Time to catch up

It has been a long while since I've posted, and my sincere apologies for that. After we got all of our issues taken care of, we just became very busy, and the blog posts got put to the back burner. So, what has been happening since October 21--

Halloween:
This year, Violet wanted to be Winnie-the-Pooh. We thought for sure we were going to have a little monkey this year, given her obsession with Curious George, but that was not the case. She was very adamant about being Winnie the Pooh, so that is what she was. Violet got to go Trick-or Treating twice--once a week early in the Big Rapids Fall Festival/Costume parade, and once on Halloween night.

Violet ready to march in the parade--
with M&M's of course!

The parade was a bit of a joke--it was Big Rapids 1st year of doing it, and it could have been done better, but I'm not volunteering! It was more designed for people wanting to dress up their dogs, and older kids, and not real appropriate for the under 4 set. Violet, of course, wanted to do everything that the big kids were doing, and had a very hard time understanding why I wouldn't let her try to climb on the unsupervised inflatables that they had in the middle of the street. I did eventually let her climb through the one that was supposed to be meant for littler people, but since it was misty, the rubber was wet and slick, and she couldn't climb up the stairs inside it! And, consequently, got stuck. One of my dear kindergarten students tried her best to help her, but I ended up having to go through this thing and hoist her up and out. She had much more fun in the trampoline one, until some crazy kid decided to try to jump clear across the thing and land on her. Tough life lessons, I guess, but I was starting to get very annoyed at how little supervision was going on at this, so we decided to pack it up and go.

Violet going down the inflatable
big slide with a nice older girl willing
to help her up the steps!

Violet in the inflatable

trampoline, pre-accident

She had a blast trick-or-treating with her Daddy--I stayed home to pass out candy as we get a lot of school kids who would be disappointed if they didn't see at least one of us. I guess they went about 4 blocks down and back up before Violet decided that was enough. She walked the whole time, and Ben said she said Trick or Treat at every house and said thank-you. YAY!

Violet's 1st stop

On her way to get
more candy!

General Fall Fun:

Another thing we've been having a blast with is the abundance of leaves in our yard. Violet loves jumping in the leaves, and it's really unfortunate that we haven't had a lot of dry fall days. Despite that, we managed to have one good, warm Saturday afternoon that we got to spend outside raking a big pile of leaves for her to play in. Notice in this video how she briefly panics for a moment, but eventually gets herself out:

Another thing she did this fall was climb her first tree. Her father put the idea in her head by climbing up first, and she thought it was quite silly. But then she decided that she wanted to be like the letters in Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and climb to the top of the coconut tree herself! Here is a picture of her and Daddy in the "coconut" tree:

I think that wraps up the fall/Halloween news pretty well. And, I'm at the limit of Violet being able to entertain herself in her playroom! More news to come!