Fall Fun Weeks!

My, oh my! We are in full fall swing around here! The weather has included some overcast days and there have even been days of.........wait for it.......rain! Amazing! Cooler, darker mornings have made the littlest member of our household not want to get out of bed so easily in the mornings. I can't say that I blame her, but getting her ready for school each day has become increasingly more difficult despite the fact that she gets upset every Saturday and Sunday when there is no school!

We started out the fall festivities this year by attending my sister's school (she's an elementary school teacher) fall festival. Caleigh really enjoyed her time at this outdoor festival. She got her face painted, played a few games,

jumped in a jumpy, slid down a very large slide,

rode on a horse,

held a chicken and a bunny,


and collected enough prize tickets to get herself an interchangeable princess necklace, a Kit Kat bar, and a ladybug temporary tattoo. She was most pleased with herself and did not want to leave.

The very next morning was the Fall Festival and Auction at Caleigh's preschool. This was an indoor event (and thank goodness it was because it was so very windy outside).

Here, Caleigh got to play games for candy prizes,

make a sand art bracelet and necklace,

have her face painted, jump in a jumpy, slide down a giant inflatable slide, and visit a fire truck.

She got to have all three of her aunts, her two cousins, one of her uncles, and her granny come to her school festival! She was very excited about this. She played the cakewalk alot with them!

I got to participate in the silent and live auctions for some very good things. I was really impressed with the amount of items that were available to bid on. The craftiness of some of the baskets up for auction were inspiring! I would have never thought to concoct some of the baskets that were there. I even bid on and won Caleigh a handmade Halloween dress and coordinating hair bow! So cute! I also won the bids on a Mexican themed gift basket that included a sombrero plate holding a giant bag of Tostitos, a jar of salsa, a jar of cheese dip, a jar of jalapenos, and a $30 gift card to a local Mexican restaurant. Chad and I have already went and used the gift card on a date night! In addition to those two auctions, I also won the auction for $30 worth of gift cards to Red Lobster. I foresee another date night in our future! :) There were also door prizes available, a 42in LG flat screen HDTV, an iPad2, and a years tuition to the school, none of which I was lucky enough to win. :( This festival was very fun and we spent most of the afternoon participating in all the activities.

Unfortunately for us, Chad has a very lousy work schedule this month. He works until at least 8:30 every night he works and has to work every weekend. This doesn't include him in many of our fall plans this year. However, the county fair happened to be occurring on one of his off days so we loaded up and headed 5 minutes down the road to the outrageously overpriced amusements. Despite the hard hit to the pocketbook, the experience was nice. We called my one of my sisters and her daughter and they met us there. We purchased unlimited ride bracelets for the kids and I spent the rest of the evening watching the two of them bounce up and down on boats,

zoom along on a train roller coaster,

spin in an enclosed cage wheel,

and bump other cars in Barbie cars and Jeeps.

The carousel made me nervous as I watched Caleigh go round and round and up and down.

I am a big fan of this picture of her!
I am not really trusting when it comes to "pop-up" rides. There was one ride that I refused to let her ride but I was pretty accepting of most of the others. Chad did get me to ride one thing with him, the Ferris wheel. I have to admit, once I got over the shock of moving backwards and swinging whenever the ride stopped, I did enjoy the view of the sunset. But, that was the extent of my rides. Thank goodness my sister was there to ride some of the other rides with Chad. I wasn't about to be suspended upside down or subject myself to seizure inducing strobe lights while spinning around in circle for anyone. Not even Chad! LOL.

Continuing with our fall activities, Mish, Caleigh's oldest aunt, asked to take her to a local farm with some friends of hers that were coming to visit. I consented and noticed that there was a fall festival going on in the square she would have to travel through in order to come and pick Caleigh up to go with her. I advised her of the festival so that she could go an alternate route as to not get caught up in traffic on the way to our house. Instead, she suggested we all go check the festival out before they headed to the farm. So, Caleigh and I got ready and headed to the square and met Mish there with a special guest, Caleigh's youngest cousin! We walked around the festival and Caleigh got to jump and slide again, as well as play with inflatable baseball and basketball games.




She then met a clown who cut her a beautiful ballerina out of paper

and then made her a balloon animal.
I do not like clowns (bad childhood memories I guess) but this guy wasn't so bad. We snapped a few pics



and then Caleigh headed to the farm with Mish for the rest of the day.

Yes, she did a clothing change before she left. She had to root for the Dawgs like Mish. She got to play in a bin of corn kernels,

shoot corn out of a cannon,

went on a hayride,

got lost in a corn maze,

petted farm animals,

slid on a slide,

watched a pig race, and bounced on a bouncy horse.
When I picked her up, she was coated in a layer of dry red Georgia dirt! She turned our tub orange during her bath that night, but she had fun!



Our local Chick-fil-a has family nights every Tuesday night from 5:30-7:30pm. They do some kind of special event during these two hours. This particular Tuesday night was pumpkin painting night.

Caleigh and I drove there and met Mish and her husband to eat dinner and she got to paint and decorate a baby pumpkin.

Then she got to eat her favorite meal for dinner. After that she got to play in the indoor playground for a while. Then, the giant CFA cow came out and interacted with all the kids. She gave him hugs and high fives. She then traded her toy in for an ice cream and then got a balloon to take home. In the car she tells me that she had such a good time at that fall festival! LOL! I take her to dinner and she thinks I took her to another fall festival. Guess I got some cool mom points in her eyes! Go me! LOL!

This past week, we did something we have never done before. We purchased tickets to see Disney on Ice- Dare to Dream.

Caleigh loves the Disney princesses and this show was so amazing! I was in as much awe as she was I think! I don't know if I enjoyed the show or watching her reactions to the show more!

Chad brought all of our cameras to make sure we didn't miss a moment and then got in our seats only to realize there were no memory cards in any of our cameras! So, all of our pictures and videos were taken on our phones! Thank goodness Chad has a phone with a really good camera! The pics on my phone weren't so great, but at least we were able to capture some memories!

Of course we had to buy the needless light-up spinning Rapunzel toy and a Rapunzel cup with a snow cone inside of it in order to complete the night. The people of Disney really know how to pull on the heartstrings and the purse strings! LOL! I LOVED taking her to this show! It was quite magical!



This weekend is Mish's birthday so now we are in for some more celebrating and having fun! All these super fun activities are really adding up and we just now reached the middle of the month! We have yet to visit a pumpkin patch, carve/paint our family pumpkin, or do any Halloween related activities. There is still so much fun to be had!