On the 15th Lilli's daycare had a parent meeting in the evening. Parking there is so limited we just walked down from there back to my office instead of trying to cram in. This was the first time Lilli had been face to face with the giant Billy Graham statue outside my office.
"Whoa that's big!"
On the 16th we went to State Fair over at the Fairgrounds. This was Lilli's third year at the fair - she was small but
so into it in 2009, and we went last year but I don't think I ever posted any pictures because it fell between our trips to Chicago and TX.
Of course one of the first things we did was hit up the petting zoo. These animals were hungry, all of them would fight over the food. One donkey wanted to eat the jacket I had tied around my waste. I should have let him because eventually it fell off somewhere and now it's gone forever. We never could find it and no one turned it in to lost and found which stinks because it was one of my favorite running jackets.
Lilli loved feeding them and ran around in circles trying to get food to pretty much all the animals.
Of course we had to have corn dogs for dinner that night.
Another big highlight was all the chickens, bunnies and other animals up for show. A lot of them were for sale and it was pretty tempting to buy something. When ducks are 2 for $25 you just feel like that's a deal you shouldn't pass up. But thankfully we did....
We let her pick a game to play - this one was very simple. All she had to do was pick a duck, easy peasy! Bad thing was she wanted to keep the duck instead of trading it for a prize. She got a "Medium" prize which meant she could pick from a lot of stuffed animals or some cheap toys.
She went for cheap toy - this yellow car. She still sleeps with it every night.
And what's the fair without some rides? Only problem is her height!! Most things you had to be 36 inches to ride and she's only 32 inches. Some of the ones that didn't have a height restriction on the short end had one on the tall end and she's too small to ride things by herself. The bumblebee was the only thing she was tall enough to ride and I was also small enough to join her.
It went around in circles and then also up and down. She had SO much fun!
Hopefully next year she'll be tall enough to ride a few more things. Of course we had to top the evening off with some cotton candy and a funnel cake. The fair only comes once a year so you gotta live it up!
Early that morning I had gone to my favorite consignment sale to load up on some fall clothes for her. I found several cute things, but I knew her favorite would be these Disney pajamas! She's into all things princess right now, with Ariel as her favorite, so it was no surprise how thrilled she was about these!
And both of them have already been worn several times since then, and she's actually sleeping in the pink ones tonight.
I'd been wanting to take Lilli to the trains exhibit all summer and it just never worked out. For the main feature they've got this intricate train exhibit built with about 6 or 7 different trains running on small tracks. (On a side note, her dress is 100% adorable - it's Burberry. Burberry! For kids!!)
The trains exhibit was huge with all the kiddos.....
Of course they had a Thomas....he was the big hit.
Many Tennessee landmarks, like the Cheekwood mansion, Graceland, and the Parthenon, were rebuilt in the little train city.
Of course she never wanted to leave to actually eat our lunch, but we finally drug her away to eat our sandwiches.
After we ate we walked through the Japanese gardens. She knows panda bears eat bamboo so she was excited to pull on real bamboo.
We walked through the always pretty color garden and there were a ton of butterflies to chase.
And then...a bee started chasing her. You can see it on the right, near her shoulder.
Some major overreacting. I am pretty sure the bee was way more scared of her!
The whole train set-up.
We swung back through the trains one last time before heading home for naptime. Naturally my child leaned over the tiny, tiny fence and derailed a train before I could grab her. Not our finest moment.
Watching from a MUCH safer distance.
We really only covered a small fraction of the gardens at Cheekwood, but our main purpose was just to see the trains. And since admission was free I didn't feel bad skipping the museum and all of the lower gardens. Some other day (when she's not tired and ready for a nap!) we'll go back and do some nice family photographs, like the ones we took there when she was just three months old!
