October 20, 2009

• From the Beach to the "Ginkin" Patch

  One of the beauties of living in Southern California is that it's perfectly plausible to splash in the beach and visit a pumpkin patch on the same weekend (and to have said weekend be in mid-October, no less).

  On Saturday, we visited Donna, Scott, Madi and adorable baby Joshua! Unfortunately, I forgot the camera at home, so there are no pictures to document the great time we had.  They took us to Lake Mission Viejo and set up a wonderful spread of snacks for us to enjoy. Jack loved the "beach" and kept running into the lake. He didn't even mind falling facedown in the water (Johnny picked him right back up, of course!). It was a really hot day, but we didn't anticipate that Jack would go into the water. However, now that Jack is potty trained and in underwear, we simply stripped him down to his skivvies, and in he went! (I had some spare pairs with me, of course, for him to change into for going home.) Jack also delighted in his first episode of public urination ... a distinct advantage of being a boy. He's still talking about "pee-pee tree," and whenever we go anywhere (say, the Target parking lot), he requests "pee-pee tree." Sigh. Anyway, we had a wonderful time and can't wait to hang out again!

  Sunday, we went with my Meetup moms group to Tanaka Farms in Irvine. I used "with" loosely -- everyone was supposed to meet at 11 a.m., but of course, schedules are hard to coordinate when you're dealing with toddlers and babies, so everyone ended up going at times that were convenient for them. We went in the early morning. Anyway, this is a real farm that's open to the public. In the fall, there's a huge pumpkin patch -- a real one, where you can cut pumpkins off the vine. There was also a petting zoo and tractor ride. We talked up the pumpkin patch trip all week, and by Saturday morning, Jack was very excited to go to the "fahm" and see "ginkins" (for some reason, Jack can't say "pumpkins" or even "pumkins." He says "ginkins"). Jack loved it! Derek slept in the BabyHawk the whole time, but I'm sure he'll love it next year.

  Jack and the ginkins

  

  The whole family!

  

  Have I mentioned that I love the BabyHawk? Unfortunately I'm not modeling it very well in this picture -- it was tied a bit too loosely here.

  

  Some of you might recall that we had a disastrous petting zoo visit last year, which ended up with Jack in tears and June with a torn shirt. This year, Jack fared much better (this could also be due to the fact that Tanaka Farms fed its petting zoo animals instead of starving them). He loved reaching into the cup of food that Johnny bought and feeding the animals. Whenever he did, he would open his mouth and say "aaah," just like we used to do when feeding him baby food. Cute.

  "Ahhh, baby sheep!"

  

  Next, we went on the tractor ride (or, as Jack would say, "wide tra-cker"). Since Jack loves tractors (and anything with wheels, really), this was his dream come true.

  Hooray for tractors!

  

  "Yook! Ginkins!"

  

  After we picked up our pumpkins (a big one for Johnny to hold, and a little one for Jack; my pumpkin was Derek), Jack ran through the hay maze.

  

  Whew! It was fun, but extremely exhausting!

  Now, I have a couple of videos to share with you. The first is Jack excitedly imitating June and Charles' "crazy wave" arm motions.

  The second is Jack "reading" Goodnight Moon. It's so cute. He'll go, "Night night, cow jumping moon" and "Night night mush."

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  OK, I think that's all I have for tonight! Hope everyone is having a great week.

  • 11:35 pm
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