Port Farms better watch out: There’s a new patch in town.

I have taken Zoe to Port Farms in previous years, but when a friend told me about a new place called Sissons’ Pumpkin Patch in Girard we decided to try it instead this autumn.

It was great. It’s a lot like Port Farms, but smaller — which is perfectly fine for kids our age. We still didn’t make it to all the attractions by the time the little ones (and their parents) were tuckered out.

Mark’s favorite ride was the trikes built for big kids. I think he would’ve ridden it all day if Zoe would have stayed on the back. I think he was too embarrassed to do it by himself, even though he really wanted to.

There were also six or seven super fast slides, all of different lengths. There were no lines the day we went so Zoe went down the short one about 100 times. I went down the long one about 110 times. So. Much. Fun. There was also a super long corn maze. Yawn. I hate corn mazes. Mark insisted. As you can see, I lagged behind with the stroller and Max. Luckily we made it out before I had to call 911 for help.

And of course there was the cornbox. Zoe spent many happy minutes playing in it and brought home a souvenir kernel or two in her diaper, which was a bit of a shocker until I figured out what they were.

There was a pumpkin launch, which was super fun. We didn’t win anything, but we had a good time trying.We ended the day on a tractor ride. It about lulled us all to sleep. It was a nice way to end our day without any temper tantrums about leaving.Little cuddlebugs.

I like Port Farms a lot, but Sissons was a great size for our little ones, was a tad cheaper (at $6.95, the entry fee is $1 less on the weekends at Sissons Farms), and didn’t have nearly the crowds that you find on a nice day at Port Farms. That might change though as more people hear about Sissons. Oops.It’s definitely nice to have more than one of these great farms-turned-entertainment centers close by. We’ll be back again next year! And next year I will hit the pumpkin target. You can bet on that.

My little girl started school this fall. She is going to Villa Maria’s preschool program two mornings a week. I figured she would like it — she is soaking up information and knowledge as fast as she can right now and she loves to be with kids her age.

But I underestimated. She LOVES it. She asks every day if tomorrow is a school day. She is always happy to be dropped off (though since she’s two I still get the huge mommy smile and hug like she hasn’t seen me in a year. That’s a nice feeling.). She knows exactly where to go now, and sometimes runs ahead of me in the mornings because she can’t wait to get there.

She loves her teacher, who she calls Ms. Sandra.

We got her first school pictures the other day. They’re pretty terrible. Which is pretty great. Because who has ever taken a good school picture? She looks like a boy with super messy hair. I swear I put her hair in pigtails that morning. Or maybe not. I can’t remember.

It’s crazy to me how much she knows. She can pick out almost all of her letters and numbers by sight, can spell out her name on a keyboard, and has her colors down cold. Just this week she started drawing things I could recognize — a spider and then a few days later, a person.

She’s so proud of herself. One night this summer we were out for a walk and she made us hold her up at every Stop sign so she could spell out the word. It’s quite amazing to watch her learn. My jaw drops daily with something new. Love that girl.

 Now if only she would agree to use the potty I’d be a completely happy mama.

Did you see them in the Erie Times-News this morning? They were models for a story on no-sew Halloween costumes by Jennie Geisler. It was a super fun photo shoot with super photog Jack Hanrahan. It was complete with tears, a poopy diaper, and a baby who wouldn’t sit still. I was afraid Zoe was going to freak out about taking off the angel costume because she LOVES dressing like a princess, but she had no troubles. Perfect little model. I, however, was sweating by the end from changing costumes and trying to keep them smiling for Jack. I’m sure he has lots of pictures of my hands and feet swooping in and out to put Maxie back in the light. You can see the story here online, but there’s only one picture with it. Here’s the rest of Jack’s photos that were in print:

Adorable, eh? Thanks Jennie and Jack for including us in your story! We had a blast!

So my girl rocked it at Penn Shore Winery’s Duke Sherman Band gig a few weeks back. She strummed daddy’s guitar, danced, and generally enjoyed being the center of attention. She even caught the attention of a professional photographer named Thom Heinrich who happened to be there, along with about 1,500 other people. He was nice enough to email me some of the shots he took, and I have included some of them here. You can find his work at thomhenryphotography.com.

Oh yeah, and Duke was there too.

And here’s some of my less professional photos, shot with my iPhone:

If you haven’t been, make sure to find a Saturday next summer to go to Penn Shore for a concert. They have great bands, and such a fantastic venue with a huge wide open lawn, a great stage for dancing, and it’s all set in the middle of vineyards. They also have tents set up so there’s plenty of shade. When we were there, the grapes were almost ready for picking. Zoe and I tried a few. Delicious. The guys only play a few select gigs now — they chose four this summer — and this is one that they kept on their list because they always have so much fun and such a great, responsive crowd. Hopefully they’ll be invited back next year!

Thanks again to Thom for the photos too! If you live in the area make sure to check out his site if you need a photographer!

Hello my dear readers (all four of you):

We’re having ongoing computer issues at home which is messing with my photo library. I’ve also got several freelance projects that are going to be eating my time up in the next few weeks. So we’re going to get our computer straightened out and I’m going to get my projects done and then I will be back!

Look for new blog entries starting in the first week of October.

Thanks!

Kara

Zoe has been listening to the same CD every night since she was about six weeks old. It’s a CD of traditional lullabies I was given as a shower present (Thanks Val Myers!).

A few weeks ago Mark and Zoe began singing along to the songs as part of their bedtime routine. He quickly realized  she knew every word on the CD by heart. We were suitably impressed, and I think because of our reaction she was proud of herself. The result is that she now sings the songs all the time. She sings along to her CD while she lays in bed or sings all by herself in the backseat of the car.

It’s the cutest thing ever. Her favorite is “Hush Little Baby.” She sings it a lot. When I try to sing along she holds her hand out to me and says “No, baba, no. Stop.” Apparently she’s the only one who can sing in this family.

I got her on video the other day singing “Hush.” Here it is. I apologize for the sun in the video. It’s definitely not the best quality, but you can hear her clearly. The lyrics follow in case you have trouble understanding toddler-speak.

Adorable, right?

We took Zoe and Max to the Crawford County Fair Sunday. It runs through Aug. 25 and if you have kids — and really, even if you don’t — you should try to go for an afternoon or evening. It’s so much fun to see all the 4H kids and their animals, take in the carnival atmosphere and EAT. We may have put a rover on Mars, but what’s really amazing is American ingenuity when it comes to dreaming up different foods to try to fry. But for us the highlight was the animals.

At 2 1/2 Zoe’s love of all creatures knows no bounds. She wants to hold spiders, pet birds and gets upset when the chipmunks in our yard run away from her. She just wants to talk to them, after all.

So I was really excited to take her to the fair to see the sheep, pigs, horses, chickens and bunnies.

She loved them all.

But the horses were definitely her favorite. And the highlight of the day for her was a pony ride on a pony she told me was named “Horse.”

My little cowgirl, in her $5 hat and Crocs. Gotta love it. I tried to put her overalls on from last winter but they were about 2 inches too short on her long legs. So her brother wore them instead.

He liked the fair too. Especially the riding on daddy’s shoulders part.

We even met little baby Snow, a 2 month old Shetland pony. Absolutely adorable.

The Crawford County Fair — billed as Pennsylvania’s largest agricultural fair, runs through Saturday, Aug. 25. For more information, including directions and an event schedule and visit their website here.

Have a fair day!

Fun house family photo (minus Max)

These pictures are not brand new, but I still wanted to share them. We took Zoe to Waldameer for a day o’ fun a few weeks ago. If you’re looking to come to Erie, this is a really great old fashioned amusement park right outside of Presque Isle. It’s free to come in and walk around. Then you can choose to pay by ride or for a pass. We ended up getting Zoe a child’s combo pass good for the water park and the amusement park ($19), passes for us for Water World only ($17 each), and a “Wally Card” for us to pay for rides as we went with $20 in cash on it. The $20 was more than enough — we even came home with some still left over. Another nice thing about Waldameer? You can bring in your own food. Coolers are welcome. So is beer most days. You can find out more about the park here.

We got a sitter for Max and just took Zoe for a special treat. We weren’t sure how many rides she’d be able to actually do, but she ended up being able to do a lot more than we thought — in some cases a little more than I was comfortable with!

We started off at the water park end of the amusement park. It was great — we got there right when it opened and it really wasn’t crowded. There’s a nice toddler area and a lazy river, so we had plenty to do for an hour or two. I don’t have any pictures from there because we were getting wet, so I obviously didn’t carry a camera.

We had lunch, then headed for the rides. This was definitely the hit of the day it turned out. Zoe LOVED all the rides. No fear. She wanted to ride EVERYTHING, from roller coasters to the simplest of kid rides. We avoided the roller coasters, but she was able to ride some adult rides, just hitting the 36 inch minimum height rules.

My daughter was on this! You can see her and Mark five rows from the top. He’s in the blue shirt, with his arm firmly around Zoe. Firmly, as in holding on to her for dear life. She was laughing out loud the entire time. She loved it.

She also liked the slower-paced little kid rides. These were especially nice because we didn’t have to ride with her and we never had to wait in line — if she wanted to ride something twice we just put her right back through and on again.

That was especially nice at the Frog Hopper because Zoe wanted to ride it again and again and again and again. I think she rode it 7 or 8 times.

This guy was wandering around. Zoe chased him down for a hug.

Then it was mommy’s turn to take Zoe on a “big kid” ride.

We went on the…Swings! It was great. She loved it. You can see the lake from up there. It was especially fun because you can see the swings spinning from Sara’s, down the road at the entrance to Presque Isle. Anytime we have lunch there Zoe always gets really excited about the swings and wants to go see them. So it was great to finally be able to take her to them.

All in all, a great day. I still have not been on the Ravine Flyer, which is just shameful. Side story: Mark and I were actually going to go to Waldameer to ride the Ravine Flyer on his birthday a few years ago. But it ended up being the day we found out I was pregnant with Zoe. Roller coasters and pregnant women aren’t an approved mix, so we skipped it that day and have never found the right time since. One of these days though I want to ride it!

So that was our day at Waldameer. We lasted all of five hours. We ran into an old friend of mine from the Times while we were there. Holly, who is the author of this blog. She was there with her 3-year-old and her fiancé’s older daughter. They were there NINE HOURS. That is highly impressive. I couldn’t have made it that long!

Thanks Waldameer for a great day! We’ll definitely be back before the summer ends.

I became friends with Jen more than two years ago through a post-natal yoga class we took with our little ones, Zoe and Jacob.

Jacob was Jen’s second baby.

Her first, Jillian, died of SIDS when she was just five months old while taking her morning nap at her child care provider’s home.

Jen and her husband, Ryan, directed their grief in a positive direction, holding a walk in honor of their baby girl to raise money for an organization called First Candle, which supports SIDS research and education, and advocates on behalf of families who have gone through the unimaginable. The Jillian Abbott SIDS Stomp raised $30,000 in the first year.

This is the third year for the walk, held just days after Jillian would have turned four.

The walk has grown each year, both in participants and prizes. This year prizes include Disney tickets, airline tickets, as well as a local package at Splash Lagoon, a Wegman’s gift card and a ton of others. There are also many baskets that will be raffled off.

If you’re in the Erie area, please try to take the time to come to the walk this year. It would mean a lot to Jen, Ryan, and their families. Registration is $20. It will begin at Presque Isle State Park Beach 1 at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 11 (registration starts at 8:30 a.m.)

If you’re not in the area, please consider giving to First Candle through the Jillian Abbott SIDS Stomp. You can do that, and find more information about Jillian’s story, the walk and SIDS research, by visiting sidsstomperie.com.

From their website, in Jen and Ryan’s words:

Jillian was born on August 9th, 2008 and weighed 7 lbs, 15 oz. We didn’t find out what we were having, so we were ecstatic to learn that our firstborn child was a healthy baby girl. Jillian was the picture of health. She had only one cold in the five months that she was with us and she was always above the 80th %ile for height and weight. January 12th, 2009 started out like any other weekday. We woke up, got ready for work, got Jillian ready to go to the babysitter’s house, and went about our day…UNTIL we received the dreaded phone around noontime. We raced to the hospital from our respective jobs only to find that our worst nightmare had come true. Our precious five-month old baby girl had passed away during her morning nap.

 Since that horrific day, we have decided to do everything in our power to educate, advocate, and raise the much needed monies for SIDS research. This is how The Jillian Abbott SIDS Stomp was first created. It is our way of keeping Jillian’s memory alive as well as recognizing all of the other babies, near and far, who have been taken far too soon to the very mysterious SIDS. It is our belief that the mystery of SIDS will be unraveled in the foreseeable future and that parents will not have to endure the heartache of losing a perfectly healthy child to SIDS.

My little baby turned 9 months old this week.

At 9 months, Max is:

Crawling everywhere.

He Army crawls, meaning his belly scrapes along on the floor while he pushes with his feet and pulls with his arms. He gets anywhere he wants and he gets there quickly. Especially if it involves the dog’s water bowl. As Mark says, we have known for months that Max has wanted to be on the go. And now that he can, he wants to go everywhere RIGHT NOW.

He idolizes his sister. He watches her constantly and giggles at her all the time. She usually is incredibly patient and kind with him (but only when she feels like it). I didn’t prompt her to put her arm around him in this picture. She just cuddled right up to him. My sweet babies.

But…he gets angry with his sister when she tries to take his toys away or when she otherwise tries to direct him in the way of a bossy 2-year-old. I understand his frustrations. I share some of them. I see lots of battles in their future.

He will eat anything.

Maxie still has no teeth, but that doesn’t stop him. He eats his lunch and then finishes his sister’s. Then he wants more. Among his favorites: frozen blueberries, macaroni and cheese, bananas, and Cheerios. But really he eats anything that we give him. This kid is not a picky eater.

He weighs 27.8 pounds. Zoe, who is 23 months older than him, weighs 25 pounds. Max is wearing 2T clothes (sized for an average 2-year-old). Zoe is now wearing his hand-me-downs. I’m not kidding.

He sleeps OK. Zoe was an amazing sleeper, going 14 hours at a stretch at Max’s age. I’d have to fight to keep her awake until Mark came home from work to tell her goodnight. So we were spoiled. Max, meanwhile, is more typical. He stays up until around 8, the same time his sister goes to bed. He gets up at 6:30 most mornings.

I can’t wait for him to start sleeping in.

Max is our cheerful little peanut. He laughs out loud when his sister sneezes. He loves being flipped upside down on my lap. He belly laughs while rolling a ball back and forth with his daddy. He giggles at the cat. He’s generally happy unless he is hungry or tired.

He looks exactly like his father. There’s no denying the Murphy in this kid. I just hope he has Mark’s personality too.

Maxie is our sweet little cuddle bug. He’s such an important part of our family and we love him and his sweet little smile more every day. Happy nine months to my baby boy!