Author: Mrs. H

This November, I’m thankful for pigtails. And cheeks. And smiles. And “nuggles.” I’m thankful for our sweet little bundle of Rebecca Joy. She’s growing so fast, and some days are stressful as teeth invade her precious tiny mouth, and pain makes her brain forget how to be sweet and kind and obedient. But all in all, she is growing up to be a thankful, polite, thoughtful child whom I believe one day will make her daddy and I proud beyond our wildest imagination. She is inquisitive and curious and never quits questioning. I have no idea what career path she will choose, but we will always encourage her to follow her curiousity and her imagination, and see where they take her. And I will always be thankful for this tiny blonde who screamed her way into our lives on a sunny June afternoon at 1:41.

This year our family has been participating in a “CSA” group – where we purchase veggies (and fresh eggs) from a local farmer’s family each week. We’re starting to feel like they are part of our family, so we were super excited when they announced they’d be doing their first ever Pumpkin Patch! After getting rained out last weekend, we were so happy to get to make the trek out to the farm yesterday!

We parked in a makeshift lot in the old cornfield, took a tractor-driven hayride to the patch, and got to pull our own pumpkins straight off the vine! It was super cool. They also had some cute little animals set up in a mini-petting zoo for the littles, and Becca got a tad too friendly with the goat for Daddy’s liking (I admit, it’s ears did look super soft…).

She was nervous about petting the chicks, but once Cody held one still for her, and she could pet it’s head, then she thought they were super cool.

In fact, she thought the whole experience was “wow cool” (her words while riding the hayride and watching the tractor). She loved looking at all the “gunkins,” and since “10” is her number of choice this week, she looked at the field of all the pumpkins and determined that there were ten.

HA! All in all, it was a beautiful day, and an experience we won’t soon forget. We’re already looking forward to Braune Farms’ Pumpkin Patch next year!

Aw, the joys of having a conversationalist in the family.  This girl can talk.  Her vocabulary and understanding of it is so amazing, it’s scary.  So this morning, as I finish up my morning tasks before going to get her out of her bed, I overhead a conversation between Becca and George.  (It was of course, one-sided.  Don’t think I’ve lost my mind, or anything.  I know George is not real and cannot talk.  Becca, however, I’m sure, is certain that she, like Doc McStuffins, has the power to make George come to life.  I used to have that power, too. 🙂

Here’s what I heard.

“Dorge, stay.  Stay.  Stay.  Good boy.  Come.  Come Dorge.”

“cows, Dorge.  Moo moo!”  “come!  cows.  moo moo.  wow.  wow.  E-i-e-i-o”

“wow.  wow.  Mommy?  Dorge.  Abby?  Dorge stay.  Abby bye bye.  Dorge bye bye?  No no!”

I can only guess that in her mind, she was pretending George was one of our dogs, we were outside playing with them, and saw a cow, which of course brought Old McDonald to mind.  Then no doubt she discovered that she had probably dropped Abby out of the bed at some point in the night, and she was commanding George to not jump out of the bed as well.  I love this girl and her imagination!  Now, it’s time to go get her up and put some food in her belly.  I keep hearing “waffle” mixed into her play, and she just now said “waffle, ok?”  So I think she’s ready to eat and has a menu request! 🙂  Love this girl so much.

A little daddy-daughter hammock time.  “Whee” she kept saying!

Yup.  We did it… and we lived to tell about it!  We’ve been wanting to go for quite some time, actually, and we finally made it happen for Cody’s birthday.  The big 4-0.  How did he spend the evening before his big day?  Turning the hand crank on an ancient ice cream freezer that he rebuilt – all to produce way more ice cream than he and I could eat.  But man, it was good!!  But, that was just a small part of the trip.  I must begin at the beginning.

We set out Thursday just before lunch, ate lunch in Hondo and stopped at Walmart to get a few last  minute necessities.  Then stopped at HEB because it’s perfectly logical that the tiniest HEB ever built would have tons of firewood for sale when the Walmart SuperCenter for all of Medina County was sold out.  But hey, it’s Texas!  Thank God for HEB!  We had a campfire. 🙂

When we arrived at Garner State Park, they told us basically we had the pick of most of the spots in the place – with only about 50 folks camping that night.  So, we drove around and settled on our perfect spot.  (And it really was perfect, ya’ll.  If only it hadn’t been for all the rocks that our dear, sweet little toddler kept tripping on and falling…  Lots of tears.  LOTS of tears.)

Got the tent set up in record time, and we were relaxing in no time.  It really was a wonderful trip.  Becca saw lots of “burts” (birds), mommy and daddy chased off a few too-friendly skunks, and the only casualty of the entire trip was a loaf of bread that mistakenly got left out when we went for our walk.  Oops.  My bad.  Thankfully the little camp store had another loaf of bread.  Because when the birds/skunks/squirrels/whatever-they-were were done with the bread, we weren’t going to be eating any of it.  The goldfish crackers were also a casualty.  Oh well.  That’s life.

Becca loved roaming around, and even took her daddy on a little hike Friday morning!  She was all about tromping around, digging in the dirt, putting leaves and sticks in her little tote bag, and just generally being outside.  She’s an outdoorsy sort of gal.  Thankfully her allergies cooperated through the entire endeavor!

It was the cutest thing ever watching her lead him off to the trail and up the hill, George tagging along, of course.  Nothing quite catches my breath like the site of these two together.

All in all, it was a fabulous trip.  We know a few things we’ll do differently next time, but the best part is – after this experience, there will still be a next time!  🙂  And when we add new little Hinnants to the clan at some point, I don’t think we’ll be so hesitant to take them out to camp earlier in life.  I’m not really sure why we waited this long with her.  Next time we go, we may need a rope to keep her from running up into the hills!  HA!

Well, sort of anyway.  The rains of last week served to cool us off a bit, so a 55F degree start yesterday morning was enough to break out a cute fall outfit, and squirt some more pumpkin scented Febreze around the house!  (Not to mention the pumpkin spice lattes and cookies that have already found their way into our home a bit early.)

So, since my little munchkin looked so cute in her fall outfit yesterday, I decided it was time to take some pictures.  And I’m so glad I did!  Here are my favs.