Thursday, October 30, 2008

Newest Addition to Family

I am a Great Aunt again! My nephew and his girlfriend had a very handsome baby boy a few weeks ago - these pictures are now old as he is much bigger now!
Auntie with Owen...
Proud Mama and Papa.

Grandma and Grandpa! It's hard to believe my sister is a Grandma already! We are all so excited to have Owen in our lives!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Pumpkin Carving

Last weekend we took the girls to pick out their pumpkins for carving - they already painted theirs, but in the spirit of tradition we let them pick out a pumpkin for Daddy to carve for them!
Alexis and Kayla holding their little pumpkins before we cut out the big ones....



Last year Alexis did not want to help take the guts out of the pumpkin at all, so this year it was refreshing to see her try something new! Kayla was still kind of unsure how she felt about taking the pumpkin guts out!
Me and my girls roasting pumpkin seeds - we let them dry out for the night and the girls that evening had been playing dress up - excuse my little pink overall country girl and blue sundress girl in the middle of fall! They are holding on to summer as long as they can!



Our finished pumpkins - Daddy spent a lot of time carving them out - the one on the left is a spider web with a spider (Alexis choice) and the one on the right is a Cat (Kayla's choice because she wanted it to be like her sister is for Halloween!)

Monday, October 27, 2008

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

I was fortunate enough to get to go to the Pumpkin Patch on a field trip with Alexis class... it was the coldest day so far this year! I even had to get out the hats and gloves for the girls at the last minute.... I wasn't even sure if I had them for the girls it was so unexpected!
Alexis thinking "seriously Mom, in this weather you have to take pictures?"
Alexis's teacher is so good with all of the kids, especially the siblings... she took Kayla in to get in the circle for duck duck goose while we were waiting for the hey ride...
Kayla even waited patiently after Alexis's teacher had to leave her alone... I was quite impressed! In some ways she is definitely ready for pre-school!

On the hey ride- the kids had a great time!

Kids playing in the hey barn....

Even when the whole group was waiting together to take a class picture - Alexis was posing with her sister! I told Tony, we definitely have to have Christmas pictures taken for the girls this year!
Geese in the petting zoo.... they were right next to the kittens (Alexis is a cat for Halloween) and the Bunnies, (Kayla is a pink Bunny, although she thinks she is a pink cat :0)) for Halloween!

It was so cold outside that my camera almost stopped working! The shutters wouldn't open too well unless I held the camera close to me in my coat!

Kayla says to the "big kid" - "hey don't you know you have to say excuse me?"
Happy to take her turn on the slide...

The girls had a good time playing in the corn boxes at the pumpkin patch... especially with eachother!
Kayla says hello to some of the animals that were brave enough to stand out in the cold!
Standing in line waiting for the bus to pick us up and take us out of the freezing cold!

Costumes, a Forest, Cousins and Manthis...

We took the girls to a local towns downtown tricker treating event... they looked so cute in their costumes and it was a great way to see if we had everything ready for the Halloween party!


After one of my nephews games, we took a walk through a little forest with the girls... there were a lot of kids back there that created bike ramps and the girls enjoyed watching them for a little while....

Alexis and Kayla had a sleepover with their cousins a few weeks ago... they had a lot of fun, but didn't have much time to get many pictures of the fall projects and other fun stuff we did! I was able to get a picture of them eating their ice cream (after dinner of course) and watching the Lion King, that was about the only time all 5 of them were sitting still!
Kayla was very lovey towards her cousin, but he was kind of wanting his own space! She just loves little kids, especially babies!

We were doing some fall gardening and preparation for winter when the girls noticed something standing on our brick ledge....
A closer look... it was pretty cool to see a Praying Manthis up so closely - the girls wanted to touch it, but I didn't know if they pinch or not, so I just let them look at him!

Girls painting pumpkins

When we went to the apple orchard we let the girls pick out two small pumpkins each... we didn't want to get our big pumpkins yet. We let them paint them a few nights ago...

Yes, they have funny hair - they are already watching The Grinch who Stole Christmas this year and wanted to have hair like Cindy Lou!


They had a great time making a mess of my kitchen and painting their pumpkins!

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Anniversary

Last week we got to spend a night downtown for our anniversary... it was a great time!


We went to dinner at a Brazilian Steak House, walked around Navy pier and went on a little cruise to see the fireworks at the pier.

Favorite Fall Activities (Apple Orchard)

A few weeks ago we went to a favorite Apple Orchard with the girls - it was on our anniversary and nice to spend it with the kids!



The girls got to go on Pony rides for the first time... they loved the ponies, they were great with the kids.


What a great Daddy walking with Kayla just incase she got scared and to make sure she didn't fall.
When we were by the petting zoo, there were two goats playing very roughly - they were jumping around and biting eachother... the girls didn't quite know what to think of it!


They spent a lot of time playing on the playground outside of the orchard....

Then it was time for their favorite part - picking the apples!
Kayla got right in there and knew exactly what to do... she was so cute!
She kept bringing the bin with her to the trees to pick the apples...
They just wanted to eat them right from the tree!
I even got to take a break from taking the pictures to pick some apples with my girls!










We went through the fence maze to get to the train that the girls just wanted to play on for the rest of the afternoon!


Kayla driving the big tractor - she kept asking "is this tractor real? can I drive it like Daddy's?"