First Day of Fall

What a better way to celebrate the day than to make a leave pile and jump in! This is one of the girls' favorite new activities.

Playing in the leaves.

Preschool

Skylar started preschool this week. (Next stop kindergarten, wow!) But for now, 3 mornings a week she has fun with her friends. 7 of whom we know from last 2 years of school. It's nice seeing familiar faces. And while I do miss her while she's at school, it's a nice break for both of us and I know she's in good hands. They do a wonderful job. Here are some pictures from Tuesday morning.

(The slippers stayed home.)

Strike a pose.

Skylar and Ani. Growing up so fast.

Pure Imagination....

Skylar loves art. Cutting, pasting, painting, coloring - you name it, she loves it. I like that she likes it too. It's fun to see her imagination and creativity. Summer school created a enormous amount of art projects that are currently hanging on her bedroom walls. And her room looks something like this...

never mind the snowman in July. (That was from earlier in the school year.) This is one of my favorite's she's colored. Gotta love Bert and the Figgy Fizz. (Also notice the 50 pieces of tape it takes to hold everything up. I'm buying stock in 3M.)

The other day however she came up to me with this and I asked what it was.

Can you guess?

It's the girls and I in the mini-van. I'm driving; they're in the back. This may be taking Bert's spot as my favorite. Yes, I do love that she loves art. Keep 'em coming little girl.

Happy Birthday Annelise!

Annelise is officially 2!  Time does fly.  Even faster with the second, which I didn't think was possible.  For anyone interested in her stats, she's 37" tall (Same as at 18 months.  There was a wrong measurement somewhere.  The girl has to have grown in 6 months.) and is 31 pounds.  (Much to my back's dismay.)  She talks up a storm and seems to pick up several new words everyday.  Which is fun and also challenging when I can't figure out what she wants.  It can turn south quickly when I don't get it right.  :)  But that's 2.

Other fun activites for Ani include swinging, playing in the sandbox, the swimming pool and keeping up with everything big sister does.  For the most part they get along fairly well, but they do have their moments as with all sibling relationships.  Ani is a quick learner and picked up several 'tricks' from Skylar I rather she didn't know.  Keeps me on my toes.  I leave you with a cute picture of the 'partners in crime.'  How I do love them.  Happy Birthday Annelise!

Fake Lake

There's a man made lake not far from here that we took the kids too last summer.  (See "Beach Babes" post from last June if you need a memory jog.)  We just call it 'Fake Lake'.  There are permanent umbrellas, combed sand and filtered water.  No seaweed, fish or other 'nasty' stuff.  What's not to love?  So we'll be going again this year.  (Get ready for some repeat blogs.)  All last week it was 90+ degrees, but we weren't able to make it.  So today it's 70 degrees, but "We're going to the lake!"  We met out friends Melissa, Ivy, Jude, Dawn and Alex.  It was cool, but everyone had a good time.  Here's our first 'camp' of the summer.  We think that a spider nest hatched shortly before we arrived.  There were quite a few baby spiders crawling around.  Oh well, they really only liked you if you had food.

  Last year Dawn would bury the kids in the sand.  This year was no different.  Today however they were doing it to stay warm.  Skylar is patiently waiting her 'hole'.

  Ivy waiting for her hole.

Here's Alex, Ivy and Skylar all buried.

  Skylar pretending to 'bust-out' of her hole.

  And then there's just some random shots.  Jude looking cute, eating sand.  Yummy?

  And Ani pausing for a drink, trying to stay warm.  All in all, it was good day.  Thank you friends!

Buckets of Fun for Everyone

"He's Mr. Potato Head and his bucket of parts.  Buckets of fun for everyone.  To make a million silly faces it's the place to start.  Put him all together and take him all apart...."

A while back Skylar and I had a Mr. Potato Head afternoon.  We have an obnoxious amount of Potato head paraphernalia.  So we dressed them all up and took pictures.  I'm not sure why Skylar has her coat on.  I think we were getting ready to go somewhere and just killing time until Annelise woke up from her nap.  :)  

For the most part everything fits in the giant spud on the left.  Admit it, you all want to come over and play with our spuds!  (And the jingle's stuck in your head.)

Masked Retriever

As mentioned in the previous post Skylar has a "Masked Retriever" costume.  It was inspired by a Backyardigan Episode in which Austin doesn't want to return an overdue library book.  Uniqua, the librarian, dresses as the "Masked Retriever" to go and get the book back.  Short story, already too long, I found a "Masked Retriever" picture.

  I love her imagination!  She never ceases to make me laugh.  The hat by the way is from our Frosty the Snowman kit.  See the "Indoor Day" post for a picture of the snowman with his parts.  Just for good measure I'll throw in some pics of Annelise being cute.  Even when she's mad.

But 2 seconds later it's All Good!  Love the girl.