Eaves

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!