A visit from Poppie

In keeping with our busy little October, my dad come down to visit for a long weekend! We took advantage of the gorgeous fall weather by playing in the leaves, going to the wooden castle park near our house, carving pumpkins and splashing in the Harpeth River.

Dad arrived on Thursday evening and with the help of some new Halloween window clings, he and Blair hit it off almost immediately! It helps so much that she gets to see her Poppie on FaceTime frequently, I think she recognized him but was a little confused that he didn't live inside her iPad. Dad, in his Mary Poppins-style suitcase of tricks, also brought along a pumpkin leaf bag (which turns out to be our only Halloween decoration this year) and it was the perfect activity to keep her occupied while we had our carpets professional cleaned!

"Wheee!" *clap clap*

"Boop!"

The carpets were still pretty wet after the cleaning, so we packed up and headed over to Bowie Nature Park to play in the wooden playground castle. We love this park so much, it has the perfect fenced area for littler kids with steps, slides and castle turrets that are easy for little feet to maneuver. Blair and I are there a couple times a week if the weather is nice - she always makes a little friend or two and thinks peeking her head out of the animal cutout holes is just hilarious.

Favorite park equipment? Steering wheels.

"Take my picture, Poppie!"

Peekaboo!

Bahaha!

Hey there, blue eyes!

On Saturday we headed to Gentry's Farm for some more seasonal fun and these two had the best time "boop"ing pumpkins, picking out gourds and being silly. This day has it's own blog post, but I'll share a couple of pictures anyway!

Sunday was full of football, homemade pizza and more fun. We carved the pumpkins we picked at Gentry's Farm into a pirate and Mickey Mouse - combining my limited drawing skills with Mike's excellent carving techniques. Looking back, I should have drawn in some supports on the Mickey face, since it's now completely collapsed into itself, but oh well!

Our proud pumpkin master

I can't help but include this little series of pictures - She was so funny with these pumpkin tops!

The finished products all lit up!

Alas, Monday came all too quickly and Dad had to leave on an evening flight. We soaked up our last hours together by watching the pumpkins, coloring pictures and throwing rocks into the Harpeth River. It was such a fun weekend and Blair wouldn't stop asking for "Shiiya" the rest of the night and into Tuesday. We couldn't quite convince her that his name is Poppie, instead she created the name "Shiiya" in a rambling combination of what I can only guess was "See it?", as if she was only imagining him haha. Maybe she'll have it figured out by the time he comes back for Christmas!