Two Days of Halloween

Rather than just have one Halloween this year, we decided to have two. Well, sort of. We actually aren't doing anything today but have paraded Jonah around in his costume for the last two days instead.


On Thursday night we dressed Jonah up in his snuggly costume and headed to the North Liberty Rec Center for a Halloween carnival. Being such a small town the festivities were modest but there was a flow of people the whole time. There were the usual carnival games to be played: fishing for candy with a string and a clothespin, ring toss on old pop bottles and musical chairs. One of the attractions that Andrew and I had never seen before was the train "rides." Reminiscent of the Flinstones, the train cars were cardboard boxes that the kids put around their waist and walked with, all tied together, and went through a refrigerator box cave covered in black trash bags. The whole loop was maybe 30 feet. There was also an area where about 20 pool fun-noodles were hung from the ceiling for kids to run through. No point to it, just a way for kids to run around and get hit in the face with foam noodles. It was a big hit! There was also a maze and a photo opportunity when you came in (on hay bales of course!). Jonah was too small to do anything but we had fun going out as a family. He even had trouble leaning against the hay for a commemorative photo. He was so focused on the hay in his hand that he kept leaning over. Daddy was right there to keep him from really falling though.


Yesterday we dressed Jonah up again and showed him off to Andrew's co-workers. He had a lab meeting scheduled and thought that Jonah would be a fun little way to kick it off. Other than his adviser, we are the only people who have a kid so the younger people in the group loved oohing and aahing over him. We kept having people guess "Is he a dragon?" to which we said...yes. Of course the next person would ask "Is he a dinosaur?" and we would say...yes! With no tail and no wings, it is hard to say definitively what he is. Let's just say we are leaving that artistic liberty to the eye of the beholder. At the meeting we let Jonah do "reverse trick-or-treating" and hand out candy to the people there. He was really sweet and tried to stick each piece of candy in his mouth before he handed it out. Safety first!!


I left him in his costume and we continued the reverse trick-or-treating when we went to the mall. Everyone who passed us would comment and smile and the store workers really appreciated getting candy from our little man. It was a very early lesson in sharing and felt really good just making people smile all day. Jonah was a good sport both days and because his costume felt so much like his sleepers he never complained about having it on. All that is left to do today, on ACTUAL Halloween is to stay in and watch The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown as a family. Perfect!

Bloomsbury Farms

On Sunday we took advantage of pleasant fall weather and went out to Bloomsbury Farms for a day of fall festivities. When my best friend Stacey stayed with us last year we visited the farm for the first time and loved it. There was so much to do and it was such a fun environment. Though we knew that Jonah was too small to take advantage of most of the things that the farm had to offer, we thought it would make for a fun experience anyway.

We wished so much that Jonah's cousins could have come out with us because it was such a playground for curious little boys. There was a petting zoo where you could feed lamas, donkeys, pigs and goats. The goats had huge scaffolding's that they climbed on to get extra food off of conveyor belt contraptions. I fed the animals while Jonah looked on, since his little fingers would have certainly been mistaken for food!


We sat in the "cornbox", Iowa's version of a sandbox, and I tried to keep him from putting handfuls of dirty corn into his mouth.


We took another hayrack ride through cornfields since he liked it so much last time. This time Gramma got to hold him and he didn't fall asleep!


We opted not to get a pumpkin to carve this year, but decided that Jonah should at least get to see a few up close, just so he could know what all the commotion was about. It was picturesque.


We also got to watch pig races at Farmer Dave's Pig Race track. The pigs were really cute, but Jonah was more interested in trying to grab the little girl's hair that was standing next to him and Dad. Luckily he was unsuccessful.


Throughout the day Gramma got ample time to hold Jonah and even got a few smiles and goofy faces out of him. She is really good at that and got to see a number of goofy Jonah faces during her trip.


We left the farm a couple hours after getting there and heeded the advice of the exit sign. We came with one little pill bug and left with one. No more for us thank you!!

Gramma Arrives

What a weekend we have had! My mom arrived for a visit this past Saturday. Though she came for nothing more than a little time with her new grand baby, we wanted to do more than just sit around the house while she was here. Boy did we ever! (More blogs to come...) We did just as much as a 4 month old would allow. We started off her trip with a drive through Palisades Kempler State Park.

Rather than taking the interstate back to our house, we took a road less traveled and went to see the changing fall colors at the park. We first drove through it when Andrew's parents were here a few weeks ago and thought that it would be a nice little detour while Mom was out here. While she hardly noticed the scenery (staring intently at Jonah can block out the rest of the world) it was a nice way to spend the time anyway. Apparently a lot of people thought that it would be as good of day to take pictures as we did because everywhere you turned there were people with cameras. Couples taking engagement photos. Parents taking photos of their kids for holiday cards. People just trying to capture the colors of the season. We were happy to be able to get some sweet photos of Jonah and his doting Gramma.


We were also able to take advantage of the golden backdrop for some generational photos.


Jonah loves to explore his surroundings, and this was a great setting for that. We set him down to look at the leaves, but then he couldn't be bothered to look at the camera. We left him sitting there just long enough for a shot or two; then the leaves started to head towards his mouth and a spider started to crawl on him. We were done with that!!


Jonah is nothing if not strong, and he has gotten to where he loves having us help him stand. He actually prefers it to sitting. We obliged him and let him have the feeling as if he were taking a little stroll through the forest himself.


Soon after that he ran out of steam and Gramma got to see his grumpy face again, close up. It is so hard not to laugh at his drama sometimes.

Hayrack Ride

Last night the Iowa Smiths had another fun night on the farm. The North Liberty Rec Center organized an outdoor event at a family farm down the road from our house. I found out about it through a mom's group that I joined and thought that it sounded like some good ol' fashioned fun. Boy was it ever!

The farm is just a few blocks from our house so we bundled up little man, swung by a friend's house to pick her up, and walked on over. It was chilly out, somewhere in the 40's, but really wasn't too bad. The farm had built a huge bonfire to keep everyone warm as they waited for the hayrack to come around and pick them up for a spin.

The ride lasted about 20 minutes and wove us through the cornfields on the property. There were carved pumpkins set out for display scattered throughout the ride. (Oh yes.. there were IOWA and Hawkeye pumpkins!) At one point a couple of deer who were grazing in the clearing nearby trotted along on the trail just ahead of the tractor. VERY exciting for the kids who were riding with us.

The ride was very relaxing and lulled Jonah into a little nap. He fell asleep on my lap and proceeded to take a cat nap right in the middle of all the festivities.

After the ride it was time for some snacks and a movie. There was hot chocolate and smores to be made and the farm showed Monster's Inc. on a homemade theater screen...a big tarp draped over an even bigger John Deere! Theater the Iowa way.

4 Months

Yesterday marked Jonah's four month birthday. He just keeps on changing and getting bigger as time goes on. He is getting more and more fun with increasing smiling, laughing and interest in things besides us. Here he is once again with Green Monkey and his classic face!


Unfortunately on Jonah's "birthday" we had to say farewell to his Nana and Papa. They left our place and headed off to Wisconsin to visit Jonah's Great Grandma Bartlett and Aunt Louise and Uncle David. Even though they had a Packers game in their future to distract them, we guessed that they were gonna miss our little man anyway! While they were here they blessed us immensely. They came bearing gifts from themselves and Omi and Papa John (pajamas, and toys, and books oh my!). They babysat while Andrew and I got to go out on a date (We went out for sushi and sake, neither of which I have had since before I was pregnant! Yummo!!). Most of all, they showered Jonah with all of the reading, rocking, walking, playing, and cuddling a little kid could ever want. It was the simple pleasure, and now luxury, of having dinner with family and having Jonah spend time with those who love him that meant the most. We enjoyed every minute and miss them already.

Papa reading Automobile magazine to Jonah.
Nana holding Jonah holding his new Gato doll. (We didn't name it that! That was the dolls actual name and look at the uncanny resemblance to Gato that Daddy painted. Awesome.)

New Parents and an Apple Orchard

Last night Andrew and I were classic "new parents". Though we have had the pleasure of our little man's company for almost 4 months now, we still have moments of fear over non-fearful things. We had a very busy day as a family yesterday (we visited the apple orchard) and Jonah was off of his schedule all day. That led to a very fitful evening and a rough time going to bed. Once asleep though, he proceeded to sleep and sleep. At 5:30 in the morning I woke up and realized that he had been asleep for over 7 hours. He has only done this once or twice before. I went to the crib and couldn't hear him. Andrew got up to listen and he couldn't hear him either. (Mind you, we have a monitor in his bed that blinks every time he breaths and it was blinking the whole time.) So we turned the bedroom light on and took the cat tent off and had our fears calmed when we saw Jonah move. We went back to bed and after about 30 min Andrew asked if I was lying there just waiting for Jonah to wake up too. Of course I was! We stayed awake until 6:30 when he did in fact wake up. That was 8 hours of sleep. Not TOTALLY restful, but 8 hours none the less!

Jonah was so exhausted because we spent the day driving around looking at the changing colors of fall and visiting Wilson's Apple Orchard. Since it is later in the season, a lot of the apple trees were pretty well picked over, but we were just there for a little change of scenery anyway. Nana and Papa are in from California, so they were able to come with us. We all bundled up and took pictures while we waited for our order of a fresh apple turnover to come out of the oven. Paired with a little hot chocolate and coffee, it was delicious!! We opted to not go on the tractor ride this time, since Jonah was getting increasingly more tired and the weather was getting increasingly more chilly as time went on. However, we think that he will really love it next year. Before we left we got a bunch of apples (that the staff there had already picked) to take home to do our own baking. We didn't get any carving pumpkins there though. Gotta save something to do when Gramma comes in a few weeks !

Homecoming Weekend

This weekend is homecoming for the Iowa Hawkeyes. To celebrate there was a big parade downtown. Not big as in size (two streets were blocked off for the parade of trucks with college students on them, buses, and the college marching band) but big as in number of attendees. Thousands of people turned out for the "event".


We decided to go as well to see what all the hubbub was about and rock our new Iowa gear.


We had to bundle up little man since it was 52 degrees when we got there and got increasingly colder. (We got our first little snow this morning. Yeah!) Jonah wasn't overly impressed with the festivities, but did like the change of scenery and behaved really well. We ended the night by grabbing fast food for dinner and going over to our friends house to chat. Just another little night in Iowa!

Siblings

A lot of people ask us how our girls are liking having a new non-furry brother in the house. As expected Chloe pretty much stays away from him, just like she does with the rest of us. She is less skittish than we expected her to be though and she loves his room. Every time we go in there to rock or read she comes trotting in with us and stays in there until we leave. She is able to sleep right through his crying too, although she has had a lot of time to get used to it! Addyson does not seem to be shaken by the new edition at all either. She is certainly more curious about him than Chloe is. She has tried to lay on him, many times, when he has been laying on our chests (picture a row of overlapping dominoes). It makes sense since that is where she used to lay and now she just sees him taking her spot. We just encourage her to have patience because he is quickly growing too big to lay there any more. Unfortunately we have only been able to get a picture of this with our phones since it's a difficult position to take a good picture with a camera. Since day one she has come up to him and sniffed his head when he has been eating or been playing on the ground. Just recently though, he has taken an interest in her too. It will be so fun when he gets big enough to play with her and when she can nap with him. I am sure they will both love each other. And Chloe will sit by and watch!

Addyson meeting her brother the day we brought him home.
Looking to Mom to ask what this new thing is.
Taking a safe nap together, under Daddy's watchful eye.
Our new FAVORITE picture! Daddy had Jonah on the floor for tummy time last week and Addyson wanted to check it out. Jonah was just looking straight at her. Too cute.

The Iowa Smiths are Sick

We are indeed a house full of sickies. As early as this past weekend, Andrew was feeling under the weather and proceeded to feel worse as the week went on. I begged for him to not get me sick too, but obviously he had no control over it. Share a house, share germs! I succumbed to being sick yesterday. Since Jonah got his shots on Monday, he too has not been feeling like himself, and we are pretty sure he has a touch of whatever we have. (Again, share a house...)

Andrew and I have talked a lot over the last few days about how different it is to be sick when you have a kid. Andrew was having to find ways to love on Jonah without getting too close to his face and being kissy with him. That is a tremendously hard task with our cute little bugger man! Now that I am sick too, I totally see what he has been talking about. Added to it is the task of simply caring for Jonah when I am trying to spread around as few germs as possible. With him feeling yucky himself, we also have a grumpy gus to deal with. We are doing as much as we can with the infant Tylenol, but in the end he just doesn't feel good and wants to be held, held, and held some more.

With so much holding etc. there is really no time to get well ourselves; at least not in the way that we are used to. Normally when I am sick I lay low, sleep a lot, and do virtually nothing until I feel better. With a baby I still have to do the laundry (blow outs and spit up don't brake for a cold), and only get to sleep when he does (he still only does cat naps, even when he doesn't feel good). It's just an all around different experience. Definitely harder, and I am sure the lack of rest will make our colds drag on a little longer than usual. Hopefully this will only last for a few more days and then things can get back to normal.