My mom, Aria, and I went to the Festival of Trees today in the Quads. It is always a good time. The first spectacular thing is the gigantic tree of stuffed animals. Aria's favorite thing on the tree was all of the horses. She walked around it and pointed out every horse. She also would not sit still and look at me for a picture.
The next stop was the gingerbread houses. Aria wanted to touch them, so I had to keep her back. Then she was satisfied to look as we pointed out all of the different kinds of candy. "Look, there's m&m's on the roof". "Look, there's candy canes". She was pretty impressed that you can make houses out of candy. She wants to make one too. I will probably oblige when Gannon comes down. They can do it together.
Then we looked at trees, which Aria wanted to touch all of the presentations. Trying to not have a three year old touch things is hard. I had to explain to her that the toys there were just there for pretty. She couldn't comprehend there being toys about and they are not to play with!
I was very proud of the girl in that she told me that she had to pee, then we went in the bathroom and she went right there. We brought along her potty seat like we always do now and she's been really good at telling us when she has to go while we are out. No accidents today. We took two potty breaks and she was good every time. Even always remembered to wash her hands.
Then there was the train set, which was Aria's absolute favorite thing. She could have stood there and watched that train set all day long. It was impressive. It had five trains going in all directions at once. At the top was a Santa village and a train that went around with Santa on it. Then another train at the bottom stopped for passengers. Another one went in a tunnel. Still another one looked like it had steam coming from the engine. It was a fun train.
We then went to the kid's part of things and this year I was smart and brought cash. I got two punch cards for Aria so she could do four activities. The first thing she did was go to storytime. She was so about storytime. When the lady would ask questions Aria was the first to answer. When the lady asked what book to read, Aria was giving her opinions. She actually sat and listened to three stories before her attention span wavered.
She also loved the activities. I tried to pick things that she'd be able to do because most of the stuff was geared towards bigger kids. The first one was a stamp ornament. You used your thumb to stamp out a pattern and then you used markers to color it in. Aria made a butterfly (with some help from mama) and was very proud of her creation. So much that she was showing the nice lady that was cleaning the floors.
The second one was similar. You decorated mittens with stamps, stickers, or markers. Aria had fun with the stamps there too and was very proud of her creation. She also got a sucker, a little treasure, and she got some popcorn and juice. The popcorn was just in a little bag and so it was her baby popcorn.
This year they had a small corner set up for little kids under 4 to play for free. It had big blocks, a bean throwing game, crayons, and little fisher price basketball hoops. Aria had a good time there too and got to run off some steam.
Then we ate. They had a restaurant come in with some tables along the skywalk and they were serving food. Therefore we got to sit along the skywalk while we ate. We had really yummy shrimp bisque and brownies. We all thought it was delicious. Then it rained so we watched it rain on the people below us while we sat at our comfy table at the skywalk. That was probably the highlight of my day:shrimp, skywalk table, rain.
We looked around a bit more and then both Aria and mom were exhausted so we headed home. It was a good time and Aria was pretty good except the incidents where she wanted to touch everything there.
Aria walked around for a little bit, and then discovered the joy of eating the snow. Ah, the soft, fluffy, cold wet snow-how delicious it is. Once she discovered snow could be eaten that is what she did when she wasn't throwing it around, putting it in her bucket, or making a snow mountain.
Then my rosy-cheeked little girl went out front with me to shovel the sidewalk. This is one of my least favorite things to do just because if I am at the front of my house, that's where I may actually run into a neighbor. Then they will bother me either with stupid questions or annoying requests that have nothing to do with anything.
Aria wanted to help shovel too, so I let her. She tried very hard and then told me it was too heavy and I got to do it again.
It's raining, Mama! It's raining! It's too cute to correct her.
The slide was covered with snow and Aria didn't want to go down it. Therefore, to show her how much fun it would be, I went down it. I slid down it, hit a patch of ice at the bottom and kept going! I slid on my knees til I reached the brick walkway. That didn't make Aria want to slide down it any more, I can tell you.
