Halloween

Halloween was exciting this year. Net-Net was here and the girls dressed up like Ohio State cheerleaders. A- wanted to trick-or-treat with her neighbor friend so we met a bunch of kindergarteners at another neighbor's house and A- went with a big pack of 5 year olds.

This is the girls before we left for trick or treating. G- is trying to smile for the camera.

We went with Net-net to the Pumpkin Patch for our annual picture with the measuring stick.

On Saturday evening, we went to Trunk-or-treat at church. A- got her face painted and we got this awesome picture of her and daddy.

Miscellaneous

Some recent photos:

The girls loving daddy reading time. Sometimes he even reads the actual words.

Preschool, daddy helped her make a stairstep with the number rods.
From the child that used to never be able to play by herself. "Look mom, I made a ship." Looks more like a train to me, but if it's a ship, it's a ship. The counting bears are passengers.
Completely on her own, from the idea to the execution, I swear. She learned to spell exit while on airplanes to and fro from Ohio.
On the Pumpkin Express train last weekend.
G- on the Pumpkin Express. She got woken up to get on the train so not her finest moment, but boy, doesn't she have pretty eyes?

G- today. She took the carriage from the Fisher-Price castle and drove it all over the house. Then disappeared. I heard noises coming from the vacuum closet and opened it to surprise her and got a gorgeous smile so I talked her into hiding again so I could capture it. Yes, she's wearing a bathing suit in October. No, it's not warm outside. Yes, she has purple paint on her chest. I was cleaning and left some paint out that A- was using while G- napped. G- decided to use it to paint her left hand, her chin, and her chest. Yesterday, the girls were playing in the car where I had inadvertently, and stupidly, left my purse. G- got my lipstick out and had it smeared over one leg and her face and A- had put some on her lips, sort of, and had gotten A-n-n-e written out on her leg by the time I got there. Hey, at least they were sharing.

New words

G- has some new words:
dauto is auto (German for car)
high-wo is hello, she really likes this one lately
squeak squeak sound is bird, she says this when she wants to read her Find the Bird book
poo-poo, really means potty, she says this when she wants to read her book with the girl sitting on a potty

Can you tell we're into books lately? A- is also enjoying reading books. Her favorite lately is Puzzle Town when she has to do something on each page to help the kids find the party. Last night we didn't get to bed until late so I told her we didn't have time to read but I could do a quick story. She requested the story be about Katy and Tim (the characters in the book) and I said what was on each page and she pretended to do each action in the dark (e.g. match up the people with their shoes in the shoe store, or find the cakes and cookies on the sign with the cakes in the bakery).

And of course, we have some ballet books to look at because A- is in love with ballet. Every day she asks how many days til ballet class.

Crazy day

Our A/C has officially bitten the dust. So today we've had an indoor temperature of 83-86F. Needless to say, we didn't spend much time here, and have all been a little cranky because of it. We have a new unit being installed on Friday so we only have to make it through one more day of this.

We visited the dollar movies and R- very nicely took the girls to see Evan Almighty while I went to see License to Wed . G- Slept through their movie and A- liked the part where the guy kept growing a beard "God made him, but I don't know why."

Our bedtime, while of course a little edgy (86F at bedtime), had it's usual cute moments. When I tell them a bedtime story, A- always wants it to be about a bad guy taking something and she has to think what he takes. While she's thinking, G- says "bah bah" because she wants it to be a ball that he takes. Then the girl needs to have a "conversation" with the bad buy (which A- thinks means an argument) and G- says "ba ba" for the girl saying to give it back. And "no no" for the bad guy saying no. It's kind of an interactive storytelling. Meanwhile A- interjects things like "make him have a mean voice" and "make her find evidence."

Wildlife

The girls have gone to Kids Kastle two days in a row. We all went yesterday and R- went to Target and bought some picnic fixings and we ate on a picnic table. They do some serious playing, lots of climbing stairs and sliding and watching out for witches. A- has a thing about witches and bad guys and monsters these days. But she's not scared because she's a karate girl. G- has apparently graduated to be a karate baby.

They love to feed the ducks. G- gets right up to the edge and throws the piece of bread and says "dat dat" for "quack quack". It's quite a nice wildlife lesson - we see ducks, turtles, big catfish, small minnows and about a week ago there was a white egret hanging out also. We looked at the footprints from the egret in the mud and we even saw what looked kind of like a big kingfisher? I need to take my bird book with me to look up the species.

R- took them today and they were there for 3 hours. G- fell asleep in the bike trailer on the way there and slept for two hours while A- found a playmate. I cleaned some floors in the house and did yoga! We had a lovely dinner and even made peach cobbler. A lovely, peaceful evening with happy, tired kids and the whole family spending time together. It made for a relaxed bathtime and bedtime.

Pictures

Here are some pictures:

G- and A- with their babies before we left for church. Notice G-'s pigtails that got lots of oohs and ahhs at church on Sunday. She took baby and the kittycat purse too. Baby got left behind when she went up with A- to children's time but she took the purse. A- actually sat up with the other kids on the steps for the first time (and she can say "first" now instead of "worst", she catches herself and repeats if she messes up) and G- went up with her but stood in front watching. She started to go back up later in the service but I intercepted her in time.

G- at bedtime one night. Wearing A-'s pj's, with the hairband, with the baby in the sling, with the necklaces, and the bracelets. It takes awhile to strip her of the accessories so she can actually go to sleep. She reached the real toothpaste that was on the counter with the elastic arms and had the lid unscrewed while I was checking A's teeth. I can always tell when she's doing something she's not supposed to be doing, because she gets very very quiet. And then has a guilty, "am I going to get in trouble" look on her face when I finally notice.

A- polishing silver during her preschool time today which was very brief due to a distracting daddy. But she had lots of fun playing to make up for it.

Some pictures

A- with her thank you letter she sent to Laura. Notice the decorated side borders, in matching order on each side, pink, then yellow, then blue.

A- working on punching a geometric shape out with a push pin. She traced the shape from the geometric inset and then punched holes very close together with a push pin. Notice the concentration.

A- working on cards and counters. She needed help to get the number cards (1-10) in the right order (she can do 1-5 but gets confused on 6-10), she then counts out the right number of counters (flower arranging stones aka gems) underneath, making sure to match up each partner in sets of two's. She really liked this one and wanted to show daddy what she was doing.



A- made a line of trucks and cars on the counter tonight. Apparently they were all getting ice cream. G- came by and helped them move along a little faster in line!

A- is also in a writing explosion! She traces letters in the air quite often with her finger at random times (in the carseat, at church). We were riding back from the lake today and she had two "walking sticks" that she and daddy found that she crossed and said "look it's an 'x'". Yep, it sure is. At my suggestion, she then madea 'T' and an 'L' but then lost interest at 'v'. I think she couldn't remember how to do a 'v'.

She also wants to know what things spell. We were winding down at bedtime, after lights out, but before story, and she traced letters in the air and asked me what it spelled (she does this with pencil and paper also). I made the sound for each letter (pha I think it was) and she asked what that meant. Nothing, I said, but p-a-t spells 'pat.' She was fine with that, then did another one.

We were eating supper and A- was finishing a bowl of cantoloupe and says "there are 4 pieces left". I asked how many there would be when she ate one more and she did it with her fingers. So of course, not to be left out, G- holds up her fingers too and gives us her little grin.