Painting Pumpkins & More!

Yesterday Gabrielle and I painted our small pumpkins. Gabrielle didn't want a face on hers. She said she wanted to paint it with rainbow colors. It started out with all different colors but as with most of her artwork ended up more of a grayish-greenish-blackish color. But we did add some glitter and some pink puff paint to liven it up a bit.




This week all the dance classes where Gabrielle takes ballet were asked to dress like their favorite character or in their Halloween costume. I waited until the last possible minute (last night) to get Gabrielle's costume made but I managed to get it done. Gabrielle decided to be her absolute favorite character Angelina Ballerina, who is a mouse for those of you unfamiliar with the character. We already had the tutu and leotard so I only had to make some ears and a tail. Gabrielle was so excited last night when I got them done and the first thing she asked about this morning was her costume.


I can't wait to see Samantha in her costume on Saturday. I hope with the warm weather we're expecting on Saturday that she doesn't get too hot in her costume.

Jack-o-lanterns!

Tonight our pumpkins became jack-o-lanterns! This was the first for all of us. Ed and I as kids had each carved pumpkins with our parents but never had we carved one together. We've always gotten pumpkins to set on our porch for decoration but never carved them. We figured Gabrielle is at the age that she would be excited about it even if she couldn't help with a lot of the process yet.

I found some templates online. Gabrielle's favorites were the most intricate designs. Fortunately she is still easily persuaded out of her opinion most of the time.

Samantha has her pumpkin ready to go!

And the cutting begins. I don't think Gabrielle quite understood what we were doing at this point.

I apparently am raising a prissy little girl. The one part of the process she could do which I thought she would love, she did not like at all. She did not like the slimy feel of the pumpkin "guts" and would not help scoop the stuff out.

When asked what she was making while she stirred the seeds and pumpkin "guts" she answered "a jack-o-lantern".

Ta-da! My pumpkin is on the left and Ed's is on the right.

I never realized how difficult taking a picture of a lit jack-o-lantern would be. This is the best out of the dozen we took. This is also the point at which Gabrielle finally went "ooh" and "aah" and actually understood what we were making.

We decided to only carve the two bigger pumpkins. I told Gabrielle she could paint the two smaller ones tomorrow. She is still insistent on making a pie so we will buy a couple of small pumpkins from the grocery store and make a pie at some point.

Pumpkins!

I am finally getting around to posting about our trip to the pumpkin patch! We went last Sunday. It was very cold and damp but we bundled up and had a great time anyway.

Samantha spent most of the time bundled and snuggled up in her stroller. She
fell asleep shortly after this photo was taken.

Momma & Gabrielle being silly.

Gabrielle & Daddy did the hay maze a few times.

What a difference a couple of years make! In 2007, we put Gabrielle on the pony during her first trip to Hill Ridge. She never cried but looked stunned the entire time. Last year she had no desire to ride the ponies. This year she asked to ride the ponies and loved every minute of it. This could have been her favorite part of the day. She had a smile on her face the entire time!

The Hill Ridge growth chart may not be super accurate but you can still see how much she has grown over the past couple of years. Samantha was sleeping or else I would have held her up to the sign. We'll have to start the tradition with her next year.

We had to wake Samantha up for the hay ride to the pumpkin patch. I think she was in shock from the cold!

We picked out some good pumpkins I think.

The first thing Gabrielle said after finding her pumpkin was "Can I eat it now?" I explained to her that we have to cut open and cook the pumpkin. Now she wants to make pumpkin pie out of it!

I didn't notice the tear until I was downloading the pictures from the camera to the computer.
She was not crying or sad, just cold!


There were plenty of other people around so I'm not sure why I didn't think to ask someone to take a picture of the four of us together. Oh well!!

Not Much To Say

There really isn't too much to say but I have become so addicted to blogging I was starting to feel guilty about not posting anything all week so here I am! :)

We've had a busy week of just being busy I guess! We went to the library for story hour this week. Gabrielle did pretty good. She is easily influenced though and always by the one kid who is talking or standing up and walking around. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on her once she gets older!! Gabrielle had ballet as usual this week. She so loves her "ballet school" and talks about her teachers and her "other ballerinas" all week long. I can't wait to see her in the recital next May. There are only two other little girls in her class so the three of them should be pretty cute up on that big stage by themselves! We also got together with some friends a couple of times to play this week and spent one morning doing some arts and crafts stuff.

So we've stayed busy but I don't feel like I really got a lot accomplished this week. The house needs cleaning and I need to get caught up on laundry but I would rather do the fun stuff. I've been wanting to work on redesigning my blog - creating something myself rather than using a free template but I have no idea when I'm going to find the time to do it. I'm also super psyched about a project my friend Casey asked me to work on. She is starting a business selling ready made child craft packs and wants me to help her with the logo and packaging. I'm really excited about it - I just hope I can come up with something that she'll really like!

We have a fairly busy weekend ahead of us. Tomorrow I'm taking Gabrielle shopping. She needs shoes and socks and Samantha needs a winter coat, pajamas and some winter clothes. I think one of the most difficult things to do with two little ones is to shop so I'm waiting to do my shopping once Ed gets home from work so I can leave Samantha home. I would rather go completely by myself but since Gabrielle needs shoes I kind of need her feet with me! Then on Sunday, weather permitting, we're going to Hill Ridge Farms to get a pumpkin. I'm very excited about that. I think every parent looks forward to getting their kids pics taken in a pumpkin patch. Why is that?

Some photos from the week...

Gabrielle working on a collage from a book she
got for her birthday from her cousin Madison.

Gabrielle once again lining up her animals. She is in a BIG horse/pony/unicorn kick right now.

I don't even lay out a blanket anymore for Samantha because she never stays on it. She is seriously rolling all over the place!

Look at those arms go!

Hmmm.....

Look who fell asleep reading.

Weekend Roundup

Even though the first day of fall was a couple of weeks ago and we've had some cooler weather since this is the first weekend that has truly felt like fall to me. I'm not sure why. Friday and Saturday were both pretty warm days but it just felt like fall!

On Saturday I spent the day packing up a lot of our warm weather clothes and unpacking the girls' cool weather clothes. Gabrielle enjoyed this because she got to look through all of the cute outfits her Aunt Faith passed on to us. She tried on some outfits, jackets, shoes and socks and modeled them for her daddy. It was warm in the house that day but she still didn't want to take off the clothes after trying them on. She is such a girlie girl ~ she loves clothes!! It was sad for me to go through the clothes because I realized that Gabrielle will soon be too big for toddler sizes in anything. I had to go in the little girls' section in Target on Friday just to buy her some tights. It was very strange to not shop for her in the baby/toddler section. When going through Samantha's clothes I realized how big she is getting as well and how fast both of my girls are growing.

I love fall foods and was so excited about baking some pumpkin muffins on Saturday afternoon. They were so yummy! Tonight for dinner we had chili and cornbread. Yummy again! I have a couple more cool weather comfort foods planned for the week ahead. I realize I could make most of these dishes any time of year but they are so much better once fall arrives.

Now for some pics of my growing girls!






Hope everyone enjoys the cool weather this week!!

Trying Out Curlers, part 2

Amazingly enough when Gabrielle woke up this morning (at 5:45 am!!) only one curler had fallen out and it was on the back of her head. She apparently could not wait for me to get out of bed and get Samantha changed before she began pulling the remaining curlers out. When I got to her room she had pulled out 4 or 5 of them.

Right after removing the curlers, before combing through her hair.

After combing and styling her hair.

Don't her curls look cute? It is now 12:30, the day is half over and she has been to ballet this morning so now she has only very loose wave and bounce left in her hair but I think that is pretty good considering I did not use any styling product or hairspray. I think when I do the curlers for pictures I'll use a little spray to hold the curl better and I will touch up the curl with my curling iron as well.

As for Samantha, doesn't she look cute in these pajamas? They are a hand-me-down from Aunt Faith. They are a little big on her but not as big as you would think considering she is only 5 months old and the pajamas are a size 12 month!!

Samantha enjoying her nice cool teether straight from the fridge.
She really chews on a lot these days. I still don't see any signs
of teeth but we'll see how much longer. Gabrielle didn't get her first
tooth until 7-1/2 months so I'm very interested to see if Samantha will
be earlier or later.

Trying Out Curlers, part 1

Last Christmas I bought some pillow curlers for Gabrielle. She has very fine, very straight hair. I have tried in the past to curl her hair with a curling iron and the slight curl that I can get in her hair falls right out within an hour. We only tried these new pillow curlers once last year but we didn't follow the suggested styling tips so they didn't really turn out that well. The curlers work best if you sleep while wearing them and I just didn't think Gabrielle would keep them in - until now. I figured she is becoming such a big girl in so many ways that maybe we could at least give it a try. She was very excited about them. I just checked on her, now sound asleep in her bed, and the curlers all seem to still be in place. She is quite a wild sleeper so we'll see how well they stay in throughout the night.

Doesn't she look cute in her curlers? I can't wait to the results in the morning!!