Oh, right, I still have a kid

Well, now that I'm done with all the cruise blogging, it's probably about time I posted some Ari pictures, right?

We went to the pumpkin patch on Sunday with Matt, Kristin and Nick. I think this is going to become a yearly tradition, because we all did this last year. Just for fun, here's a shot of what Ari looked like last year at this time...



Ha, she was so bald! Anyway, moving on...

We got there late in the afternoon, so we were a bit pressed for time. We let the kids play in the play area first.



Then we got some apple-cider donuts, which got them to sit still for a few moments.





I love this next shot--looks like they're having a real adult conversation or something.



Then we waited in line for the hayride. While we waited, Ari amused herself by relocating pumpkins. She was quite pleased with herself for being able to pick them up all on her own. She even got cocky after a while and started picking them up 2 at a time.





OK, in this picture... all the pumpkins that you see on that white tarp are all pumpkins that Ari put there. That white space was empty when we got there.



Partway through the hayride, we stopped at a huge pumpkin patch. Ari wandered all around, but somehow Kristin got her to hold still for a couple pictures.



See Nick in the background?



At the end of the day, we ended up with 2 pumpkins--one decent-sized one for carving, and an Ari-sized one for Ari. Every time we leave the house now, she calls out, "Bye-bye, Ari's punkin!"



Annnnd... on a completely unrelated note... Little Miss Thing decided she didn't really want to go to sleep the other night. After several rounds of me sternly telling her to get back in bed, her wailing at me, etc., I gave up and just ignored her. Her eventual silence convinced me she had given up.

Then, hours later, when I went upstairs, this is what I found.



(For the record, she woke up a split-second before I took the picture. And she would have woken up when we moved her, anyway.)

So... I suppose this means that she won?

One last story, then I'm done. We went to my parents' house for dinner last night, and Mom surprised me by telling me that while we were gone on the cruise, she'd taken Ari to JC Penney to have some professional portraits done. She further surprised us with this beautifully-framed collage...



... and an entire package of this pose...



They are pictures of pictures, so they're not the greatest, but you get the idea. Isn't that amazingly sweet? And doesn't my little munchkin look so grown-up all of a sudden?