Pumpkin Patch & Olivia's Birthday Party

Wow! Katie and mama had a busy day today. It's time to rest now, shoo! We started the morning off by dropping Katie off at school for a few minutes. I stopped by the ATM to get some money because of the past field trip, needed cash to buy all kinds of goodies and mama had zero dollars. Hey, live and learn. Right? Colton and I got home long enough to feed him and Peggy drove up. She looked after him, while I went to pick up Katie for the field trip. We (parents & students) all caravaned to "Burke's Pumpkin Patch." Since my last experience with field trips, I made sure I came prepared this time. I brought extra shoes, rags, and plastic bags. I should have brought extra clothes, but thank goodness, we didn't need them.


First of all, let me give you a vision of our field trip. We are going to a farm (field) and it's been raining pretty much non-stop for days. The ground is soaked and where the tractor has drove around in it's path all season is mud, ankle deep. It drizzled rain off and on the whole time we were there. The cold front has made it's appearance with the temps in the low 50s and the wind is a blowin'. Do ya have a visual idea of how today's field trip experience was for us parents? The children on the other hand, had a blast. The students split up in groups. The 3-5 year olds went on the hay ride, pickin' their best pumpkin, first and the 1-2 grades went last. Katie and her friend Olivia B. wanted to sit by each other on the hay ride. I had no problem, but me and Olivia's mom had a few heart attacks worrying about Olivia falling out of the trailer, every bump we hit. So on the way back, I sat on the outside. By that time, Olivia wanted to sit by her mommy and Katie wanted to sit by her. Unfortunately, someone else sat down beside her, which upset Katie. I told her that she has to learn to make up her mind fast because someone else will take the seat instead. She got over it quickly when it was time to go through the corn maze. I was sort of surprised, she went through it without me. This is good! She took off with Olivia and I stopped at the entrance. Those kids ran all the way through it without stopping. lol! So funny!

Hay ride - Katie & Olivia B.

Class Group Picture (not everyone in photo)
(L-R: Me-Me aka Mary Holman; Claire, Olivia, unknown, Katie, Breanna, Lilly)

Mrs. Katie was able to gather up most of her students for a group picture. I offered to take her picture with her camera, if she wanted to get in the group. I guess she was feeling camera shy because she didn't want to do it. It was cute, we started out with a few girls from Katie's class in the picture and the next thing, we have other children of all ages in the group picture. It just kept growing and growing. Us ladies began laughing because more children kept joining the group. It was cute. I think Katie's favorite part of the pumpkin patch was the haystack playground. As you can tell from the pictures, she was having a blast. The kids were running and jumping all over those haystacks. At first, I was a little scared of Katie jumping from one to another. I was scared because that's exactly how I chipped my front tooth. When I was much younger, I would do cheers on the haystacks in a field in front of my house. I was bad about jumping from one haystack to another and I loved doing roundoffs and herkies right off the haystack. It's a wonder I never got anything worse happen to me (broken arm or leg) other than a chipped tooth. That chipped tooth never stopped me for a minute.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The drizzly rain with the cold air concerned me, Katie being out in it. I was afraid that she would get sick, so I loaded up everything and drug her in the truck. She is terrible when it comes to leaving something so good. I guess she feels that if there is still one person left, she needs to stay until that person leaves. Ugh! I tried explaining to her about the rain and her catching a cold. I knew she was spending the night with Grandma Peggy and Paw-Paw Millard and would hate it if she ended up sick. It was a good thing, we left when we did because we were not far down the road when the drizzly rain ended up being a little harder rain drops. It was just a messy day.

I made amends with Katie because I agreed that I'd go to her favorite restaurant, Sweet Peppers Deli, and get her a bowl of mac 'n cheese. When we got home, I had her strip at the door because she had hay from head to toe. Plus, I didn't want her to catch cold, so I drew her a nice warm bath.

Olivia G's Birthday Party
Later after her nap, I got her all dressed up in one of her favorite dresses. I even went as far as curling her hair a little, she wore her necklace and perfume. She loves to wear perfume. I guess it makes her think she's all grown up. Ha Ha! We were all ready for Olivia G's birthday party. The party was held at the Cullman Gymnastics and Cheer Academy. Well, I've never been to this place, so I got my directions off the of the internet and got an estimated guess from a couple of moms as to where it was. Guess what? We still ended up at the wrong place. lol! Leave it up to me to get lost. I was close though because it was a little further down the street. Yay!

Katie's eyes lit up as soon as she could see through the doors. "Mom, it's a big playground!" she said. She couldn't get her shoes off fast enough, to get in there with the other kids. It was much bigger than what I thought and I got to talk with one of the instructors and she said they had much more than that room, further in the back. I was impressed. I had an interesting conversation with the gymnastics instructor about Katie and possibly coming there one year in the future.

You've got to check out Olivia's cake. Believe me, I checked it out closely. The cake is a pink buttercreme with fondant polka dots. I spoke to Olivia's mom, Susan, about the cake and she said that she liked the fondant look, but not necessarily the taste. She had the cake made by a lady from Vinemont. She did a great job and I duly noted the details of the cake for my next creation. I spoke to Olivia's dad about this being a great way to meet the other parents and the children in Katie's class. Unfortunately, I think Claire was the only other child from Olivia's class. Ugh! Well, I understand too. Friday can be a hard time to get away and go to a little girl's birthday party because you have football games and other family traditions. Katie and Claire had a ball playing at the party. In fact, they had so much fun that us moms had to drag them crying and begging all the way out the door. Ugh! Sometimes it's so hard to be the nice mommy without being the mean mommy hours later.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

It wasn't long before she stopped crying about having to leave the party and focused on visiting with her grandparents. She got us tickled, reading her storybooks to us and we didn't darn laugh or talk, while she was talking. LOL! She would make a good teacher. I could just see her, she'd have everyone in time out.

The Blind Side

Doug brought this movie to my attention. I don't think this trailer has aired on the popular stations (ABC, CBS & NBC). This trailer doesn't show the version I saw on television, but Nick Saban has an appearance in this movie. The real Michael Oher went on to play for Ole Miss and later for the Baltimore Ravens. I'm interested in watching it when it's out.