Pumpkin Patch

We went to Walden Farm in Smyrna this afternoon. I highly recommend it for all my peeps in middle Tennessee. The main reason we chose it was because admission is FREE! All of the other pumpkin patches in the area charge an admission fee. They had a little petting zoo with baby calves, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys, quail and peacocks. You can buy a handful of feed for the animals for a quarter (which we did not allow Ensley to participate in due to her spontaneous thumb sucking). There was a small fee for some activities such as a hayride. The owners/staff were so nice and friendly. We had a very enjoyable afternoon and bought all of our pumpkins, indian corn and gourds for decorating for a mere sixteen dollars which came out of our family day-cation envelope of twenty dollars a month, so we even have four dollars to spare!

We plan on making this an annual tradition so we will see how much she grows every year!

Ensley made friends with the little girl scarecrow. She is giving her a hug here.

Rub Me Wrong Time

While on vacation we took family beach pictures right before sunset then went to eat dinner. The first place we stopped had an hour wait and since it was already Ensley's bedtime we decided to head on out. On our way out the door EJ literally held the door for a guy he went to high school with. We decided ol' Flip-town isn't as small as we thought.

Now on to the title of my post...we stopped at a low-key casual restaurant just off the beach and sat outside on a beautiful night for what we thought was going to be a quick but nice quiet casual meal. Bahaha! We had just ordered when our very friendly daughter (see last post) began waving at the older couple seated behind her. The man, Terry, began small talk with us about where he was from (Maryland), what his retirement plans were (move to the ocean in 8 years), and what he did for a living. It turns out Terry is a massage therapist/cosmetologist who LOVES what he does! By the time our appetizer arrived Terry had walked over to our table discussing the spine and hard palate of the mouth and how he massages both in his therapy techniques. Before long, Terry asked EJ if he could touch him. Bahahaha! To which EJ replied, "Sure?" So while I began eating my entree, Terry began massaging EJ while the table next to us and our waitress laugh. It was so unfair! I wanted to laugh so bad but I couldn't because Terry was sitting at my table now along with his wife Sherry who had returned from the bathroom. That's right, after he rubbed EJ he sat down at our table and began folding our napkins to show us the proper alignment of the spine. Sherry narrated saying, "This will look like a magic trick but it's not." While I finished my meal, Terry and Sherry gave us tips on how to stay aligned then wished us well during the rest of our vacation. Terry even extended an invitation to EJ to call him before we left and he would finish up for free. To which Sherry replied, "Yep! He takes his table everywhere!" I really was waiting for someone to come out and say we were on candid camera, but nope Terry and Sherry finally left and let EJ eat his cold dinner and I finally got to bust out laughing!!!!!
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Thirteen months

As I watch Ensley play and learn everyday I am amazed at her development and her Creator. Here is an update on what she is doing these days.
Ensley walks everywhere now. It seems like overnight she went from walking 10% of the time to walking 90% of the time.
She jabbers all day long. Her vocabulary increases by the day. Her word of the day yesterday was exuberant...ok, maybe not. Puppy is pup-pup sometimes but most of the time she just pants like a dog. She has a new baby puppy sound now that we have puppies...when she is referring to Kala's puppies she whimpers. Her animal sounds include meow, moo, baa, gobble (which is the cutest), baak (chicken), hiss, ooo-ooo (monkey), elephant, duck (quack and duck sound the same), she makes a fish face and wrinkles her nose for a
bunny.

She signs please, thank you, eat, and more and shakes her head no.

She says num-num-num when something tastes good. She smacks her lips and says ahhhh when she drinks something. She says juice, shoes, bow-bow (hairbow), ball, bunny, baby, momma, da-da, night-night, bye-bye. She gives hugs when asked for some lovin' and blows kisses (mmmuhh) and gives eskimo kisses.

We read Goodnight Moon most nights (or I recite it from memory) and when I get to 'old lady whispering hush' she puts her finger to mouth and says Shh. She also tells dogs to Shhh when they bark. If I say/sing Old MacDonald she sings EeeAaaEeeAaa back to me. When she sees a vacuum, blow dryer, swiffer wet jet, etc she points and makes a zzsszzshh noise that I obviously can't mimic in spelling :)

She dances to music and sings along with some of her cd's in the car. She reads books out loud which is pretty funny to listen to because it is a lot of jabber but she emphasizes certain sounds and syllables as if she is really telling a story.

She is a very friendly child. She waves and smiles at everyone when we are out including mannequins and scarecrows.

Her favorite things of recent days include a blanket that she sleeps with at night and wears like a shawl during the day. She has two monkeys that receive more loving than her other animals, one is a sock monkey in her room and the other is a pink print monkey that stays downstairs. We have played with stickers for an hour a day the last few days, she thinks it is funny to put them on my nose. She likes to push any kind of button that causes music or noise to play. She picks up my phone and puts it to her ear and says da-da bye-bye.

My dad gave her a UT football player bobble head that sings Rocky Top and It's Great To Be A TN Vol this morning. She had been playing with it for a while when she pointed at it, said da-da and shook her head no as if she knew he didn't approve. It was too cute.

This is all I can think of right now but I will continue to post some of the little things for those of you who don't get to see her often and so I can look back years from now and remember what she was doing.
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