Fun with the kiddos

We had a great lunch today at "Mama Nicole's," as Ollie refers to her (from his preschool days at her house!) She always puts on the best parties, and the kids had a blast. We had pumpkin bread bowls - I did not know that the grocery stores made bread bowls that look like pumpkin (orange and everything, with a gree stem) - but it makes soup so much more exciting! Don't get the wrong idea, the soup tasted great all on its own, but it was so fun to eat in the pumpkin. We painted pumpkins, played Halloween bingo, and decorated cupcakes to look like monsters. It was really fun to see how each of the different children approached the activities. Oliver was in an "everything" mood, which goes right along with his long attention span. For example, his cupcake ended up having every candy on it, and his pumpkin ended up being painted with every color. Avery named all the facial features as she put the candies on her cupcake - eyes, nose, mouth, ears. She is figuring so much out these days. Oliver's friend Presley is a natural-born picasso - she made two spiders, one a girl and one a boy, out of her cupcakes. All these activities give me the experience of seeing the world through a kid's eyes. And, as I am sure most of you know, the world is so much more fun through the eyes of a child than through an adult's eyes! I highly reccomend putting your "kid-goggles" on this week to enjoy Halloween :)
P.S. The decorating of the cupcakes was so fun the kids had to do it again when Dad got home!!

I Love October

I am really enjoying Fall - we are full-fledged decorated for Halloween, it is cooling down, leaves are changing, and we've done pumpkin hayrides (2 to be exact), caramel apples, and lots of soups to go along with the season. Also of note, our yard has grass seed now! Jed is working hard to keep it watered, which is a lot like feeding a newborn - seems to need it round the clock! I can't wait to see how it looks in the spring. Everyone should be so lucky to have a hardworking husband with the patience to figure each step out and turn a rather large pile of dirt into an actual work of art. It also helps to have a saint for a brother-in-law (Ryan) to help every step of the way. Happy fall to everyone!

Camping at the farm

We decided to rid ourselves of the sprinkler job for one night and headed up to the VanDyke farm in Eden on Friday. It is definitely my style of camping - running water, bathrooms, and an entire house of stuff in case you forget anything! Ryan came up with us too, and after we got the fire and tents set up (we have a rediculously complicated tent, you'd never know it by looking at it because it is nothing special) we cooked our tin foil dinners, fresh peach cobbler (YUM) and homemade ice cream (double YUM). The kids loved the ice cream experience and made salt stew in the ice cream maker after we were done with it. It was an interesting experience to get Avery to sleep in the tent - she was SO tired by the end of the night as she has had a cold for a few days, but she kind of went crazy right before bedtime and find some extra energy. She was climbing all over everyone, talking loudly, and just avoiding sleep in general. It only lasted about 15 minutes though, and she calmed down and slept like a log the rest of the night. It got quite a bit colder than we expected that night, so I was glad to have the two little ones all cozied up with us to stay warm! Some of the highlights from the trip:
-Uncle Lee's garden at the farm - not much to look at, but an amazing amount of great food growing in there - the best green beans I have ever tasted!
-Ollie riding the motorcycle and shooting the BB gun with his Daddy - good ol' male bonding at its best.
-Leaves starting to change color up in the valley - BEAUTIFUL!

Hair-raising experience

My sister Amy came over today to hang out and put the ultimate trust in me: putting foils of highlights in her hair. I had never done it before, and although I knew it would not be the easiest thing in the world, I thought that since I had highlights done several times on my own hair, I might know something about it. Anyway, it turns out there is a level of physical coordination that I do not have to perform this task well. We muddled through, and although some of her foils were DONE before I even got the ones in on the bottom, she looks great! (Turns out there is a time coordination that also goes along with this task!) It was great to hang out with her, as always.

School Days

I know that everyone looking at this post right now may be having deja vu, seeing as how this is Ollie's THIRD year of preschool (maybe we will win some award for the most school EVER!!), but he started at Miss Sheralyn's today. He was so excited, and slightly perplexed when he woke up this morning and found out he had to wait until AFTER lunch for it (he's in the afternoon class). It felt like an eternity, and we were the first ones to show up when the time finally came! He had a great time, made some fun crafts, had a great snack, and got to sit next to his buddy from across the street too. I am so proud of him - I can't believe how big he has gotten. We made the day extra special with ABC (NOT already been chewed) sandwiches for lunch. And when Dad got home and asked how preschool was, Avery proudly answered "good!" Apparently she liked something about the experience too. She was quite concerned when we left without Oliver and mentioned his name about a hundred times throughout the afternoon!

Sew much fun

The sewing bug got me this last week - I think I caught it at Joann's Fabric where the patterns were only $1. So far I have made a little jumper for Ave, a "frilly" skirt for Ave, and matching PJ pants for both kids. The bananas on the monkey PJ pants are mostly yellow but kind of orange (for shading I think), and every time Avery sees them she says "hot nanas". She is very interested in identifying hot things these days.

Tree House

Today was our last Tuesday play date with the Petersen's before school starts, so we headed over to the Treehouse for some good playtime. The've added a lot of new exhibits since the last time we went, so it was a pretty exciting trip. The kids got really into making sea serpants in the art garden which came out great. Avery's favorite exhibit was the fish tank again, where she saw Nemo, Gil, Dory, and Bubbles. She was a really good sport and got packed along at Oliver Speed through the whole place. Some of the new exhibits in the Treehouse feature life-size animals that move, and she wasn't really sure about these. It was a really good picture-taking opportunity because the kids got dressed up in make-believe clothing quite a bit too. Oliver said the cutest thing while playing on the fire engine with his friends and another boy. The other boy who was there playing had taken it upon himself to put the 5 year olds in charge as "bosses" because they were the oldest. Oliver told the boy he was the boss too, and when the boy disagreed with him because he was was only four, Oliver told him, "Well, I am really brave. When its dark, I don't even got scared, so I'm in charge too." And the boy didn't argue with it! He is too clever for words. Check out the vido at the end of the post for Oliver's puppet show. (You may need to turn off the music player to hear the audio on Ollie's video)