baby" pumpkin! It was super cute how excited she was about it; she HAD to hold it in the car seat with her on the way home. Also, I just have to mention, we got three pumpkins for super cheap... it was an awesome deal! So glad we didn't just grab some at Wal-Mart.

We had so much fun, we really wanted to go again (maybe sometime when Evie wasn't so tired...) but we didn't get the chance, unfortunately, with school schedules and sleep schedules :( I hope they have it again next year, but I've heard rumors this might have be the last time they do it! So sad! I'm glad we got to go this year!