So I have again taken an unintended hiatus from blogging, but fully intend to catch up as much as possible! I've been loving the changing weather and fall colors, which have inspired me to get back to blogging. Growing up, I think I was kind of oblivious as to just how many trees surrounded our house which resulted in an over abundance of leaves for piles to jump into. Looking back, this was probably a huge pain for my parents to keep up with, but none of that mattered to kids! Besides jumping in leaf piles, fall also meant that it was time for my dad to start shooting his bow to get ready for the first day of hunting season. I loved to watch him practice and my favorite part was running to the target to help him get the arrows out. It's been so special in the last few days to see how at only two years old, some of the things I loved the most about fall growing up, are also some of Cohen's favorites.
Fall can't start in Barboursville until the big Fall Festival is over. The Fall Festival starts with a parade and then has three days of your typical carnival rides, festival food and music. Even though we have lived in Barboursville for 5 years, this was the first time that Jeff and I have made it out to the festival...and I don't think we could have enjoyed it nearly as much without Cohen! I've seen a few festival parades in my day, but the Barbousville Fall Festival is right up there with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in duration....it may be a close second in crowd attendance also!
Parade crowds lining the street as far as you could see!
The parade lasted for at least an hour and half and I think that almost every church, fire department and midget league football team in the vicinity of Barboursville had a float! As Cohen's second parade experience, he had talked about it the whole week prior, with the primary goal to "get suckers!" It couldn't have made him any happier that the theme of the parade was Wild West and so many of the floats were being pulled by tractors and I think he was actually too distracted to even thinking about getting suckers. He was also excited about all of the firetrucks and brought his toy firetruck with him to the parade that he held onto while he watched...until he got his first sucker!
Holding onto his firetruck!
The look of pure amazement!
Things get serious when the firetrucks go by!
Firetrucks AND ambulances?! Best day ever!
Since Cohen's love of "carners" has been previously documented, you can imagine what a long week it was for us given that they started setting up the Fall Festival carnival five days before it even opened. This "carner" was even more fun for Cohen, since his friend Jayden came down with his daddy and mommy to go with us. There were about five rides that the boys were big enough to ride, which for most kids would be more than enough. When Jayden got tired and went home with his mommy and daddy, Cohen was more than happy to accept his leftover ride tickets. So it is safe to assume that Cohen rode each of the five rides at least three times!
Don't worry little girl...I've got this under control!
Even bus drivers have to have a little fun!
The very aggressive animals of the carnival petting zoo
We were able to leave the rides without a meltdown since we told Cohen that we were going to see "guitars and banjos," which is the one thing he loves more than "carners!" The main street of Barboursville is shutdown during the festival for all of the food vendors and the concert stage. Jeff and I were very impressed to find out that the Barboursville Fall Festival can bring in acts like the Low Cash Cowboys for entertainment. While Cohen was dancing to the music, Jeff and I bought as much festival food as we could eat! We were proud parents when Cohen helped us eat a fried potato blossom and enjoyed his first funnel cake! Jeff was amazed that the Low Cash Cowboys were only the opening act for a KISS tribute band...it was slightly disturbing to me that Cohen seemed to be amazed by them as well! We knew we had a seriously tired baby on our hands, though, when he told us he was ready to go home!
The first bite...
Love at first bite!!
What carnival would be complete without an insanely overpriced light-up sword?!
Jeff went to get "more food"...this is what he came back with!
Embracing the power of the sword!
Two guys and a sword enjoying some KISS music! (Sadly the sword only lasted for about a week in our house...apparently they lose their power when children put them in the toilet!!!)
Apparently fall does not officially start at our house until Jeff brings out his deer target...and it might as well have been Christmas for Cohen! Just this week, one of Cohen's favorite actitivies has been looking at pictures of "baby Cohen" during which time I realized that his love of the deer target is truly unconditional!
Cohen with his pet in October 2011
Still taking good care of him in October 2012!
Besides taking care of his "pet" deer, Cohen has really been enjoying the "eaves" this year. Since I couldn't get him to pay any attention to them last year, I would say he is making up for lost time! He developed an appreciation for leaves at my parents house, which is understandable given that there is no shortage of leaf piles there! The sad thing is that my mom had just spent a whole day raking leaves the week before we came to visit and their yard still had more leaves than anywhere on our property. Cohen was mainly concerned with raking the leaves at MiMi's house, but has since learned that they are also pretty fun!
With at least five family members who have birthdays in July, we spend lots of money and gain lots of weight that month (mostly from all the birthday cake). It was a good month for Cohen, since cake is one of the few foods that he will never turn down and it also gave him a chance to learn to say "happy birthday." He may have actually learned it too well, since it is now August and he is still daily saying happy birthday to everyone who had their birthdays last month along with occasionally saying "happy birthday Cohen!"
The birthday extravaganza started with a party for Jeff's cousin's son Elijah who turned six. To take one look at this kid's tan, it is obvious that he has spent most of his summer outside. I think it's only appropriate that his party involved a lot of water, the centerpiece of which was this huge waterslide.
Now we had really talked up this slide to Cohen during the hour long drive from our house to the party, after we saw a picture of it posted on Facebook. So he was determined that he was going down it at soon as we got there...and I think that Jeff and I were pretty excited too! (Now before my blog readers start to think that Jeff and I are bad parents for letting our two year-old go down such a giant waterslide, I felt comfortable that he was fully prepared for it by a trip to an indoor inflatable center with mommy the day before.) Once we got there, I was a little bit disappointed to have to decide that I was probably not wearing the appropriate bathing suit to go down such a steep waterslide! So daddy got to go down with Cohen and I think he fit in just fine with all the other kids!
Two kids excited for a waterslide!
Checking out the slide in action
We have both learned that inflatables are quite a workout for adults...especially when carrying a 2 year-old!
Believe it or not, Jeff and Cohen came down the slide so fast that I couldn't even get a good picture! The second time Cohen even decided that he was ready to go down by himself. Then he decided that his favorite part of the slide was this pool at the end and we had a hard time convincing him that it wasn't the safest place to hang out.
Luckily he got distracted by one of the other many things to do at the party including an actual pool and these water guns.
I was trying to teach him how to defend himself against some of the other more aggressive water gunners...he seems to have the face right, but never figured out how to back it up with the water power! He finally gave up on it and moved on to something else....
In poor Cohen's defense, there were several Powerwheels vehicles at the party that he tried first, including a truck and a fourwheeler but unfortunately these were either occupied or out of batteries. So being the awesome driver that he is, he knew he could pull off the pink Barbie bug! Unfortunately, the pink Barbie car seemed to have an endless battery supply and Jeff and I thought we would never get him out of it! When I was taking these pictures, someone told me to make sure that I bring them back out when he is 18! My favorite is the look of excitement on Jeff's face as he follows behind his son driving the pink car! He would probably still be in that pink car if they didn't bring out the birthday cake!
Oh the sugar kicks in so fast!!
Cake makes you strong!
He loves me the most when I feed him cake!
Only at a birthday party can you wash down cake with a CapriSun!
Although I wasn't there to get any pictures or video, I got a full report that Jeff's mom's birthday started out pretty special on the 16th when she opened the car door that morning to a grandson holding a yellow rose, a card and a "happy birthday Maw-Maw!" (According to Jeff, Cohen had rehearsed this for most of the 45 minute car ride to his work that morning!)
I'm still not sure that Cohen realizes that July 20th this year was my dad's birthday and not his! Cohen and I have been lucky that most of my Fridays home with him this summer have been good outside play days. The 20th was a rare rainy Friday, but luckily there was a big dinosaur exhibit in town that day. Since my sister was in town from Virginia, we decided to have a family day and so Paw-Paw Dave got to eat at ChikFilA and see dinosaurs on his birthday!
"Discover the Dinosaurs" was advertised as "an interactive exhibit including over 60 animatronic and museum quality dinosaur replicas" that included "an exhibit, fun activities and additional attractions." While Cohen's current favorite things are dump trucks, cement trucks and tractors, he does like the show Dino Dan on Nick Jr. and couldn't stop talking about "go see dinosaurs" when I told him about it. However he seemed to be having second thoughts once we had paid for the tickets!
Cohen obviously did not feel that it was safe to be taking pictures!
Although we were instructed to pose like this, I'm not sure if Cohen is more scared of dinosaurs or his family here!
If Cohen was scared during the pictures on the way into the exhibit, he was bordering on terrified once we saw the first dinosaur. He hid his fear well, though, and just held on tight to me and kept whispering in my ear "go bye-bye mommy!" I think the dinosaurs seemed a little bit less scary once he saw Paw-Paw Dave touching the biggest one and he was a little less intimidated by their roars once he gave a few of his own!
He seems to be using MiMi as a shield here!
The fingers in the mouth are a dead giveaway that Cohen is nervous
A T-Rex does not scare Paw-Paw Dave
He even got brave enough to touch a "baby" dinosaur
RRRROAR!
Just two guys roaring at a T-Rex!
If there is one thing I learned at "Discover the Dinosaurs" it was that for parents, the words "fun activities and additional attractions" actually mean "bring extra money because we are going to charge you for everything!" Cohen became very less interested and/or nervous about the dinosaur exhibit when the giant inflatables came into view over the replica T-Rex! There was also an area for digging dinosaur bones, dinosaur statues for the younger kids to climb on and robotic moving dinosaurs to ride.
This sweet-looking picture is actually Cohen using my shirt to wipe off the sand on his hands!
Another lesson in dusting the dirt off of your hands!
Aunt Man helping Cohen find the bones
While this is not the best picture, I am happy to have proof that I did all the inflatables! Cohen was technically too short to be allowed to play in any of them, but they agreed to let him in if I was with him. Luckily, a previous trip to an indoor inflatable center had prepared me for what a workout this actually is and so I'm glad to have this evidence for teenage Cohen who tries to tell his mom that she is old or not fun!
There was a HUGE line for the "dinosaur rides," but luckily everyone seemed to be waiting for the big T-Rex. Since the triceratops was the smallest and least favorite, Cohen and I didn't have to wait in line at all. Although the picture shows a very determined Cohen ready to jump on that dinosaur, he put on the brakes at the top step and changed his mind. Luckily, we found these little dinosaur statues that were more his speed.
I think it's safe to say that Cohen conquered the dinosaurs!
Before we left, we made sure to take advantage of these photo ops which were actually free!
We had an impromptu birthday pizza dinner at our house for my dad when we got home, including a chocolate chip birthday cake made by my sister. Cohen was so excited to help Paw-Paw Dave blow out the candles...until they were actually lit! (He had a traumatic experience when they lit the grill at Hibachi when we were there for my birthday and has been a little nervous about fire aka. "hot baby" ever since.)
Once the cake was cut, I think he forgot why he had been afraid!
Birthday hugs for PawPaw Dave
Paw-Paw Dave's funny faces are just one reason that Cohen loves him so much
Cohen is obviously one of PawPaw Dave's biggest fans, but I'm glad he'll always be able to look back at these pictures and know that his PawPaw Dave loves him so much that he even shared his birthday with him. It meant so much to me that he spent his birthday doing something that Cohen wanted to do, especially knowing that he spent many days "enjoying" things like dinosaurs for my sister and I when we were growing up.
We ended the birthday extravaganza month with a cookout at my aunt and uncle's house to celebrate with my dad, sister and cousin Charles who had all had birthdays in July. Although there was no giant water slide or pink Barbie car at this party, Cohen found other ways to entertain himself!
Dog doors...they're not just for dogs!
I don't know what this face is, but it probably has something to do with the chips in his mouth!!
This was one of my favorite places to hang out when I was little too!
