Kaia's 2nd Birthday!

I am waaaaaayyyyy behind on the blog photos, but thought I would start out with a new-ish post: pics from Kaia's 2nd birthday! I lucked out and found an adorable pumpkin patch up by Grand Forks (where the in-laws live!)... since Kaia is too young to have many friends of her own we wanted a venue close to her family. :) The pumpkin patch was great fun for the cousins, and it turned out to be a beautiful fall day. :) Her birthday was actually on Friday, Oct 3; but that was a busy day of work, quickie party at Tutti Frutti, and then 1.5 hours of gymnastics. We had her party the day after!

 

 Kept it simple again with veggies and pizza for lunch!

 Pumpkin cheesecake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I ate about 10 of them! Plus probably a cup of frosting while baking!

 I love this pic of Kaia and her daddy. :) The only problem we ran into is the fact that lunch time is also nap time. Kaia got a little crabby, but mostly held up!

 Grandpa Ralph and Travis with the girls

 Cousins! Jaylin, Ava, Gabby, Hudson, and Magdalene

 At the little petting zoo

 

 Kaia wasn't too sure about the goats, but ended up being brave enough to feed them treats!

 The kids stuffing scarecrows

 Chow time! The pumpkin patch had two great little party tents that were FREE and that you can reserve for as long as you like! Since I reserved the tent back in the summer I got first dibs ;)

 Kaia and Grandpa

 Her birthday candles!

 Opening gifts... she was getting pretty overwhelmed by this point ;)

 

 My SIL, Lindsey, took Kaia for a little while so Travis and I could take Sophia through her first haunted house. Which actually turned out to be much more scary and elaborate than I anticipated!

 Sophia's reaction. She said she will never go in another haunted house again.

 She did recover, though! :)

 Picking out pumpkins! (Very over-priced, but had to do it!)

 

 Hay ride!

 This might have been the highlight of the day: the whole family playing tag in the little kids straw bale maze. Super fun! 

 

Kaia feeding a goat

 Sophia pulling 2nd-to-youngest cousin, Hudson.

 Jaylin pushing Gunner in a wheelbarrow!

 And Ava trying to pull Hudson. It was a sweet little cousin time. Just right for a 2nd birthday!

Kind of random, but Sophia and I really enjoyed the recent lunar eclipse. It was a perfectly clear sky and right at the time Sophia gets up for school!

Maplewood Trail Riding Date!!

This weekend Travis and I enjoyed our first "date night" in about 6 months (and not sure the last date night really counts, since we were with family)... it's our first date night alone since I was pregnant. I mean, I'm pretty sure we must have had a date night when I was pregnant. I can't remember one. The last night date night I really remember was when we drank a whole bottle of wine at an upscale eatery and then hit the town, and that was definitely BEFORE I was pregnant. Anyway, the point is, this was a long time coming! Travis' parents took the girls on Friday. Then after work I ran home and we dressed upand then hit the Fargo street fair with NO kids in tow!! After that we went to a burger joint called Sickie's Garage (they sub a veggie burger)... SO good! They make all kinds of crazy burgers. I had a "jalapeno popper" burger with jalapenos, a sweet chili sauce and a cream cheese spread. YUM! And sweet potato fries and micro brew... food heaven. Travis had a "tater tot hot dish" burger and a "Philly cheesesteak" burger. We were there pretty late, and then hit a local bar in Glyndon for fun on the way home. Kind of an anticlimactic end since the bar only had a handful of sad-looking locals, but Travis and I whooped it up with darts and an arcade hunting game.

Soooo... getting up the next morning at 6:30am to load up the horses for our planned trail ride was a little bit rough, but we grabbed some coffee and energy drinks and headed out!

 In between some crazy weather (heat index of 103 Sunday and crazy wind on Friday) we had the most beautiful riding day. Saturday was mostly sunny and in the high 70's with a light breeze.

 Starting out on a beautiful, wooded trail.

 

 Maplewood is full of pretty lakes and ponds.

 

 

 There were lots of open, rolling hills and very steep wooded hills. We had to go over and around some trees and walk through water... lots of fun trail terrain! The horses were amazing.

 

 Deer!

 

 

 Travis snapped lots of scenery :)

 

 

 

 

 So pretty and peaceful!

 I found a really nice hiker who took a pic of us on Sunny and Bella :) We only saw a few hikers, and some row boats on the lakes, and one group with horses.

 

 

 After a brief rest with grazing and a picnic the horses were super feisty and we did some hand galloping on some of the more open trails! Hence the very sweaty horse. So fun. I mean, I was singing and yelling yee-haw a lot. That's how fun it was! ;)

At the end of our ride! The trail head had FILLED with horse trailers by the time we left around 2, so I'm glad we got there at 9am and had the place to ourselves for so long! We can't wait to go to Maplewood again. What a treat!