Happy Thanksgiving!

To our family and friends far and near,

A very special Happy Thanksgiving.

Happiness comes not from having much to live on,

but much to live for.

Jail Break!!

Much to my dismay, Annelise has learned to scale her crib! Lay her down for a nap yesterday and after about 10 minutes hear a rather loud 'Thump!' from the back of house towards the bedrooms. When no crying followed I assumed Annelise must have been kicking the wall next to her crib. She does that. (Sometimes at 6am, just for fun.) But after a few minutes I hear her bedroom door open and she wanders down the hall with the biggest smile I've seen on her face. As if to say, "Look at me, I'm free!" So one week shy of her 17 month birthday her crib now looks like this. For saftey and sanity reasons we've decided to go with a crib tent. So far, so good. I am not ready to tackle the 'big-girl bed' with her yet. I don't think she's ready either. Here she is later in the day mugging for the camera. In desperate need of a haircut, or at the very least a clip. (But those I'm always worried she's going to eat. That however is a another blog.)

Guess what this is?

I went into Skylar's room one day and she had made this on the floor. Can you guess what it is, beyond the obvious doll house furniture that make it up? This is one angle.Here's another. Give up? It's, in her words, a "Playset". You know like the one we have in our backyard. There's a ladder and the blue bed in the upper picture is a slide. I was thoroughly impressed at her creativity and the dexterity it took to build. She had her dollhouse people going up the ladder and going down the slide. They were having a blast, or at least Skylar was, which is all that counts. While they do make actual dollhouse 'playsets' I like this one much better. :-)

Happy Halloween!

This was our Halloween. Here's Skylar, Annelise and our good friend and neighbor Heidi. Annelise wasn't too keen on the idea of costumes, candy or trick-or-treating. She stayed home with Dad, while I took Skylar out. It was too close to bedtime for her anyways. I had a costume on her shortly before this picture was taken. About 15 seconds after having it on however, she was adamant about taking it off. She was an Angel, complete with wings and halo. This is a better picture of Skylar in her "Butterfly-Fairy" costume. There's wings on the back. See. We had a great time walking around the neighborhood taking in the sights and ringing door bells. There were kids in great costumes and a few nicely decorated houses. Skylar made her standard comment when we're out at night, "There's a lot of dark out here." She's rarely out past dark. I also took an opportunity to show her the stars. Something else I realized she's rarely has seen, but is finally old enough now to notice. Kind of cool.

Pumpkin Parade

Skylar's school had a Halloween celebration today. It started off with a parade around their 'wing' of the school called a "Pumpkin Parade". They walked through the halls and into other classes all decked out in costume. It was very cute. Skylar is up front on the right, you can only see the top of her ponytail. She was a "Butterfly-Fairy". After the parade was over everyone went in the classroom and the kids sang us 3 or 4 songs that they've been working on since school started. They also sang one Halloween song. It was fun to listen, because Skylar has been singing these songs for weeks at home but doesn't know all the words. So usually you get half a song which is still really cute, but it was fun to get the full show.Skylar is in the back row on the right. (Where she's destined to be for the rest of her school days. Tall kids in the back row. I know too well.) That's her teacher in the very back, taking a picture of everyone taking pictures. The fireman in the front in one of her good friends Joe. They have lots of fun together. However she was in love with the Ariel costume of the little girl in the front row. Upon seeing it she requested to be Ariel for Halloween, instead of the "Butterfly-Fairy". I told her maybe next year.

Tis the Season

Today was a day for indoor play. We're having some cold, rainy weather and the whole family has the same nasty cold. I would typically take the kids to the indoor mall play area on days like these, but with the colds being what they are, decided against it. So I tried to use some creativity and we made a big fort in the living room out of blankets, the couch and the kid's play kitchen. It looks a little something like this. The kids are in there somewhere. Using the kitchen worked fairly well because it gave them something to do once they were in there. (Annelise says, "Hi!")

Fall

Last weekend was gorgeous and thanks to the weather we have some fun fall pictures of the kids. Made the mandatory leaf pile for jumping. Annelise didn't care for that so much.Here Skylar is trying to convince her it's a good idea. Ani says, "I don't think so, let me out of here!" You have to love the absolute look of annoyance on Annelise's face and Skylar's pure joy!She would much rather RUN in the backyard or go down the slides. Finally some cute pictures of Annelise as promised. Just try to ignore the 'leaf-remnants' all over her.