Fun day & cuteness

Yesterday was mega-fun. I met some of my friends from an online forum at Apple Hill, and the next 4 1/2 hours were spent at craft-shopping, face-painting, lunch-eating, pony-riding, pond-visiting, cider-press-watching, apple-buying... It's just squeaky clean fun. We had a great time. As an added bonus, one of the gals I met was originally from Sacramento, but lives in Chicago now. She brought an old friend, and it happened to be someone I knew! In fact, we had been through the grueling internship together, and I was always sorry we'd lost touch. We got to meet each others' daughters. Nice, right?

Oh, and for the Dylan fans among my readers (MB?), I bought Z a leopard skin pillbox hat. Okay, it's not skin, it's fleece, but still...

Zadie conked out on the way home, but when we got home, we had surprises! Sweetie had spent the day volunteering at REI, and he did some shopping, too. I got a new warm black V-neck shirt and a grey fleece pullover, and Zadie got one of those down vests -- I didn't even know they made them in Zadie size! She looks so rugged.

Then we went to Mom's house for pre-Thanksgiving. I really enjoy spending holidays with family, even if it's not the real day. Monkeygirl came over too (with a yummy pie). I got to talk to my cousins, and Zadie got to torment her cousin Grant. Unfortunately I missed what led up to him crying, but apparently she was just SO HAPPY to see him that she was flapping her arms, squealing, touching his face, etc. and it was too much for him. Later on he got more used to the idea of her and he let her chase him around the house. It felt so full of life to have the two babies crawling and toddling all over Mom's house. Anyway, dinner was excellent and we all ate too much. Zadie tried stuffing, cranberries, mashed potatoes (with formula instead of milk) and sweet potatoes. She also got to try out the baby spoon that comes with Mom's silverware. At the end of the evening, we opened Mom's, Boompah's, and Monkeygirl's birthday presents for Sweetie. Zadie crawled around with bows and drooled on the paper, but wasn't much help with unwrapping.

Finally, Zadie does LOTS of cute things. Seriously, as cute goes, she's got it in spades. But the thing she does that's slaying me right now has to do with a book. It's called "Moo, Baa, La La La." It mainly is about animal noises ("The cow says moo."), but in the middle it asserts that singing pigs say "La la la." Then you, the reader, correct it, and it goes on. Finally, it says "It's quiet now. What do YOU say?" And at that point, Zadie almost always says "La la la."

On Zadie speaking, she's got a three-syllable word down. Mom's cat's name is Odwalla, and Mom told me the other day that she had taken Zadie outside to say hi to the cat. After saying "Hi Odwalla" herself, Mom heard the baby say "Hi Wala." Mom, surprised, said "What?" And then about twenty times in a row, the baby said "Hi A-wa-la." I still was slightly dubious - my not-quite-8-month-old was saying Odwalla? But last night when we were over there, Mom said "Why don't you go say hi to Odwalla?" In reply, Zadie said "Owalla... Owalla... Owalla." It was very clear. She didn't get the D in there, but I was impressed nonetheless.

Okay, all for now. Today is busy, too, with a Chuck-E-Cheese birthday party for Grant. Plus, I didn't get to clean, to errands, or cook my lunches yesterday, so I have to find a way to fit that in.