Katie and Mommy's Big Adventure - Williamsburg (Day 5)

The long awaited continuation of Katie and Mommy's Big Adventure!

At the end of our long hot walk from the metro station (in DC, for those of you who don't know or remember our previous day's adventure click here), Katie and I headed off to a new adventure in Colonial Williamsburg!

We managed to get there in time to catch about half of the reenactment they did that morning.  Katie didn't understand much of it but I had a good time.  After we managed to get through the cannons at the end of the reenactment (which Katie listened to covering her ears and hiding against me, sorry sweetie!) Katie finally relaxed enough to listen and even dance to the fife and drums. 

We covered all the great Williamsburg highlights.  It was awesome.  I had fun, Katie had fun, and we got to see and do a lot of fun things.  We tried out the stocks...

...the cooper, and the shoe maker.  We had a particularly good time at the furniture maker and he gave Katie some horsehair grass stem or something that they used to use as sandpaper.  She had a blast spending 15 minutes or so sanding different pieces of wood they had. 

We also made bricks at the brick maker which involved the fun task of playing in the mud (called treading clay).  Workers would work the clay in their bare feet to make it soft and pliable while also cleaning out sticks and rocks that would make the bricks more likely to crack.  For us, it was just a good reason to get dirty.

 We tried on hats...

 

...tried out the local jail...

 
...visited with the locals...

 

...and generally had a great, although exhausting day.

Happy Birthday Continued

As Jim wasn't present for the entire happy birthday celebration I thought I would add a few extra details.  The original point of the birthday celebration (if such a thing can be found) was to eat the "cake" Katie had "baked" for me.  She made my favorite, banana chocolate chip cake.  Before I could eat it, however, we had to sing happy birthday (keeping time with finger snapping), then I could blow out the candles, she would cut the cake and hand out the pieces.  THEN we could eat the cake.  Her instruction were very specific.

It should, perhaps, be noted that my birthday long since passed in September and that Katie never got to sing me Happy Birthday and watch me blow out candles as Jim prefers to make my birthday cake approximately 6 months from my actual date of birth.  I do, eventually, get my favorite cake sometime around February.  Just in time for Jim's birthday in March.  This was the first year Katie noticed, however. :)

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

This morning, Katie announced that Mommy was celebrating her birthday.  I replied, "On November 17th?  That's highly unusual."  Katie proceeded undaunted, and led us in a singing of "Happy Birthday," keeping time by using Katie's latest trick - snapping fingers.  After the song, Mommy blew out the imaginary candles on her imaginary cake.

Oh, and Mommy had a birthday earlier this week, too.  (Poor Mommy, she'll be 105 by this time next year!)  She properly blew out the candles in her imaginary cake, and Katie warned her not to eat the candles.  Mom replied that she had already removed them, but Katie cautioned that there were some inside the cake, too.

Alphabet and eyes

Here's hoping that the writing turns into a new outlet for the many stories that pour forth from the mouth of this babe :)

This week, Katie asked on the way to day care, "Daddy, do you have special eyes in the back of your head that kids can't see like Mommy does?"  The reply, "Yes."

A Baby...or...?

It's official!  We're pregnant again after a long struggle with health issues.  We look forward to welcoming Baby Scarborough 2.0 into our family around 5/13/2011, right before Katie's 5th birthday.  While I had really not wanted my children to be so far apart in age, I am doing my best to remember that God's timing is best and there is a reason for everything.  A special blessing in this pregnancy is that my best friend is also pregnant now after a VERY long struggle to get pregnant.  After many years of being friends I find it especially wonderful to be able to share this journey together.  It is also special to me that our "not cousin" children will be only about 8 weeks apart in age (assuming everyone delivers on time). 

We hadn't officially announced our pregnancy to the masses (although pretty much anyone who reads this blog already knew) because we had not told Katie yet.  After my latest doctor appt. and ultrasound today, we shared the pictures and news with Katie.  Since she has been asking for a baby for over a year (and we've been putting her off by telling her that we will when God says it's time) she was excited about finally being a big sister for real. 

At first, of course, she thought the picture was a shoe. 

A fun day! (And a HUGE shock!!!) - Edited

We had a great day at the NC State Fair today.  For the first time since we started taking Katie two years ago, we decided to go early(ish) and forgo the nap (regular naps are still pretty important for her to not be cranky later).  So, we headed out the morning (a little later than Jim wanted) and arrived at the fair about 10am when the rides opened.  By sheer luck, we parked (FOR FREE!) on the same side of the fair as Kiddieland.  Yay!  Going in the gate directly to Kiddieland was awesome.  In the past, by the time we walk from the car to the fairgrounds and then from the gate around the fair to Kiddieland, it's practically time to go home!  This year, direct entrance to Kiddieland and arriving right as the rides opened was AWESOME!  We didn't have to wait for many rides and used most of our ride tickets in the morning.

Ready to go to the fair!

The first ride we started off with was what I would call a "transition" ride.  It was definitely a Kiddieland ride, small and not super fast but definitely faster than many of the kid rides.  This surprised (and terrified) my rather timid child at first.  Fortunately, riding with Mommy makes everything better and by the 5th time around we were having fun with a slightly more relaxed white knuckle grip on the safety bar. 

We had a great time riding the other rides, too.  Katie was big into rides this year.  She wanted to go on everything...well, everything that wasn't too scary.  We had a great time on many of the Kiddieland rides.

Ignore the boy.  He doesn't belong to me. :)

We had to pause to get her face painted.  This would be the princess design.

 After all those rides, we had worked up an appetite.  One family rule that we have for the state fair is that we can mostly get whatever we want to eat.  That includes Katie.  So, we all indulged in corn dogs, kebabs, corn on the cob, ice cream, and pizza.  Katie, as usual, wanted to eat a WHOLE bag of cotton candy.  We managed to convince her to pace herself so that she ate it over a couple of hours rather than all in one sitting.

(Apologies ahead of time for the shouting.)
The food brings me to the SHOCKING incident midday.  By SHOCKING I mean COMPLETELY, TOTALLY UNEXPECTED and CRAZY.  Katie had eaten her corn dog and some of her cotton candy already when I looked at her during the magic show.  That's when I noticed something odd about her mouth.  I asked her to come closer and show me her teeth.  Sure enough, THIS is what I saw:

YES!  THAT is a GAPPY grin you see.  My not quite 4.5 year old child has just lost her first tooth AND WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO IT!  I can only imagine where it might be right now...To say the least, the tooth fairy was TOTALLY unprepared and had to scramble a bit.  We wrote a nice note to leave under Katie's pillow for the tooth fairy so she knows Katie really did lose a tooth. We went to show Daddy after the magic show was over and he was as confounded as I was. 

We rode the Ferris wheel, did an obstacle course, went down a cool slide and rode some more rides.  We also watched a juggling act and a magic show that were both pretty cool.  At the end of the day we managed to check out the State Fair Ark of neat animals, watch cows get milked and catch a few minutes of a ventriloquist.  Overall, it was an awesome family fun day at the state fair.  Can't wait to go back next year!

The last ride of the day: The Dragon Wagon!

Road Construction

NC-540 is a new toll road going in 1000 feet west of our house, basically out the front door.  Because of the construction, the greenway we have been taking to Kelly Road park is closed through June, and we have a nice trail straight to the construction area in the back yard.  There's another park on the other end of the trail, but it's for team sports rather than a playground.

We went to the end of the sidewalk where we saw a crane, some pillers without their concrete yet, and the temporary construction roadway to help them build a bridge over the marsh.  They were working on the road today, on a Saturday.  We heard a pile driver off and on this morning and continue to hear construction noise, though it is not bothersome.