What a fantastic weekend! 

It started on Friday at Meredith's school, where all the kids looked SO CUTE for the parade of costumes.  Then we went to the neighborhood Halloween party, where Ginger dressed up as Little Bo Peep and Ben as a wolf to Meredith's lamb.  When Meredith first saw Ben as a wolf (I was changing her diaper) she startled, but Ben pulled off his mask and said "It's just Daddy!"  She warmed up really quickly to the mask and soon was just trying to pull it off and pointing to him, saying "Dada!  Dada!"  Some of the other neighborhood children were scared, though, and some were delighted in being scared.  Andrew and Olivia who are about 5 kept creeping up and waiting for Ben to growl at them, then they turned away screaming!  There were TONS of kids at the party, and lots of food.  Ginger manned the bowling game downstairs, and there was also musical chairs and bobbing for apples.  So after that pre-Trick-or-Treat party, we went back and started going to houses.  We made it to about 5, and Meredith really racked up on candy.  At first she wasn't sure what was going on (she can say "Halloween" (ish) and tried to say "Trick-Treat" (ish), but not exactly on cue.  But she was very good at signing Thank You! when she got candy.  Then we went back to our house and sat on the porch swing, where Meredith enjoyed taking all the candy out of her pumpkin and then putting it back in.  We stayed outside for a little while and enjoyed saying hello to the trick-or-treaters, but bedtime came soon after 7.

We tailgated at the GT/FSU game on Saturday.  Hayes was there, and Meredith's across the street neighbor Graham came too (his mom Heather went to FSU, and his dad Chris went to the game with Ben).  The kids had a good time.  At about 12:30, Meredith asked for a nap.  Hayes also tried to lie down, and both kids were curled up on blankets on the ground under other blankets, and Meredith thankfully had her bunny.  It was hard for her to actually get to sleep, though, so at about 1:30 we left and got her in bed by 2.  After waking up from her nap, Meredith and Graham (and Heather and I) went to Amelia's house (Kelly and Chris are her parents) to watch football and mainly just watch the kids.  They served up an excellent dinner (chicken nuggets, pineapple and green beans for the kids, burgers for us).  Meredith loved playing with Amelia's toys, and all the kids really got along great.

I kept Meredith up a bit late to prepare for the "fall back" time change, and she made it until about 7:45 after a nice bath.

Sunday she slept until about 7 the new time, so that was good.  We had our last music class of this session, and we'll all be sad that Miss Jaime won't be teaching the next session.  Meredith gave Jaime about 4 hugs after class, it was all very sweet.  A bunch of us (parents and Ellery, Collin, Bradey, Amelia, Graham - all go to Primrose and live in our neighborhood) went to one of our favorite restaurants, Muss and Turner, which just started serving brunch.  It was great.  Meredith had an excellent nap, played well this afternoon (read lots of books), and stayed up until almost 7 the new time.  She seems to have adjusted to the time change better than I have!

We feel very, very blessed.

In addition to the words I put out on fun facts, Ben is very proud that this morning Meredith learned the word "booger."  Lots of fun.

Last night we had friends over and it was maybe 5 minutes past 7, Meredith's usual bedtime.  She started getting a tiny bit fussy, and I said I would take her upstairs and get her pj's on.  She started saying "Night Night!" again and again.  After she was ready for bed I asked if she wanted me to read her a story or go to bed, and she said, "Bed!"  And she went right down.

Today we tailgated for Homecoming.  There were lots of new people to meet - Ryan, Anna, and seeing Collin and Danielle again!  There was lots of new food to try, including some Krispy Kreme donut, half a pink-a-licious cupcake, and half a pumpkin muffin.  Lots of sugar - which is probably why she made it until 1:45 without a complaint.  At that point she said, "Nap!  Nap!" so I took her on home.  She fell asleep in the car and went right down once I put her in her crib. 

So Meredith likes her sleep!

When I was getting Meredith ready to go to school this morning, I asked "Are you ready for school?" and she exclaimed, "SCHOOL!"  We bundled her up and off we went.

Meredith is really getting good at repeating words - they are coming out much more clearly, with the right consonants and vowels.  She's much more understandable to folks outside the family (in my opinion).  It is a really neat time.  She's still getting lots of time outside, time playing with other kids, and we're working on sharing . . . but that part is hard.

So we didn't want to jinx it, but although Meredith certainly shook her head, she wasn't actually saying "no" yet.  (Lots of other words, just not "no")  So all that changed on Monday!  She's certainly exerting her will - No (I don't want to eat any more yogurt) or No (I don't want to go upstairs). 

We're working on the word Yes!

What wonderful weather we're having!

This week at school firemen came to visit with their firetruck and gave the kids "fire chief" hats.  Then the police came and brought their K-9 robot - very neat!

Every day this week Meredith has played outside after dinner.  Her friends Graham and Keira, who live on the street and are also in her class at school, were also out with their mommies, so the kids rampaged the cul-de-sac.  They played with Oscar (Graham's dog), ran up to people's porches and looked at their Halloween decorations, waved at everyone who drove by, and ran in 3 different directions. 

On Friday Grandma and Grandpa arrived - hooray!  They brought a pull toy hippo, which Meredith hasn't quite figured out yet - she can push just fine, but when she wants to pull, she holds the hippo off the ground.  Friday evening Graham came up to our porch - he wanted to play on our porch swing - so we brought out Meredith.  Then all the other kids on the street came out and we ended up having an impromptu block party, kids with icey pops and parents and grandparents with beer.  I knew it would happen at some point, but since Meredith wasn't so sure about the icey pop (she liked the taste but didn't like how cold it was!) she was holding it, and most of it melted, and the icey part pushed up and fell out of the plastic onto the ground.  Tantrum ensued - end of impromptu block party for Meredith.  Oh well.

On Saturday we tailgated for the GT game v. Duke.  Meredith had a big time.  She enjoyed taking out all the beer from the cooler, and then the ice, and then putting everything back in again.  Aside from the mud it produced, it was an excellent learning opportunity (counting, anyone?)  I was cutting up her fruit and had turned around for a second (there were lots of other responsible adults around to watch her), but when I looked back she was sitting, very comfortably, in the adult-sized tailgating chair.  My goodness!  She's climbing up on furniture by herself now!  She liked the big chair situation.  She made it through the entire first quarter of the game (although she did fall asleep in my arms) before we left this time.

Grandma and Grandpa got to spend quality time with Meredith by themselves while Ben and I went out to dinner with Chris and Jaime.  And this morning they got to play with her before we went off to music class and they went to church and headed back home to Tampa.

It's a great weekend!

Meredith's school had a "Celebrating Cultures" event on Friday 9/26. Betsy had given Meredith this outfit before she was born - it's straight from Hong Kong! - and now it fits perfectly. Meredith listened to the round of "It's a Small World," watched the mariachi band, enjoyed some ballet dancers, and sampled food from around the world.  Plantains were a hit!

We went to the fair on Saturday 9/27. Meredith really enjoyed the petting zoo - she started getting into touching the animals. We saw goats, a zebra, a camel, ducks, cows, horses, geese, chicks, roosters . . . Meredith even made the noises!

Right now Atlanta is really short on gas supply, so we are going to have to stick close to home for now.

So what do you do when a baby poops in the bathtub?  We found out last night.

(Answer: 2 person job, optimally. Take baby out of bathtub and keep warm and occupied.  Take all toys out of bathtub.  Drain water and fish out the offending object.  Scrub bathtub and rinse.  Put baby back in bathtub and wash baby.  Wash cloth toys and washrag in washing machine, plastic toys with hot water and soap.)