Ellie's thoughts on her first pumpkin

The first outing my parents ever took me on was to the zoo. It was the middle of August and extremely hot. I can't remember if I had fun or not because I was six weeks old at the time. My mom has said they were stir crazy and needed to get out of the house so they packed me up and headed to the zoo. I'm sure their thought process went something like this:

We have a kid now -> kids like the zoo -> let's take Andy to the zoo!

On paper it looks good. In real life, a six week old kid doesn't know the difference between walking around the zoo and walking around the Deja Vu parking lot. The trip to the zoo wasn't for me, it was for my parents. This story has made me chuckle to myself for years. Perhaps one day Ellie will laugh to herself about the time we took her to her first pumpkin patch. Emily has been adamant about taking Ellie to get a pumpkin for weeks now. It sounded like a good idea. I pictured putting Ellie in the Baby Bjorn, taking a hayride, sipping some apple cider, talking to an old farming couple about their crops, and so on. Weather and school poo-pooed on that plan so we finally just took Ellie to the church down the street to get a pumpkin. As we pulled in the parking lot I couldn't help but notice we were the only people there, not counting the two workers who appeared to be texting each other. We got out of the car and started walking up and down the rows, waiting for Ellie to pick her pumpkin. The church we went to sits on a busy intersection so there were plenty of people driving by, watching us help a sleeping baby pick out a pumpkin. In our first post, one of my stated goals was to not look like a doucebag. Yesterday I was failing miserably. Emily finally helped Ellie pick a pumpkin and recorded the momentous moment for posterity.

Yay, let's pick out a pumpkin!

Daddy is having fun!
Ellie's first pumpkin. She was very selective.

My complaining aside, it was actually a fun trip. I'm slowly learning that most of the activities you do with a baby during the first year are things parents find cute and the baby is unaware of. The pumpkin patch was not the only cute thing we did this weekend. I'm too lazy to turn the rest of the weekend into a story so here is a condensed list:

1. Took Ellie out to Red Robin for dinner. She slept the whole time. I think that means she had fun.

2. Took Ellie to her first football game. We went to a quarter of the Sycamore-Mason game. Again, she slept the whole time.

3. Had dinner with Aunt Nicole and Uncle Chris. I have nothing interesting to say about this.

4. Met the entire extended Sweeney family. Ellie slept while approximately 150 people passed her around a table.

Overall, it was a pretty fun weekend. Here are some more pictures.

Cuddle time with Winne and Dad.

Teaching Aunt Nicole to make dumb faces. Later Ellie taught Aunt Nicole how to make a poopie diaper.

Walking around with Ellie in the Baby Bjorn is my new favorite thing to do.

We still have a ton of Halloween clothes to wear by Wednesday.