Addie's growing up

My little baby is so grown up! I know I'm a little late in posting this (these pics are a month old already) and I won't bore you with my excuses, but here she is... Getting ready to leave for her first day of school. She had NO nerves about this day! Only excitement! This was helped with the openhouse we attended a couple weeks prior, then the meet the teacher/mock school day that the parents sat in on. But, my little girl is now a preschooler. And I'm not sad one bit!!! Instead of our days starting with Addie crashing my bed and demanding cereal and 'shows' she now climbs into bed with me (and usually Max, drinking his bottle) and askes what the day holds for her. Is it a school day? Is it a playgroup day? Is it a dance day? She's so much more pleasant and engaged, although she has discovered her hormones (as most three year olds do, I'm finding) and allows them to control her much more than I would like.


Getting ready to load up in the car (I can't believe I remembered my camera!)


No, she doesn't have a dirty face. She biffed it at Max's bday party and scraped up her nose. I couldn't tell there was any damage at first, because she had a cold and I had been wiping her nose for two days so I couldn't tell what was what. Poor kid!


Sitting down in front of her nametag that she gets to find everyday. The teachers shuffle the seating so the kids get to know each other, and are able to recognize their names in different settings.




Since the openhouse in August, Addie has wanted to wear her new APL shirt. Unfortunately, this was designated for fieldtrip days to identify kids and I wouldn't let her wear it to school, playgroup, church, the grocery store..... You get the idea. So, at the beginning of October, we had our first opportunity to wear it. Her school went to Green Meadows Farm in Waterford (I think, this is by memory). This is a petting farm, here's the link if you're interested http://www.greenmeadowsfarmwi.com/. I can't believe how much fun this was! It's a little pricy for the average family to go to, $10.50 per person, but this includes holding most of the animals, pony rides for the kids, milking the cow, a hayride, and you get to pick a pumpkin to take home. Fortunately for us, only the adults had to pay, and we got the group rate which was slightly less.

Here we are on the bus, heading to the farm. Addie LOVED the bus! Note her lunch bag we packed, she talked about that for the whole week before the trip. I think she may be a little OCD. Doesn't she look like a farmer's helper?



A little tough to see, Darcy holding the baby chick so Addie could pet it. No hesitation!



The kittens were a little harder, the kids had a hard time sharing time holding the kittens. Addie finally got one, and we had about two seconds for the picture before another child was asking to take it from us. Alas, at least they were asking.

I think the goats shocked me the most with Addie's reaction. She never hesitated and went right up to them and was trying to get them to lick her. She'd look up and me and say, "Look, Mom, he's smiling at me!!!" Just try to think what goat's faces look like and you'll understand. She even followed one around as it was leaving a trail of pellets and the kids were all giggling about the pooping goat!

Llamas aren't as friendly, so the kids didn't get to go into the pen with them, but I had to post this picture. The female, Dolly, had the most animated face I could ever picture on an animal. Click on the picture so you get the full picture. And, yes, she is the Dolly Llama :)

The funny thing about the whole day? Addie didn't want to ride the ponies. I think I tricked her into it, although I didn't mean to. I explained that I would be helping her, and it turned out that the ponies all had their own helpers. She looks a little like she's going to fall off, thus the tongue sticking out.

Here we are at the end of the day. Cold, tired, and a little animaled out. Good thing Addie likes small pumpkins, because I had to carry both of ours out of the patch, while trying to navigate the vines and keep Addie from biffing it into the dirt and weeds.



Sorry about the choppy filming, also the commentary (not sure why I was saying hotdog). I was trying to film and help at the same time. This was actually the third or fourth time she did it, but the first time I wasn't prepared with the camera (I didn't actually believe that she would reach out and touch that thing without a lot of encouragement, but she did). The next few times I was really bad at filming, so this is the best shot we got. I told Farmer Tina, our escort, that they had the most tollerant animals I could ever imagine, poor cow got milked all day long... one little hand at a time.

And, as if adding school three days a week into my life wasn't enough, we decided that Addie needed to be in a dance class. This was instigated by the gift of hand-me-down clothes a friend, Becky, gave to us that included a couple of dance outfits and a pair of ballet shoes. Addie is a clothing fiend, but when it comes to dress up clothes, she goes nuts!!! We looked into it that night, and saw a class starting the following week. And she loves it! The parents were able to sit in on the first class, so here's a clip of that. But we aren't welcome inside the classroom until the last class of the 10 week course. Maybe so we can appreciate the before and after efforts of the teachers. More probable is that the girls weren't paying much attention to the teachers with all us parents and siblings sitting around, watching and pointing proudly ..."Yes, that's my daughter. The one in the purple leotard picking her nose and ignoring the teacher. Isn't she precious?!?"