Maisie Moo - Halloween Edition

Since Maisie's first trick (or trunk) or treating was done in California, it's now time for her to experience what a North-West Halloween is all about. Multiple layers - yes tights included, umbrella, (rain)boots and a hot bath afterwards. This is the only way I knew how to celebrate Halloween. I was born and raised in this very town, so it's kind of fun that Maisie gets to create memories that are just like mine as a kid. We are planning on going through a couple of my favorite neighborhoods on Halloween night, but the forecast is looking pretty grim, so we will see I guess.

Maisie was pretty lucky last year getting away with a short sleeved shirt, sandals and only one pair of extremely thin tights.

The Pitch Pipe Incident

Last week we took Maisie to Miranda's choir performance at Sprague- our old high school. Right before the last song, they pulled out a pitch pipe and played one note before getting started (since the song was unaccompanied by an instrument). Maisie proudly (and loudly) matched the note perfectly for all to hear. The room was dead silent until everyone exploded into laughter. As embarrassed as I was, I was slightly more proud. A handful of people came over to us after the performance and jokingly commented that we have a future choir child on our hands, but of course we already knew this. We couldn't stop Maisie from singing even if we tried.

p.s 

Of course they had to repeat the note and start over and this time we made sure to cup her mouth because she still couldn't resist the temptation.

Bauman Farms Pumpkin Patch

On one of the days where it wasn't a torrential downpour outside, we seized the somewhat sunny weather and made our way to the pumpkin patch. Maisie had been asking about it for weeks and was so excited to pick out a pumpkin. Oh and take a spin on the tractor for the hay ride (she loved it of course). Maisie went without a nap that day so she started to get pretty cranky and demanding towards the end, so it was a fairly short trip, but still fun nonetheless.

Maisie made friends with the ducks and geese (surprise, surprise right?) and also fed the goats and sheep. I was happy to see she wasn't as leery of the barnyard animals as she was last trip. 

Other highlights? The hazelnut house- a little wooden house filled with hazelnuts that kids can jump in. Also the corn box, same concept as the hazelnut house, but with corn. Maisie was in sensory-play heaven.

She's been asking about going back, but I think we need to hit our other favorite pumpkin patches around Portland before Halloween. Hopefully the weather allows it!

The Caterpillar

Ever since Maisie's early obsession with the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" she has adored caterpillars. She talks about them all the time, about how they eat leaves, build cocoons, turn into butterflies and are just plain cute. We didn't realize that she had never seen one in real life until recently one morning when Austin took Maisie outside for some exploring (but really just waiting for me to finish getting ready so we could run errands or go somewhere).

And lo and behold, what did they find?

Yup she called the Caterpillar cute at least two times.

Fishing @ Minto Brown Park

Maisie loves to go pretend fishing. Every night before we put her down to sleep (in California) she would cuddle in bed with us for a few minutes and would pretend our bed was a big fishing boat. She would (with a foxtail remember those things?) catch "mama" and "dada" fishes. Which required us to get off the bed swim/crawl around on the floor and wait for her to throw in her "line" and we would take the bait and she would reel us in. We aslo had to jump up, flop on to the bed and wiggle around while Maisie would excitedly yell "I caught a big mama fish!"Let me tell you, it's quite the exercise pretending to be a fish especially when your toddler keeps saying "I'm going to catch another mama fish" when it's clearly dada's turn. 

Ok sweet girl, but are you sure you don't want to catch a BIG dada fish this time?

So after our move, Austin made her a makeshift fishing pole out of a stick, some string and a magnet. We also cut out fishes from cardstock put a paper clip on them and let her fish all around the house. She was in heaven. She wanted to take the fishing pole everywhere, but due to the safety of everyone's eyes we had to limit the places she could take it. Like the car, shopping cart and any sort of store. She even asked for it to come take a nap with her.

I remember Katie and I being obsessed with making our own fishing poles when we were little. We would ask Mom and Dad for some bread/cheese/whatever and beg them to take us to Minto Brown, actually convinced we would catch something. We never did. But after remembering this, I wanted to take Maisie to my old "fishing spot" and let her have a try. No hook, no bait, no bobber (she did ask for one though haha) and let her get the feel for it. She needed no tips from us she knew exactly what to do. She flung in her string (and magnet) bobbed it up and down, pulled it in slowly and threw it back in. I'm convinced she would have stayed there all day if we had let her, but we had a bag of stale bread waiting to be devoured by some gluttonous ducks.

Phone Pictures:

On the end of her line is the mangled remains of a paper fishy.

Silver Falls Revisited

It took less than two weeks of us being back in Oregon to make a day trip to Silver (Creek) Falls to test out our new toddler hiking pack. Maisie loved it. She has never minded being carried in a pack, probably because we wore her fairly often in her first year of life- mainly doing dishes and cleaning hah. But at least now, with the hiking pack she has a better view!

Remember our last trip to Silver Falls? Look how bald she was!

How to be a cow...

Maisie Moo style:

1) Eat a handful of grass.

2) Let out a big "MooOOOoo".

3) Make a grumpy face when Mama and Dada tell you not to eat the grass.

Rice Hill

A few miles south of Eugene, in the most unlikely of places, is one of the best road trip pit stops ever, Rice Hill. It's a close second for my favorite because I'm partial to the Olive Pit (NOT the Olive Hut) in Corning, California. As much as Maisie loves olives, nothing beats a scoop of chocolate ice cream in a cone.

She has become quite the chocolate lover lately. But I didn't realize how much so until I read her a handful of ice cream flavors (because Rice Hill has 36 flavors to choose from) including birthday cake, Oregon strawberry and bubblegum. And of all the flavors I listed (I'm still in shock that she didn't pick birthday cake!) my child chooses plain chocolate. Austin got strawberry cheesecake and I got pistachio almond and Maisie tried them both and then proudly proclaimed hers was her favorite. What a stinker.

We moved!

It's official. We are now back in Oregon. Still adjusting, still in shock, but content knowing we are on our way to our goals. Oregon has welcomed us back warmly and it's fun watching the leaves begin to change colors and fall. Hopefully this Autumn (and call me a dreamer, Winter as well) won't be a rainy one. A girl could hope right?

This picture was taken from our Hotel in Redding. We stopped there because we were so exhausted from days of non stop cleaning, a late key turn in and sleeping on the floor the night before. Not to mention packing and actually moving all of our stuff into a moving truck.

So happy to be done moving for right now, but still missing California.

Winchester Mansion Tour

The weekend after Austin's 25th birthday (and our last weekend in California) I planned a little day date to the Winchester Mansion. Austin and I have both wanted to go since the day we moved to Santa Clara and seeing how this would be our last opportunity in who knows how long, we decided to go.

I remember watching documentaries on the Winchester legacy with my dad when I was just a little girl. I was so fascinated with the whole concept of the supposed curse placed on the Winchester family by those killed by the "Gun that won the west".  For some reason though, I thought the house was located east somewhere, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found out we lived only 15 miles away.

A friend of ours who has two littles watched Maisie for a few hours while we did the Grand tour of the mansion, grounds and basement. I was disappointed about not being able to take pictures of the inside of the house because it was so interesting. So many odd twists and turns, doors to no where, staircases to the ceiling, posts installed upside down, imported German chandeliers and Tiffany lamps and stained glass windows from New York. It was a lot of fun to see.

Need more info about Sarah Winchester and the famous mansion? Click here. It's very interesting.

Here are some pictures of our little date:

Oh and on every Friday the 13th they do night flash light tours... How awesome would that be?!

Fun fact:

Sarah Winchester gained 20 million in inheritance money from the loss of her husband and mother, but then with all her shares of the Winchester company (33% I believe), she received $1500 every day for the rest of her life. Todays equivalent would be $22,000 a day. Nuts right!?