We Must Be Starving Her

This is what I found when I walked into the kitchen yesterday.

Ingrid had gotten into the pantry and while I thought she couldn't get into the granola bars, I was wrong. She bit right through the wrapper! She is such a little goat!

And now, for today's Book Sharing Monday:

Counting Kisses by Karen Katz

We read this at story time and I thought it was pretty cute. A countdown from ten kisses on ten toes to one kiss on baby's sleepy head.

We like to read this before naptime, Ingrid enjoys all the kisses :)

Ingrid says her ABCs

Punkins

It's FALL!! Time for going to the pumpkin patch! Last year we took Ingrid and the boys I was babysitting for, Peter and Carl, to a local farm to see animals and have a fun fall day. We kept saying, ahh, just wait until next year! How fun will that be to take her on a hay ride and get pumpkins and watch her run around?

A LOT of fun, it turns out :)

We saw tons of pumpkins and apples.

Ingrid rode a pony. She had fun, but it was kind of depressing--our pony, Sugar, just seemed so depressed and disengaged. It probably isn't that great to just wander up and down one little patch of an apple orchard all day. *sigh* Way to take the fun out of it, Amber...Ingrid had fun being a cowgirl, anyway!

She LOVED all the pumpkins, and kept saying puckin, puckin! I didn't even know she knew how to say that word.

She also loved the donuts and cider. Naturally.

It was a great day. If you want to see all the pictures, go to my facebook photo album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=151930&id=531087032&l=5e61a82fa8

New Computer!

The other day I smelled something burning. It was the computer. Uh oh! It was time for a new one anyway, we'd had the old one for almost six years and the monitor had broken so we had an old timey huge boxy monitor from a friend. But now--we have a shiny new computer with a nice new FLAT monitor, hooray!

Anyway, I have pictures from the past few days we were without a way to post them. Ingrid in overalls:

Ingrid and Daddy reading before bedtime:

Ingrid going shopping with her cart. She kept going into the pantry and pulling all the cans out, putting them in her little cart. Then she'd walk around with it, come back in the kitchen and unload them back into the pantry.

Ben's Birthday!

Saturday afternoon we went over to Jami, James and Ben's new house for Ben's 2nd birthday extravaganza. It was a crisp, cool fall day, perfect for a drive and an afternoon with friends. The Lippens' new house is amazing, so cute and cozy! They live right by a cider mill, which we passed on our way there, saying to ourselves we needed to stop there on the way home. No need, as Jami had cider and donuts waiting for us! Yum! That's probably one of my favorite things about fall.

Ingrid played with all of Ben's toys, especially his play kitchen. Then she gave us all a scare when she disappeared for a few minutes. Everyone was looking for her and the house isn't that big, so where could she have gotten off to?? The bathroom. And she managed to lock the door. Jami unlocked it and found Ingrid rifling through the cabinet, pulling out everything she could. *sigh* That's my daughter.

It was a monster themed birthday party so I had made this crown for Ben. At first he wouldn't have anything to do with wearing it, but by cake time he would allow it for the few seconds it took to snap a couple pictures. He looked so cute in it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BENNY!!

Sorry, Gramma.

My mom emailed me wondering where the new pictures were. My computer isn't allowing me to upload any new pictures, though, so I can't post anything new. Stupid computer. I'll try really hard today to get it to work, but otherwise I have to use Brendan's laptop when he gets home from work. Sorry, Gramma, they're coming :)

Silly Hats and Feeding Bears

After seeing this post from Claire, I had to try to make this Pixie Hat. Ingrid and I took a trip to Salvation Army yesterday and got a pretty green sweater that was half off. I got it home and tried to sew it together, and found that the needle just pulled the sweater down and ripped it. Fun! After reading the manual to the sewing machine, I found a tip to use wax paper under the fabric, so I tried that--it worked so well! I added some ribbon for ties and viola, in ten minutes I had a cute little hat! The spots weren't on the sweater originally--I'm going to blame drool for those.

I used the same basic idea with flannel and a lining fabric and came up with this one:

Ingrid wasn't too pleased to have her picture taken, but she did keep the hat on the whole time we were outside! Personally, I think it's the cutest thing ever...

Unless this is the cutest thing ever:

I looked over at Ingrid today and found her feeding goldfish crackers to her teddy bear. Every day she does something more adorable than the last!!

Our Bruiser

Ingrid tripped a couple days ago and scraped her face up. She just completely face planted into the sidewalk, didn't even put out her arms to try to save herself...So, she has a black eye. It looks a lot better now, but she looked so pathetic when it happened!

We found a hat our friend Hannah made for Ingrid. I got this at a baby shower and it only just now fits. Doesn't it look cute on Ingrid?? And it's inspired me to try to make a bonnet for her, since I keep seeing them and wanting to try to make one.

I've also been wanting to try a felt crown, after seeing Heather make hers for birthday gifts. What a great idea! And our friend Ben is having a party on Saturday, a monster themed party, so I made this for him:


I hope he likes it!

Our Trip to Denver!

We left Thursday morning. Ingrid was super good on the plane, she just sat on my lap and we sang songs, watched Teletubbies, and ate snacks. We got settled at the hotel and then went downtown Denver to look around. The first night was tough, Ingrid wasn't used to her surroundings and was up every two hours or so...But we made it and she got better with each night.

Friday we went to Estes Park. It is a gorgeous drive with tons of great mountain views. Once there, we just got lunch and walked around. It was so cold! I forget how mountain weather is unpredictable. In Denver it was in the 70s, but way up in the mountains it was snowing.


Saturday was our friends Michelle and Alex's wedding, the reason we were there in the first place. It was gorgeous! It was at a park in Arvada, they had hot dogs and burgers and tons of goodies. Everyone mingled and played badminton and had a good time. Ingrid had fun with sidewalk chalk and the trees.

Sunday we took a drive over to Golden. Brendan has been looking at jobs at a lab there so we decided just to see how far from Denver it was and what the town was like. It's so cute! They have a little downtown and we took a walk along the river. It was another beautiful day and we took another drive to the mountains. This was our way of getting Ingrid to nap--she would only sleep in the car. And what better way to get her to nap than to drive through the mountains? It was so amazing.


After the drive, we met our friends for lunch and the Aquarium. It was pretty cool, Ingrid loved all the fish, she kept running from tank to tank.


And then finally on Monday we left to come home. I love it in Colorado and I hope so bad that Brendan can find a job there. I think we could have a lot of fun in the mountains!!

For more pictures, see my album on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=149007&id=531087032&l=16e425f20d

Our Monday (and Book Sharing, Too!)

This morning has been pretty busy. Ingrid attacked, er, pet the cat. It is so funny how Fletcher takes this abuse, er, love. He meows pathetically and yet doesn't try at all to escape...

While Ingrid ate her "wa-foo" I cut out some squares from my box of scraps. Then when she went down for her nap, I sewed them together to make this:

I am just realizing that a couple of the boxes got put on upside down or sideways, and I thought I had been so careful! How do quilters make such masterpieces?? This is going to end up being a lovey or change pad anyway, so it will just be covered in drool or other bodily fluids. I guess an upside down block isn't that big of a deal.

And now onto Book Sharing Monday. Ingrid LOVES all the Carl books. We found two more at the library last week and she's taken to them right away. She'll just sit there and page through, looking at the pictures and talking to herself. For those that don't know, the Carl books are about a baby and the Rottweiler that babysits her. They get into all kinds of adventures and mischief while the mom goes about her business.



My mom saw them and said, "Can you imagine ever letting a big dog like that watch your child?!" Sadly, I can totally see Ingrid riding around a Rottweiler. She loves all dogs, but especially the big ones. Yesterday at the dog park she ran over excitedly when Sampson the Newfoundland came in. He came right up, slobbered all over her, and she smiled like she'd won the lottery. Go over to Serendipity to find out more about Book Sharing Monday!