It's Turkey Time

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We celebrated with Matt's parents, and Cara's cousins, Morgan and Grant. Here they are 'cooking' their own thanksgiving dinner. They had everything they needed - a portable cook stove, a stuffed turkey (literally, a fabric cooked turkey), cranberyy sauce, gravy, and even pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

As for the real dinner, Cara enjoyed most everything, even trying mashed potatoes for the first time.

Cara had lots of fun playing pretend with her cousins, and taking "baby" for a ride in the doll stroller mimi had on hand. 'Baby' must have driven miles in that stroller, as Cara pushed her everywhere, often transferring her from stroller to bed multiple times in just a few minutes.

We also attended the annual Cold Turkey Plunge, where brave souls jump into the Atlantic Ocean on Thanksgiving morning to raise money for charity. Unfortunately we were a little late, and missed the actual plunge by a matter of seconds (since that's as long as anyone stays in the water) - but the kids made the best of it by playing in the sand. It actually almost felt like a day at the beach, since it was actually 60 degrees out!

Cara also started putting words together, saying things like "want daddy" "go ride" and "more pease." Other words she's added this week include "rice" "Morgan" "Mimi" "Ella" (elevator), and "juice." Now that we're home, I think she's going through attention withdrawl.

It's All About Baby

Apparently Cara's baby doll, which she calls "baby" likes to help Cara eat her eggs. This morning Cara insisted on bringing baby downstairs (from her crib), and laid her on the table next to her while she was eating. The next thing I know, I look over, and Cara has 'baby' in her lap, and is feeding her eggs. Luckily, eggs wipe off easily.

You may also notice a lovely red mark on her forehead. Cara was walking to the car last week, when she tripped and fell in the garage, scraping her forehead. It looks much worse than it is, and she didn't even cry too badly. Still, everyone we meet, including strangers, wants to know what happened. It hasn't affected her sunny personality though.

The latest

Cara has been on an eating spree of late. At one meal last week she ate 2/3 chicken breast, 1/2 cup of peas, a spinach pancake and a 1/2 pint of blueberries. For dinner tonight she ate another 1/2 pint of blueberries, 2 turkey meatballs, and a 1/4 cup of edamame. This was just a half hour after she ate several pretzels and a cheese stick. I know this is fascinating information, but, hey, this is pretty much my life.

Cara has been doing and saying lots of new things lately. Favorite words are "pooh" - after winnie the pooh, "no, no, no," "cheers," "baby," and "mine!" She is very interested in copying whatever you are doing. So when I was writing in my calendar, she wanted a pen and paper to write on. When I get the broom out, she wants to sweep - which is sometimes very counterproductive.

She also loves walking around the house with various bags - pretending to go "shopping" - she'll grab a bag, walk down the hallway, and say "bye" to me, like she's on some big adventure.

She is just getting to be such a big girl.

It's tThe Great Pumpkin!

Ok, maybe not so great. Just a little pumpkin, or several of them. We got a bunch of tiny sugar pumpkins for the playgroup kids to decorate with stickers at our playgroup halloween party today. All day Cara enjoyed moving them from one place to another. From the coffee table, to the couch, to the play table, and even onto her rocking horse.

She also liked to try to carry two at once. A couple of things I learned...

Pumpkins do, in fact, bounce... and they are sturdier than you would think.

We had lots of friends over for our halloween party, with lots of treats too. There was Alexandra (the chicken), Avery (the belly dancer), Evie (the dog), Vivy (the fairy), Cara (another fairy), Tad (the dragonosaurus), Anthony (the cow, not pictured) and Samantha (the princess - not pictured).

More halloween fun tomorrow!

On Dinner Parties

Thursday night friends of ours from playgroup invited a bunch of us over for a little dinner party. With 8 adults and 4 kids, not to mention a thunderstorm, it could have been total chaos - but it ended up being really fun.

The kids did a wonderful job sitting at their own table eating dinner, and played nicely while the adults ate too. There wasn't even much fighting over toys, which made me happy, since, all day Wednesday and Thursday all Cara had been saying was "mine!"

After dinner, they all had fun playing together on the couch. Jumping over each other, hugging, and generally getting too wound up.

In other news, Cara's newest skill is being able to climb up on the chair I use at my computer desk. Before I can even turn around she's up on the chair, grinning at me, and using the computer mouse to delete all my e-mail. So if you've sent me an e-mail I haven't responded to, blame my little budding Internet expert. She definitely takes after he father.

Tractor Girl

At a loss for something to do this morning, Matt and I took Cara on a quick trip to a local farm one town over. They have apple picking, and pumpkins, and it appears that on weekends they also have all kinds of food and craft vendors.

One of the food booths was selling corn on the cob, one of Cara's favorite foods, so we just had to have some.

We also wandered through the pumpkins, and went to visit the resident goats. Cara and I had been to this farm before, and I thought she had been saying "geese" - but what she was actually trying to say was "goat" - still, it comes out sounding more like "gee." Here she is trying to get a better view of the goats.

The farm store had a bunch of fun stuff, including halloween decorations. One of those decorations was a boar's head hanging on the wall. While Cara was afraid of the head (reminiscent of the stuffed animal moose head at Ra-ra and Poppi's cabin), she kept wanting to go back into the area that had it - pointing up to it and saying something I couldn't understand. Probably something along the lines of "they really shouldn't put something like that where people can see, I think it belongs in a closet with that scary moose head I remember."

Apples, Apples, Everywhere

Wow, it's already October, and Fall is definitely under way. Sorry for the long time between posts, but Ra-ra (Grandma) and Poppi were visiting last week, so we were very busy.

We went apple picking, and did lots of playing outside in the leaves, which are just starting to fall. Poppi even taught Cara how to clean out the gutters.

Cara has been working on saying lots of new words. Her favorite so far is "down" - which can mean "put me down," "put that down," or "Maddie! down! don't eat my cheese." She has also decided that mommy is not allowed to hold any other babies. Several days ago I was holding her friend Viviane, and she pointed to Vivi in my arms, then touched the ground and said "DOWN!" in a very insistent voice. So bossy!

Here's a picture of Evie, Cara and Vivi after music class the other day. Cara really likes the music class - it's mostly just shaking various instruments, running around in circles and generally making noise. What could be more fun for a 15 month old?

Other words Cara is working on include "beas" (please), "duh" (duck), "doh-gee" (doggie), and "wugga-wugga" (wiggles).

She has also been on a hugging spree. She wants to hug all of her friends, whether or not they really want hugs. It could be that Cara's hugs are a little intimidating, since she tends to bestow them at a full run.