Wordless Wednesday--Would you expect anything else?

Monthly onesie stickers.  Check!

24 Weeks, Baby #2

How far along: 24 weeks

Size of baby: baby is the size of a papaya (still)

Next week is a new food--I promise! :) 

Total weight gain/loss: +7.2
If my doctor hadn't confirmed last week that I only gained 7 pounds, I would start to think that my scale is broken!

Maternity clothes: mostly maternity

It's getting cooler! Bring on the sweaters!  I'm going to have to get a coat here soon.

Gender: It's a BOY!

Movement: Yes!  It's getting stronger by the day.

Sleep: This is pretty much the same.  No matter how hard I try, I can't fall asleep until between 1 and 2 in the morning!  Luckily, Olivia sleeps until between 8 and 9, so I still get a fair amount of sleep.  I'd like more though.  I haven't been napping (because she hasn't been napping), but I probably should!  I don't think it could hurt my nighttime sleep any.

What I miss: sleep

Cravings: I'm so boring...  I wish I could share something interesting with you, but I've got nothing!

Symptoms: insomnia, otherwise we've been doing alright

Surprises: I can't think of anything this week

Fun Purchases: I made a fun esty purchase.  I'll share tomorrow!

Milestones: It's Viability Day!  Not that I want Logan to make an appearance any time soon, but it's nice to know that from here on out he would have a chance of survival.

Circle S Farm

We headed to our second pumpkin patch this weekend.  We went here for a first grade field trip 5 out of the 6 years I taught.  I also took Little Man here multiple times, so I am a bit familiar with it.

When Olivia woke up, I crawled in her bed to lay with her for a minute.  I told her that we were going to a farm, and her reaction was priceless.  Her eyes got huge and her mouth dropped and then turned into the biggest smile.  And that's why we do these outings!  It made my heart happy. :)  She was so excited.  

We got out of the car and she just kept saying over and over that we were "at the farm!".

"This pumpkin is huge!"

"Cheese!"

She wanted to be the cow.

Doing the typical Olivia thing--watching others and refusing to look!

There was a big hay bail mountain that she climbed.

There was a "petting zoo", but not much petting was going on.  She did try to feed a goat some hay though.

Next up was the "scarecrow cave".  We weren't sure how she would do.  It's the height of a little kid and technically adults aren't suppose to go in.  Although you can kind of see them through the slats at the top.  She didn't even think twice.  She walked right in and just started following the different paths.

There were little clearings.  She'd pop out, say hi to us, and then head back in another entrance.

This is fun!

She made it out!  Unfortunately, it was without one bow.  Luckily we were able to find it and have a bigger kid give it to us.  It was only slightly dirty. :/

We went to the hay barn next.  I wasn't sure how she would do.  It's basically just an entire barn filled with hay to climb.  There are two slides as well. She did really well and climbed up and down multiple times!

The slide was probably the biggest one she has been on, but she didn't seem to think twice about it.

She started turning sideways half way down.  Her landing wasn't too graceful, but she still liked it.  Minus the hay in her mouth. :)

All the way at the top--all by herself!

We played in the hay barn...

until she was worn out.

There were two mazes to choose from--corn or sunflower.  We chose to check out the corn maze first.

Those fuzzy caterpillars were everywhere.  She was fascinated by them and wanted to stop and look at each one.

By this point, she was moving pretty slow.  We just got out of the corn maze as fast as we could and didn't even bother with the sunflower maze.

We stopped for a lunch/snack break.  She was slowing down, so we decided to go ahead and do the hayride and get our pumpkin and go.

She didn't nap a single day this week.  She laid in her bed for two hours each day and refused to sleep.  But the day we decide to go ahead and skip her nap is the day that she can't hardly make it to 2 o'clock!  Ay yi yi!

The hayride was a lot less bumpy than the last one.  The weather was cool and the wind was blowing, which made it the perfect day for a pumpkin patch!

Olivia found the perfect pumpkin for her! :)  Unfortunately, you have to pay for the number of pumpkins you want when you first get there.  We chose one and it's the one we are going to carve, so we went with something a little bigger.

It didn't stop her from carrying it around!

The tractor made a stop at the parking lot, and we got off and headed home.

Of course, Olivia fell asleep about 5 minutes away.  Oh well.

Another family fun day down!

Pumpkin Painting

Our art project for the week was to decorate our pumpkin.  I knew we'd probably be going to a few farms and end up with more than one pumpkin, so I thought it would be fun to decorate one.

We started out with Olivia painting it with glitter paint.

In my head the pumpkin was going to be much smaller! This thing took up her entire booster seat tray.

So we switched it up.  She got out of the seat and stood while she painted.

For the most part, I held the tray and turned the pumpkin.  She just painted wherever she wanted.  It's hard to see from the pictures, but the paint has glitter and confetti pieces in it.

We were going to add some jewels, but it took a while for the paint to dry so we had to wait a day or two.

I put dots of glue and she put the jewels on.

After the acorns on the beans project, I wasn't sure how long this was going to last.  I started at the top and  just kept turning the pumpkin as we went. Oddly enough, she loved it.  She was very particular about the color she wanted to use each time.  She liked the black ones, but wasn't so much a fan of the clear ones.

Olivia is very proud of our new centerpiece. :)

Facebook Hints

Michael is using the "good" laptop (the one I usually use!) to play some online games.  All of my pictures are on there, so the blog I had planned to write has to wait until tomorrow.  So as I sat here trying to think of a "Five for Friday", nothing was coming to me.  However, I was reminded of a blog I have been thinking about writing for a long time.  I would say 99% of the people that read this blog have a Facebook account.  There have been many things I have learned along the way--both as someone who hosts online parties and someone who was an admin of a group with 4000+ people.  They come to you when they can't figure out what is going on!  But some things I just learned by trial and error.  It appears that the general public does not know these things.  If you do, good for you!  Ignore my post.  I see people making these mistakes often though, so I thought I'd share.

TIP ONE

You don't have to get 100 different notifications after you comment on someone's post.  I had a friend who just had a baby.  I both liked the post and made a comment.  As you can see, when I took this snap shot she already had 76 comments.  I'm sure it's going to keep rising by the minute.  I don't want to get every "Congratulations" post.  You may see under her status that there are a few choices.  If you don't want to get a notification for every comment made after yours, you can just click "Stop Notifications".  On the flip side--if you are part of a group or someone posts something that interests you, you don't have to write "following" in order to get notifications.  There is an option that says "Get Notifacations" instead of the stop one.  You can just click that and it will automatically send you the notifications.  Make sense?

TIP TWO

I have to believe that the majority of you don't know about this feature, because if and when you make a mistake or autocorrect writes something funky...instead of editing your comment, you write another "fixer" comment underneath.  You don't need to do this!  If you go to your comment and hover over the right corner, that blue pencil will pop up.  Then you can choose "edit".  Fix your mistake and then click publish.  Done.  You don't have 3 or 4 posts trying to say the one thing you wanted to say!

TIP THREE

Did you know you have an "other" folder?!?!?  This has been around for over a year, at least.  Yet I still see friends posting that they just figured it out.  I'm guessing some of you may know about it.  Especially if you are on a buy/sell page.  The rest of you need to go check it out.  If someone who is not your Facebook friend sends you a message, it will go to your "other" folder.  Sometimes you do get spam, so it can be helpful, but you could also be missing important messages.  When you go to your messages at the left of your computer screen, you click on inbox.  Your inbox messages immediately pop up.  If you click on that little gray "other" word, it will take you to a whole different inbox.  I check mine periodically, so there is no number there.  If you have some unread messages, it will say something like Other(4). That means you have 4 unread messages.  

TIP FOUR

This one may not be as important, but coming from someone who has tried to hold online events or invited to something via a Facebook invite, I think it's helpful to know.  If someone invites you to an event, either an online party or even maybe a birthday party or get together, you will get a notification.  Sometimes you may see the notification.  Most people seem to miss them.  Only guests who RSVP "yes" or "maybe" will get further notifications.  As a host, it is helpful to know that you at least saw the post.  So just say "no" if you don't plan on going.  If you are interested, but aren't sure then put "maybe".  That way the host at least knows you saw it and you will also get all of the updates that may help change your mind one way or the other.  I have learned that as a society we are HORRIBLE at RSVPing.  There really isn't a good excuse in this day and age.  It takes two seconds to click a button.  Your "events" are located under your messages.  You can see that I have one event coming up.

TIP FIVE

Here's another free tip for you.  Really, it is a good tip in general, but also relates to Facebook.  If you are still using Internet Explorer as your browser, then you are living in the dark ages. Seriously.  You need to download chrome or firefox or something like that.  It will save you lots and lots of trouble.  (It will also save your Facebook page admin lots of trouble!).  If you've ever posted in a group and your item posted twice, then you tried to delete one and it deleted the picture on both--this is why.  It is an Internet Explorer glitch.  Get rid of it!!!!!

 TIP SIX

 This is mostly for those who are part of a group.  I would guess that is most everyone, but maybe not.  First, if you don't want to get all of the notifications every time someone comments, then you can click that little green check by the "Notifications" mark.  If you are looking to find a post, a lot of people use the magnifying glass (on the right).  This does work sometimes, but the magnifying glass itself has issues sometimes.  People were always trying to find their posts in our group as they got buried quickly.  If the magnifying glass doesn't work for you, you can go to your activity log.  It's located on your own personal page.

If you go to your page, up by your cover photo you will see a spot that says "Activity Log".  If you click on it, it will actually show you everything you've ever done on Facebook.  So you can find a post you made, a post you may have "liked", or a comment that you left.

Did you all know these things, or was it helpful?

Creepside Festival

We checked out a local fall festival last night.  It was at Creekside in Gahanna, which is a cute little updated part of the city that always has street festivals and activities going on.

The kiddos were suppose to come dressed up an could get candy from all of the vendors.  I spent the day running around with Olivia to get her a costume, only to have it literally fall apart as we put it on.  So frustrating.  It will be returned tomorrow, so I'm not sure what she'll be now...

Don't mind the upside down wings... she had just gotten out of the stroller and I slipped them on and took the picture before Michael pointed out that they were upside down.  Ooops!

We got a few pieces of candy from the vendors, but it was kind of crowded so we didn't bother.

She played a few games, but was more interested in the fountain in the middle of our walkway.

Then we headed to the path that was put on by the school I use to teach at.  A lot of my former little cuties were now big guys and they were part of the volunteer team.  I got called "Miss Gjertson" a lot, and heard a few squeals of "I just saw Miss Gjertson!".  That was fun. :)

Refusing to turn around and smile for a picture. :/

Putting some rings on water bottles.  It's fun when you are two... you gt to stand as close as you want and try as many times as you'd like.

Picking out her candy (from a former student of mine)

Choosing a duck.  She got one with a 3 on it!  3 pieces of candy for mommy and boppa!

Tossing bean bags

Olivia had just enough energy to make it through the kids trail.  She slept until 10 in the morning, so I thought skipping a nap would work.  It didn't.  Either way, we had a good time.  The weather was perfect, too.  Ahh, fall! :)