Two-year-old Colin Woodling, bundled in a puffy coat, gazed in wonder as the giant red cherry of the "Spoonbridge and Cherry" sculpture flew through the air Friday morning.

A crane carefully lifted part of the much-loved sculpture from a flatbed truck and fitted it onto the tip of the enormous gray spoon, which has been the centerpiece of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden since 1988.

"I drive down here a lot to take him to his parents' house and he always notices the sculpture," said Colin's grandma, Peggy Woodling. "We were whizzing by on the freeway and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the cherry was gone."

When Woodling heard that the cherry would be coming home, she decided to bring her grandson to watch the return in-person.

The 1,200-pound red aluminum cherry departed in mid-November to get a new coat of paint at Fine Art Finishes in New York, a company specializing in repainting the works of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

On Friday, the cherry returned to its cold-weather home after nearly three months in the Big Apple.

S.E. Prentice and Deirdre Manion-Fischer of St. Paul joined the cherry-loving crowd to witness the homecoming. The cherry's absence caused a sense of loss for some Minnesotans.

"It's just a little thing but big, bigger than it should be," said Prentice. "Deidre noticed that the cherry is completely round, which is not like a cherry — it's like an emoji."

"And like, the spoon is from 'The Matrix,' " said Manion-Fischer.

When the cherry landed on the spoon, the crowd applauded and a gentle snow began to fall, almost as if it had been scripted as part of the reinstallation.

"I just thought of the snowglobe of 'Spoonbridge & Cherry' that we used to sell in the gift shop," said Joe King, director of collections and exhibition management at the Walker Art Center. "It's a welcome-to-Minnesota moment for the new paint job."

Derek Rydbergof Rocket Crane rode inside the cherry to help guide its return.

"The ride was kind of weird because you don't really feel anything, but you can tell you are moving," he said. "It was noisy in there."

Rocket contracts with the Sculpture Garden and worked on the 2017 renovation. So Rydberg, who's been with the company for about 16 years, is familiar with many of the sculptures in the garden. This was his first time inside the cherry, though.

"It was fun to be a part of the history," he said.