The 'Ei's Have It: Pumpkin Pastimes

Our tour of fall festivals, friends, and family happily continues and as I was posting, I realized that Allie is either sporting orange, snow-hopeful-attire, or princess gear in every picture...which about sums up what it means to be an Allie Eicholtz these days. Not such a bad gig, if you ask me.

We walked the 2 blocks to our neighborhood town center and enjoyed some free fair festivities (and some not-so-free, but delicious fair food) at the Brambleton Fall Fest.

The Virginia is for Lovers (of big bellies and balloons) 'LOVE', courtesy of the Brambleton Fall Fest.

'E' is for Eicholtz. Sometimes this one sticks, other times every letter is an 'A' for Allie.

It's a pumpkin-butterfly...and it lasted about 2 minutes until she wanted it OFF.

Chris had a men's retreat in North Carolina (which equals golfing, fishing, sports-watching, and sleeping) with Steve and some other men from our old church over Columbus Day Weekend. The A-Team and I had a girls' weekend and made good use of our free-days. We took a trip to Annapolis to visit the extended part of the A-Team (Alice) and Tim and Jonathan and Brenda. The girls lost no-time in getting reacquainted...loudly and joyfully and Tim was a very patient and gracious big brother/cousin host.

They may have been pushing the size limit on this spin-a-whirl, but they made it work.

Never too old for a cuddle.

Jammin' Juniors.

The Cousin Crew.

One of many...

...giggle fits.

Honestly, there's really no way NOT to describe a solo weekend with a toddler as exhausting (and don't let the selective photo editing fool you, Allie can 'toddler-it-up' with the best of them when she cares to). But my big picture truth is...Allie's just good company. We shopped together (and then 'returned' together), had a dinner-date at Panera, and watched movies in our PJs while drinking hot chocolate and eating warm cookies. So, while I in NO way want to rush these years, I'm pretty excited for future girl-times as she grows. I know how much I love these times with my mom, and I'm just really joyful at the thought of getting to share in these moments with Allie.

Speaking of girl-times...

The Eicholtz girls catch up on some Halloween Doc (a little character-research for the 31st).

While the rest of the Unger family was down and out with a stomach bug, we got to enjoy the company of a healthy (for a while at least) Olivia. Allie was beyond thrilled, especially since she'd just prayed to see her the night before (that girl's no dummy).

I think Snow White automatically pauses until you put on a Princess dress of some type.

This Sunday we went to a pumpkin patch in the mountains. It could not have been a better weather day and we pumpkin-picked, ate, and played our way through the farm until we needed to go home for a nap...for Daddy.

She's exactly one sunflower tall.

After a short wagon-ride, we were dropped off in a field full of pumpkins of all shapes and sizes. We tested many of them for durability, color-quality, and character.