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!