So what do you think...

I think we pulled it off quite nicely.

Syrup Soppin'

If you want funnel cakes for breakfast, pony rides for $5, and an endless supply of Syrup then the Syrup Soppin festival in Lochapoka, Al is the place for you. This event happens every year at the end of October. Normally, Lochapoka is a town of 135 people, but on the day of this festival there are over 20,000 people in attendance. We got there bright and early, round 7:30 and was greeted at the entrance with the biscuit stand and just a mere 5 feet away was the funnel cake stand. So, Bill and Ryan had biscuits and syrup for breakfast, while mommy and Darby enjoyed an amazing funnel cake.

I loved this festival. It was basically a flea market with some super dooper extras thrown in there. Extra like the poultry palace that had shows every 20 minutes explaining the breeding process of chickens. We even had the opportunity to meet a turkin (half chicken half turkey). We wandered around the festival for about 2 hours, ate some awesome food, and Ryan got to ride her first horse. We had such a great time. I will just let the pictures speak for themselves. On the tracks

Checking out the booths. Ryan looked very interested in the bow tents, so we had to purchase quite a few.
Now, she wasn't so sure about the horse at first, but it did not take her long to warm up...

This was my parting gift. As we were leaving I saw the sign, "Roasted Corn $3!" I could not resist. It was delicious, so Ryan and I shared the cob.

Can I help you?

Every day when I pick Ryan up she is more than excited to see me. She drops whatever she is doing and runs full on until basically tackling me to the floor, this really melts my heart. The joy of seeing me usually lasts until about the parking lot. Some days her joy continues until it is bedtime, but others I think I would have rather left her with Ms. Meg (her teacher) until the next morning. No matter what the mood is, the hugs and kisses wear off when we get to the parking lot, that is when I start getting the requests...

"Juc, juc" - Juice
"Phishy" - Goldfish
"Dog" - Clifford - the cartoon, not the actual dog
"Mal Mal"- Lamby - don't ask me how she phonetically developed this phrase
"Up, up"- pick me up even though your belly is getting larger and larger and more and more muscles are being pulled each passing day- because face it child, you are well nourished.

Anyways, yesterday was one of my favorite days. I like to call it, "Throw an hour long fit for no dang reason." She made it to the car nice and happy, then saw the 3 day old juice cup sitting in my cup holder and started demanding,
"Juc, Juc"
I rationally explained to her, "Baby, this is old and yucky, you do not want this. Mommy needs to wash it."
So of course she replied rationally by shouting, "Juc Juc"
So I decided to take the road that Bill is trying so hard to direct me down, the road of ignoring Ryan when she is throwing a fit. I just turned up the music and ignored the continual shouting coming from the back. I had to run by CVS yesterday to pick up a few things, so when I stopped the car she calmed down a bit. I asked,
"Do you want to get out of the car and go shopping with mommy?"
"NO!"
"Ryan, mommy is going to be sad shopping by herself, come on get out."
"No"
Okay, talking is no longer working, so I forced the child out of the car screaming and kicking the whole way. So I asked her if she wanted to bring lamby along and she said very insistently, "YES!"
So, we load up our CVS cart- which cracks me up that people who shop at CVS need carts, but we were one of them. So the first thing we saw was the candy specials sitting in the front. Which lead Ryan to immediately start in...
"More, More, More"
"Ryan, we do not need candy right now, if you are a good girl we can get some before we leave."
"MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE" followed by extreme crying and yelling
"Ryan Lily, if you do not stop crying on the count of 3 you are going to get a spankin,
1
2."
She stopped crying... for about a minute
I knew I just needed to get my crap and quickly get the heck out of there. SO I grabbed my shampoo & conditioner, toothpaste, red bulls (for Bill), wipes, and a twix bar (I'll give you one guess who that was for:) and hurried to the check out. Well, thank you CVS for strategically placing the bobble head witch candy packets at the check out. I just went through a 10 minute shopping with a SCREAMING child, I see the light at the end of the tunnel, then I see the dang witch bobble heads. Ryan just starts saying,
"More, MORE, MORE, MORE"
I just ignore her and proceed with the check out. The guy at the register is just giving me the, 'Oh poor thing, I am so sorry you have this awful child' look. While I am shooting back the, "What are you looking at?" look
Then I had my two bags and Ryan with her lamby in the cart, I was trying to get everything out and get that child out of the store and in the car, when it happened...
Two young construction workers walked in the door and of course heard Ryan screaming and said in their disgusting flirty tone...

"Oh, mommy, you are so mean!"

I could not believe it, my neck must have turned three shades of purple and I whipped my head around threw down my bags and said,

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

I mean really, do you need to top your day off by flirting with the pregnant lady dealing with her screaming child by telling her she is a bad mother! I could have spit nails. The nerve of that jerk to make that comment to me. I prefer the stares suggesting that I should just commit myself and hand over my child to DHR. But to say something so snide and pompous from this guys mouth just blew me away.

Finally, we loaded up the car, I called Bill and said, you better be waiting in the garage when I pull up. Of course, my amazing husband was there just waiting to get the little bean out of the back seat. Ryan lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw daddy and the tears were gone for the night.

I just walked in, kicked off my shoes, laid down on the couch and closed my eyes. This peace lasted for about 2 minutes before I felt someone putting my shoes back on my feet saying, "Shoe, Shoe"
When I opend my eyes, Ryan was standing by my feet grinning from ear to ear trying to get my flip flops back on to join her and daddy outside...
Ahh, talk about your ups and downs of motherhood!

Too much

I mean seriously, it's really been a month since I blogged? I am so sorry, what a slacker! Things have been keeping busy as always around the Ferguson household. Bill and I were getting a little stir crazy so we decided to redecorate one of our bathrooms and our two downstairs guest rooms. You would think that we would get on the ball with getting our new baby's room together since she will be here in 15 weeks, but clearly we were thinking otherwise.

Yes, that's right, I did say we are having a girl. All along Bill and I said we would not find out and let this one be a surprise, but hey what can we say, we are very weak. But rest easy my friends, there was no drama this time when finding out the sex of this little butterbean. I will try to find the post from last baby, but it is a day that I would rather not revisit. It took us a couple of weeks to come up with a name for the new one, but we finally decided on Darby Ann Ferguson. Wow, that is the first time I have typed out the whole name and I think I like it. Bill came up with Darby and I had to let it marinate for a day or two, but now I love it. We both came up with Ann because a lot of our family members have that name in theirs. Yes, only 14 short weeks until baby #2 is here and we could not be more excited. This pregnancy has FLOWN by with everything going on and Ryan there is just no time to stop and think, "Hey my ankles are so fat I am officially in the kankles category." Okay, maybe I thought about that once or twice. But we are ready to welcome another baby into the house, and Ryan is as well.

The Koseks and my parents came to visit last weekend for the Arkansas game and my sister brought her new baby, Joseph -it was the test for Ryan. We were pretty excited to see how she would act around a newborn, and she was perfect. She gave him tons of kisses and kept saying, "Babbbbyyyy." She was very curious when he was feeding, but not all up in Kim's grill. She was a perfect little lady (big sigh). We just hope the transition is the same when the little baby is there to stay! I just hope Ryan doesn't get out the chompers and go to town, that is her latest retaliation.

She went through a biting stage when she was about 10 months old, well it is back. She does not bite Bill and me, but almost every day there is a nice staple in the upper corner of her daily report card at daycare and we know that the biting report is stapled to the back. I always get so excited when I see a nice, flat piece of paper with nothing stapled to the back- but that hasn't been the case for the past couple of days. Finally, Bill asked the teachers to record what was prompting the biting and we are anxiously awaiting the results. You know Bill, he is always the practical one. Me, I just say, well what kid is making her mad:) Ha! I really need to get over that. I mean look at her, what harm can she really do, besides attack the heck out of a booger!

Have a great weekend!