Natalie's top ten and our (mis)adventure at the Fall Festival

In honor of Natalie's 5-month birthday (tomorrow), we will share some pictures of Natalie and some of her favorite things. I can't figure out how to get the photos and the text to line up, so I'll write out the list here and you can follow along. Be sure to read the rest of the post, which continues after the first group of photos.
1. Gymbo the Clown
2. New jungle-themed activity mat
3. Exersaucer
4. Bouncy seat - a gift from Natalie's pal Kayla
5. Feet
6. Murphy
7. Sydney
8. Going out to dinner with Mommy and Daddy
9. Grabbing Daddy's face
10. Chillin' at the park on a beautiful day












Because this is Natalie's first Halloween, I got it in my head that we had to have her picture taken in a pumpkin patch. Imagine my excitement when I saw the Hyde Park Fall Festival on the calendar for one of my Mom's groups. I enthusiastically signed up, thinking of all the cute photo ops that we would have. Well, it didn't work out exactly the way I'd imagined. We arrived around 11 a.m. and parking was scarce. We ended up at the top of the garage, which meant the three of us, along with all the other SPPs (stroller-pushing parents), had to use the elevator. The one small elevator that had to service all the other parking levels and all the other SPPs. Joy. We got down to the festival after a few minutes and were greeted by the sight of hundreds of other SPPs, kids in costumes, vendors handing out candy, and, of course, the Promised Land, a.k.a. the Pumpkin Patch. Johnathan had the task of maneuvering the stroller through the crowd. I told him to be aggressive and run over anyone who got in our way (kidding). We edged our way in for a photo with a woman on stilts who I think came from one of the shows at Busch Gardens. As you can tell, Natalie was SO impressed (also kidding). After about five minutes of dodging all the tiny ghosts, witches and obnoxious parents, I had had enough. "Let's get the pumpkin picture and get out of here," I said. So we made our way to the pumpkins and, well, Natalie wasn't too interested in posing. She looked down a lot and we strugged to get a few good shots. Eventually I figured it was best not to push it, so we headed back to the elevator to go up to our car. Not so easy! After waiting about five minutes for the *!&$!# thing to reach the ground floor and all the SPPs and kids to disembark, the elevator decides to leave before we could get on. Johnathan made a valiant effort to pry the doors open as they were closing (like Hercules trying to push down the ancient Greek columns), but that elevator was NOT stopping. Argh!!! At that point, I told him to go across the street and I hiked up five or six flights of steps to get the car and pick them up. I think we were there for maybe 30 minutes. Disappointing, but I can already laugh about it.
The last picture is of us at our friends' "fall formal" party. It's nice to get dressed up once in awhile and wear clothes that don't have spit-up stains on the shoulders.