Jack-o-Lanterns

As is tradition we carved our pumpkins the night before Halloween. I've always loved carving pumpkins and have made Chip help or at least watch me every year we have been together. It has been a lot of fun the last few years with Lily, but this year was the best so far as she was REALLY into it!! I loved it -- and I think Chip did too since he got "Danielle duty" and didn't have to pretend to care about my pumpkins. :)

I asked Lily what she wanted her pumpkin to look like and she said "mean and scary" like this and made the above face. It was super cute, but I still didn't know how to carve the pumpkin. So we took it step by step and she said she wanted square eyes, a diamond nose and the mouth to look like 'this" and made the face again! Finally I made her draw it on paper and she wanted a zig zaggy mouth so that is exactly what we did!

At first she was all excited to dig into the pumpkin, but then started using just one finger to get the guts out so I had to take over or we would have been there all night!


She wanted to carve, so I got it started and let her go out it and she was pretty good!! It was so cute, Lily was actually carving her first pumpkin!

Then for some unknown reason, Lily wanted to taste the pumpkin . . .

. . . and she did! She took like 5 bites! She said "It tastes just like carrots!"

Ta Da!

Lily's masterpiece is on the left and the one I carved (still with her help, of course) is on the right.

Happy Halloween!!

Trunk or Treat

Today Lily and I (and Dani who slept the entire time in her stroller) joined Patti and Emily at the church where Emily attends preschool for their "Trunk or Treat". We went last year too and it is a fun afternoon and a good excuse to get more wear out of the Halloween Costumes!

There are tons of little games set up in the back of people's trucks -- perfect for kiddos this age.

I liked this game -- the kid was the Target. But Lily was too nice and wouldn't throw the ball at him. Not sure where she got that from . . . I wanted to try!

Cake Walk

"Noah's Ark Animal Toss"
They had to throw matching beanie babies in the "Ark" box two at a time! HA!

Petting an iguana

Petting the snake!! Mommy was so proud.
(Daddy was disgusted later when we showed him the photo)

Hay Ride!

Dani was sleeping, so I sat stayed behind and watched them race through the parking lot -- that tractor was hauling ass!

It was a fun afternoon!

Love

Because you can never have too many pictures of Danielle in her rainforest:

Lily's Art & Schoolwork

This year in Pre-K she doesn't bring home art everyday like she did the last two years. Instead she brings home worksheets with shapes, patterns, opposites, etc. She loves the worksheets and often plays school with them when she gets home. I love that she loves school and is (finally) excited to learn. Here are some pictures of her school work and some of the stuff she has drawn at home:

Coloring -- notice how good she is at staying in the lines now. She is SO proud.

A heart

A ladybug

Now, instead of scribbling when pretending to write, she writes letters. She was all excited because she wrote "zoo" -- although it looks more like 300. I was excited since zoo was the first word I could spell! (although "Lily" was her first word to spell).

"A pig (top) and a horse fighting over the same toy. The horse is sad since the pig won't share"

Here are some of her worksheets.

A parachute made out of a coffee filter.

"Lily's Family" there we are on the bottom left.

"left and right"

"top, middle and bottom"