Pumpkin Carving

We carved our pumpkins today (finally!). The kids are still both grossed out by the inside of a pumpkin, so that was funny. Allie just kept saying "yuck...eck...yuck..." over & over.
Zachary asked me earlier in the week if I could make his pumpkin have glasses. I have been really thinking how I could make that work. About an hour before the carving time, he said, "Mommy, I changed my mind. I don't want my pumpkin to have glasses." I was quite relieved. He did, however, ask Todd to make his pumpkin have star-shaped eyes. Easier than glasses, I guess!

Zachary's wearing his "bones" pjs! He's been asking a lot of questions about the human body, his heart, his bones, his brain, veins, ribs, etc....So when I saw these pjs (for $4.00!), I got them both a pair. The bones glow in the dark!

Costume Parade

I considered waiting to post these pictures because Halloween is still a few days away. But I really can't resist. The kids had their school costume parade today, so we were able to give their costumes a trial run. Both kids decided awhile back what they wanted to be for Halloween and have stuck with their ideas the whole time.
Allie is Jesse from Toy Story. We did our own homemade version of her costume. Oh my goodness, so cute.

Zachary and his (very hot) panda costume. He was sweating so bad after the parade. I'm glad Halloween evening is supposed to be a little chilly.

It was very difficult to get pictures of the kids during the actual parade. But here's one of each. In Allie's picture, you can see she had a "Woody" (from Toy Story) friend in her class!
Pretty much every girl was a princess and every boy was a superhero. (Gee, I wonder where American kids get their understanding of gender roles?!)

Here's Zachary with three of his friends from his class. He had a great time. I loved watching him with that little nervous grin!

Allie-girl

Allie's hair is growing little by little. She's a cutie! I've been trying a few different things with it since it is thin & curly. These pictures don't do this style justice, but she definitely wore it well!

On this picture, I was so enamored by the two of them, I wasn't paying attention to the line of the camera. So cute of both of them. (Yes, they're holding Q-tips. That was the random focal point of this day.)

This last picture is classic Zachary & Allie. She watches everything he does and copies everything too. She adores him and it doesn't occur to her that she may not be able to do everything he does. They are two peas in a pod.

Cawrn Mayze

When you're from Ge-awr-ga, you talk funny. 'Specially in the fall. I have no idea why. But people around here sound more funny when it's Autumn.
We headed to "BEW-ferd" (Buford) Ge-awr-ga (Georgia) to try a new corn maze and a few other fall festivities.
Like: Face painting

When asked what she wanted painted on her face, she said, "ice tream on my teek. gween & yelllllllow" (Allie adds a few extra l's to words like "yellow" and "Allie"). She was very specific about what she wanted.
So was Zachary.
He asked for a cat face, with purple, green & red. Once I saw the finished product, I regretted taking them to the face painting booth first. The rest of our family pics showcase THIS.

We ventured through the corn maze. There were 9 stopping points inside the maze. When we got to number 4, Allie said, "Mommy, I have to go pee pee." Oh my gosh.
And for those of you who know, Allie is potty trained, but can only hold it about 3 minutes.
And for those of you who know, 3 minutes is not enough time to back track through a corn maze to get to the entrance and find the potty.
Lawdy Lawdy (that's "Lordy" in Georgian), I threw her on my back, gave Todd the map and told Zachary to keep up. We trekked as fast as we could and little Allie made it! She broke her 3-minute "holding it" record. Yay!

We also took a hay ride, which was really nice. Through the corn maze and in the forest a bit. I enjoyed that. This next picture looks a little fake, but Todd unexpectedly snapped it while Allie & I were watching the tractor. I think my thoughts were somewhere in the vicinity of I wonder how safe this tractor hay ride is? Is the driver trained to pull two trailers like this? What if he underestimates the turn? Could I hold Allie if we tipped over?
Don't worry. I'm seeking help.

And I unexpectedly took this picture of Allie-girl with Daddy. I love their hands and the sunshine. I think Todd's thoughts were somewhere in the vicinity of if we leave in 20 minutes, will that give us enough time to get home, eat and get the kids to bed before the OU game?

The kids got to try something brand new! I don't know what it's actually called, but we're referring to it as the corn box. It's a sandbox full of dry corn kernels. It was a lot of fun!

Train, a verb and a noun

Zachary: "When I get big I want to work at the zoo with the Pandas."

Mommy: "Oh, that would be a lot of fun!"

Zachary: "When I work there, I will let you hold the baby Panda."

Mommy: "Oh really? Wow, that would be really special."

Zachary: "You won't be able to feed him, but you can watch me feed him."

Mommy: "OK. That sounds good."

Zachary: "If I worked with the Pandas, could I also go see the Penguins?"

Mommy: "Yea, if you worked at the zoo, you could help all the animals. You could be a zookeeper or an animal trainer!"

Zachary: eyes wide open... "OH!...A train?! I get to ride a train with them?!"

Allie & Cinderella

We finally found a Cinderella DVD. Allie had some sweet little insights. I love her little mind.

"Mommy, I scared of that lady. I wish she was nice." (the stepmother)

When the stepsisters tore her dress and broke the beads, she was aghast! "...Mommy! They took all the pieces of her pretty princess dress!"

I tried to ease her mind when the fairy godmother came. I said, "She's going help Cinderella."
Allie said, "Does she have tape to fix her dress?"

Happy Birthday Aunt Jen!

Today is a special day!

We Love Aunt Jen!!
Hope you have a super fantastic happy birthday!

READING!!

Well, we begin another exciting phase!! Zachary is reading! It is so crazy to watch your kid discover something new he can do.
We tried several different techniques that probably all contributed their own little bit to him being able to accomplish this goal. But, what clicked today was this.
The Doodle Pro.
I randomly picked it up and wrote the word "cat," which he knows, no problem.
I said, "What word is this?"
He said, "cat!"
I said, "Yep. What if I change the 'c' to a 'b'? What word is it now?"
I erased the 'c' and put a 'b.'
He stared for a second and yelled "bbbbbb....at!"
I almost fell over.
So we spent the next half hour changing the first letter over & over. I probably went through the alphabet several times, just to see if he had consistency.
We stopped with "sat" for a minute and I asked him if he wanted to get a little crazy(!).
Then I changed the middle letter.

The Doodle Pro has this sliding magnet that lets you erase just a portion of the picture, so it was super easy for me to just erase the first letter and then change it right there while he was watching.

Here he is "sounding out" the "a" in "sat."

Then he just showed off for Daddy at dinner time. I threw him for a loop and changed the middle letter to "o" as well as "u" and he had no trouble doing those.

In other news, he also now spells & writes two words on his own.

Little Michaelangelos

With the beautiful fall weather we've had this month, me & the kids have been spending our days outside, even enjoying inside things outside.
Like Art:

Silly (for now)

I was doing some research for my job and had a book about sociopaths which included a photograph of a skinhead (obviously shaved bald). On the back of his head was a very large tattoo that said, "Skinhead" with Old Irish font letters.
Allie was looking at the picture and she said, "Mommy, this man put ABCs on his head." She started laughing and thought it was so silly.
I said, "Yep, he has the ABCs."
She says, "What does it say?"
Abiding by my honesty policy, I said, "Skinhead," thinking maybe she'd just assume it was something silly.
Nope.
She said, "What's sthkinhead?"
I said, "It's a nickname for him. He wants to be called that. Isn't that a silly nickname?"
She started laughing and said, "That's silly mommy!"
I'm super glad she thinks it's silly. Because I did not want this talk to go any further!

Grammy's Birthday Weekend

We celebrated Grammy's birthday this weekend. It was full of surprises and a lot of fun! My sisters will have good pictures of the adventures on their blogs (Jenny and Raschelle) in a few days, but here are some nice family pictures we had a friend take, since we were all together.

Fun (and productive!)

I enlisted both kids to help me prepare dinner tonight. I was making a recipe that really had some potential for kid fun. My sister has an awesome health food blog that has loads of good-for-you recipes with fabulous photos. This is MY first ever recipe post, and it has neither. It is for entertainment purposes only. (And yes, I'm still using my phone as my primary camera...ugh).
Anyway, there are very few things more delightful (to me) than an hour of my day where ALL of the following things happen: 1)The kids are entertained, 2)Dinner gets prepared, 3)Mommy's entertained, 4)Everyone's together, 5)There's learning involved, 6)Things get a little messy, 7)And lotsa laughs.

"Meatloaf Medallions"
(sounds much worse than it is)
Ingredients listed at bottom

Step #1: Crush 1 cup whole wheat Ritz crackers.

Step #2 & 3: Measure all ingredients and dump into large bowl.

Step #4 & 5: Mix well and spoon into well-greased muffin tin.

Step #6: Paint ketchup on top of each one.

Actual recipe (adapted from Cooking Light magazine) -
1 cup finely chopped onion, 3/4 cup finely chopped carrot
1 tsp dried oregano, 2 minced garlic cloves
1 cup ketchup, 1 lb extra lean raw ground beef
1 cup crushed crackers, 2 tablespoons prepared mustard
1 tsp worchestershire sauce, 2 eggs
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In skillet with olive oil, saute onion, carrot, oregano, garlic. Cool. Combine onion mixture, 1/2 cup ketchup, and remaining ingredients in bowl. Spoon into muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Top each with ketchup. Bake 25 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes. We serve it over rice.