Crafts

I finished the first of many fall/halloween crafts, today.  A cute little button pumpkin now hangs on our wall.  Do you know how hard it is to find lots of orange buttons?  I had to resort to Etsy! :)

Pumpkins

Today at the store we got a bunch of pumpkins to put on the porch, etc.  Of course, the girls got tiny little gourds for themselves.  (Which hasn't stopped them playing with all the bigger ones!)

Mimi kept hers close to hand while she watched for Leiden's bus this afternoon. 

Happy Fall!

I got out the paints and smocks today for Mac to make a little fall craft.  Mimi was hovering, and the poor girl, I usually purposely exclude her because of the mess that is guaranteed to appear.  But then, wisely, I thought, "Why should I keep her away?  I can clean up a mess."  So I put her in her seat, put a smock on her, and gave her some paper with paints.  She was thrilled.

We took a handprint for the art project, and while it was drying, I let her just do whatever.  She immediately dipped the paintbrush in the paint and proceeded to paint her arm and hand like I had just done for the handprint.  I guess I wasn't being a very good example. 

Then came finger painting, as they put the leaves on the fall 'trees'. 

Mac was there, and did participate, I just took more pictures of Mimi as it was kind of her first art project. 

 

Happy Fall, everyone! 

Candy Corn

Today Mac drew a candy corn--with lots of different parts.

See it?

She's also been practicing her upper case 'R's.  Backwards.  But take a look at that lower case 'a'.

She also drew a butterfly. 

I don't know what has provoked this newfound intense love of drawing and writing, but it's exciting!

Conversation between Mac and I at bedtime:

Mac:  "Mommy, why aren't the stars out?"
Me:  "They'll come out soon.  When it's cloudy, though, we can't see them.  Just like we can't see the sun when it's cloudy."
Mac:  "The moon is like a star."
Me:  "No, the moon is a moon."
Mac:  "The moon breaks into pieces!  And then all the pieces come back together and it's round again."
Me:  ??     then...
Me:  "Silly Mac.  The moon doesn't break into pieces!  It's always just the moon."  (I'm imagining some awful apocalyptic vision in her head.)
Mac:  "But sometimes the moon looks like a 'c'."
Me:  (Aha! Now I understand what she's thinking, but how do I explain the phases of the moon to a three year old?!)  "Oh, now I understand.  The moon is always a whole ball shape, just like the earth.  It just looks different to us when the sun hits it in different ways."  (Because that makes so much more sense to a three year old than it breaking into pieces and coming back together.  Right.)
Mac: "The earth is a ball because it's circle-y." 
Me:  "Yep.  It's circle-y."  (Notice the lack of comment about the moon.  Because she's thinking in her head, 'Silly Mommy, the moon breaks apart!')

Mac is really coming into a fun new phase this last little while, pretty much coinciding with her entry into preschool and becoming what in her mind is a really big girl.  She makes the most interesting observations and has so much to say.  She has become much more interested in letters, writing, letter sounds--even just her drawings have become much more detailed and 'understandable'.  She's really showing some growth and change in her mental processing abilities and reasoning.  I'm loving the new Mac!

Twins

We had our friends, the Barringer's, over for dinner this evening.  They have a little girl, Lily, who is 4 1/2 months older than Mimi.  These pictures don't quite capture it, but they look a lot alike.  Both of us have looked at each other's blogs and thought this over the last few months.  It's something in the round cheeks and dark brown eyes and hair everywhere.

 

Monster Party

Today our little friend, Layton, had his third birthday party.  It was a monster party, and many of the kids who came were dressed as monsters.  We, being a family of girly girls, did not have any monster costumes.  The girls had monster sandwiches, monster eyes, little jello cups and watermelon.  The jello cups were eaten by squeezing and slurping, which would account for this scary monster face on Mac.

They played monster tag, and perhaps the highlight was decorating monster cupcakes.

Mimi didn't even bother decorating hers, just biting in with gusto.  I asked her to give me a monster face and this is what I got!

Layton was thrilled when everyone sang Happy Birthday to him--he was literally lit up.

Happy Birthday, Layton, and thanks for inviting us!

Painting the Shed

Brad completed the construction of the shed many months ago, but he wanted to paint it to match the house.  Luckily, he found some house paint in the garage that was miraculously still good, and he began the task.  Little Mac, who loves to paint, asked if she could help, and Brad Dad, being the awesome dad he is, told her yes.

She helped him for quite a while, very determined to do a good job.

Fall Family Festival

Leiden's helmet met its demise the other day--luckily without Leiden's head in it--(I ran it over with the car.  Ahem.) and Mimi loves the new 'hat'.  She brought it with her on errands this morning.

And then kept taking it off, throwing it on the floor, and then looking like maybe she regretted throwing it.

Tonight Leiden's school had its annual Fall Family Festival, where we each had to put on name tags.  Brad put Mimi's on her.

I think the girls like to go just for the face painting.  Mac wrote her own name tag.  I am torn between thinking that little backwards 'c' is the cutest thing I've ever seen, and wanting to drill the correct way into her head right now.

Both Leiden and Mac got rainbows.

There were 4 or 5 different bouncy houses, so the kids had a great time. 

So great, that this was the scene as it was time to go home.  Both the other two were crying and throwing fits, too.  But when everyone calmed down, they agreed that it had been a great evening.

I'm running the half marathon again this year, Saturday, October 29.  It should be better than last year, as I think I've figured out where my knee pain was coming from.  I'm pretty sure/hoping it was a too-tight IT Band.  I've got some tools to deal with that, so we'll see as we approach the 8-10 mile runs coming up in the next weeks.  And my new running shoes are awesome.  My goal this year is to hopefully shave some time of last year's finishing time, but if it takes me the full three hours again and I can do it without knee pain?  That would be equally a success.

Today Mac went to preschool and stayed there by herself!  She was very excited, although you wouldn't know it from the picture.  She did great--didn't look back.  Although, the teacher said they couldn't go out to the playground because they had to make too many trips to the bathroom outside of 'bathroom time'.  Guess who one of those trips was for?  Yep.  It's this difficult fence to walk between teaching her to hold it just a little, and her not getting into the habit of holding and developing infections, having accidents, etc.  We'll try again on Thursday.

We have had another Monarch chrysalis hanging in Leiden's butterfly pavilion, just like last year.  But this year, the butterfly seems healthy and strong.  S/He finally came out today, and I put him/her directly onto a plant outside.  Mac inspected the proceedings.  This picture does nothing, really, but show you the back of her cute hair. 

I'm so glad this one lived!  (Last year's adopted chrysalis formed a butterfly, but I'm fairly certain it didn't make it in the long term.) 

A Day of Dichotomy

It was hot today--like 85 degrees--beautiful for September.  It's probably going to be the last hot day this year, so I dragged out the pool.  The girls played.

This picture is blurry, and kind of frightening, but it is my life. 

I will be disposing of this pool and purchasing a new one next summer--one that my kids can actually get in and out of. 

Because they all struggle. 

Strange that we have the pool out on the same day that we found this little guy at the store.  Mimi was super excited and kept going up to it.

It's supposed to get cold later this week, but then warm back up again--a little.  I think this was Farewell to Summer.

We Made the Cut

We finally decided to cut Mac's hair.  It was sooo long.  She is not the most cleanly eater, and so it always had stickiness in it, and she would whine and cry every time I had to brush it out for the day.  Brad took her outside and put her in front of the air conditioner fan for some 'farewell to long hair' pictures.  Wow.  Check these out.

 

 

At its longest, in the middle back, it was down to her waist. 

Combing it out at the salon: 

The cut! 

Our new Mac! 

 

 

It's super cute, but it's going to take a bit of time to get used to.  I'm so used to her long blond hair!  She loves it, and did a great job at the salon getting it cut.  Here's to Mac's new look!

First Day of Preschool

Mac has been very excited to start preschool.  We have her in a two day a week program, and she actually attends at the same school Leiden goes to.  We actually saw Leiden today during a bathroom trip!

Here's the big girl, getting ready to go in the building.

These will be her teachers, Mrs. Fagre and Mrs. Larsen.  I think this will work out well for Mac.  She was a little off, today, as she has started in on what Mimi's got.  Along with a stuffy/runny nose, we get a bit shorter temper, but she did great.  I stayed with her the whole class time, today, so she goes next week by herself and I'm pretty sure she won't ever look back! 

She was still just a tiny bit confused--when we dropped Leiden at the bus stop, this was the conversation.

Mac:  "Don't I get to ride the bus?"

Me:  "No, I need to drive you there."

Mac:  "But I'm going to school, right?"

Me:  "Yes, you are going to school.  You just won't ride the bus until Kindergarten."

Watering

Mac came outside and helped me water a bunch of plants we planted last night.  We planted three blueberry bushes that we're excited about, quite a few little mums in the back for color, and some other stuff.  She was thrilled to do it, and kept insisting that she do it herself.  Until she realized she couldn't lift the watering can.

As soon as it got emptied enough, she was on it.  Thanks for helping, Mac! 

The Art Show

Mac has recently shown a much greater interest in writing and drawing.  Up until now she was really just doing a lot of scribbling.  Since not every kid can or should be Degas, I didn't worry about it.  But today she whipped out some great stuff!

We have a drawn piece of paper with lines:

A magnifying glass: 

Flowers: 

And our family!  She told me the two on the bottom have big eyes and noses.  And see that M-A-C?   

As her preschool is going to be using her long name, we thought it was maybe time for her to start practicing.  This is what she came up with after a few tries.