Sunday, October 31, 2010

Halloween 2010!

Halloween Costume Reveal 2010:Yup - how many times have I worn that outfit??? I bet Mom for sure has gotten her money's worth out of that one! Brent was supposed to be the scarecrow but for the life of me I couldn't find the hat!!! I know I saw it this year with the Halloweeen decs, but I don't know where it is. More to come, but here's just a sneak peek of tonight!

Brent got many, many comments about being the Wicked Witch!
The Cowardly Lion! She wouldn't wear the headpiece, but thankfully we at least got a family pic with it on!
She loved trick or treating so much! She'd yell Trick!Treat! as we went up to each house and was very polite and would say thank you to the people.
Pippin was the Tin Man. This was his old Fire Hydrant costume we spray painted silver. Since we trick or treated we only gave out candy for about 30 minutes so we didn't invest a ton of time in his outfit.
Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Fall Weekends

It's really starting to look like fall in our yard. The giant cypress tree in the front yard is bright and its fronds are falling by the minute.
I hate raking that thing every fall! They get everywhere and are pretty much ankle deep on Lilli in the front yard right now.We've been collecting all kinds of nuts and leaving them for the squirrels. She's pretty focused on the squirrels right now. Since it's dark so early, the last few Friday nights we've had indoor picnic and movie night. She loves it! Last night we watched Monsters, Inc for a "Halloween" type feel.
The return of footed PJs are one of my favorite things about this colder time of year.
Since we'll have a frost soon I also don't mind little creatures disturbing the remaining tomatoes in my garden.
Although I'd probably prefer if they didn't drive up and park for a while to pick things just so they could stomp on them. She also likes to put them in her pockets, and today a little green one made it all the way through the wash and the dryer before it was discovered.
We spend more time indoors, and some new play areas have been discovered. I can't say we're pleased.
It would be nice if we could buy her her own crate and leave her every day, it would sure save us a lot of money!
Tonight we went to the mall. I wish every store was like Gymboree - a bench and movies for the kiddos! She loves it there.....
and so do I! They really do have the best clothes. Not the best prices, but for sure the best clothes!!!
And we even made new friends around the toddler magnet fountain. Of course we were all talking about how cute the little Asian girl's Halloween dress was. But that's kind of what you'd expect in Green Hills!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Halloween Story Time

Last night was the monthly story time at the library in our neighborhood. I'm so glad they have a once a month storytime in the evening that we can go to!

Lilli must have known that her old buddy Liam was going to be there because she took some extra care getting ready last night!She and Liam used to go to daycare together, and now both of them go elsewhere since that place turned awful! She and Liam go way back to the baby room, I remember him when he was just a few weeks old and brand new at the daycare. He came to Lilli's birthday party, I first really got to chat with his mom at Aaron's birthday (she's also a CPA), and the two of them have even had a dinner date at the neighborhood Mexican restaurant (they live really close to us). So, on Thursday I sent Jackie a note and told her about storytime and I really didn't think they would get to make it since she said she was busy with quarter-end at work, so I was really surprised when we walked in and they were there!
For some reason Lilli got really shy and melted down when we first walked in (which is always lovely in front of a crowd) so I picked up our "Limp Noodle" and when she saw Liam she got so excited! It was so sweet that they remembered each other since it's been mid-August since they last saw each other. They were both just giggling and bouncing around. I guess old pals never forget!
Of course their reunion probably wasn't the best for a story time atmosphere! They weren't awful though. It's just hard for that age to sit still for any length of time, especially stories that go over their head. Here's the two of them flirting with each other:



Lilli always enjoys the singing and active parts, and is usually pretty good for the first story. The second story is always cringeful. This time she and Liam were chasing each other and so happy that it was hard to get too irritated with them. They did a "pretend" game where they picked pumpkins and carved them and she was hilarious hanging with the big kids. She was really into it until she got distracted by some random berry that was in the floor....





The craft last night was making Jack-O-Lantern faces. She had no interest in making hers and wanted to be the boss of Liam and show him just where he should put everything.
Any time something makes her happy she has to hug it - animated or non-animated objects. Some days in the afternoons she has to hug practically every toy good-bye before we can leave, and she hugs every kiddo and teacher good-bye as well. So while they were doing their craft she'd just lumber over and squeeze his neck until he'd start squealing and then they'd both start dying laughing and do it all over again.
So, it's safe to say that Lilli and Liam are still big buddies! We just need to get them together in a spot where they can run around a little more freely!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Sugar Rush

As if baking cookies last night wasn't sweet enough, tonight was the Fall Festival at church. I'm pretty sure cotton candy is one of her favorite foods. (Luckily lots of fruits and veggies are also in there!)
The story of her "dime store" costume is to come (she's a lady bug or Lilli-Bug as we call her). Hopefully on Halloween we can get her to wear her "real" costume for this year. She only cried for half an hour about having to wear this one, which is an improvement from where we're currently at with her regular outfit.Lots more pics to come from tonight but it's late! We got in late after the festival and then I went ahead and put together the little goodie bags for her teacher and school mates tonight, too. Busy times and tomorrow night is Halloween StoryTime at the Library, yay!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Halloween Baking 2010

Tonight we rolled up our sleeves and made our annual batch of Halloween sugar cookies. Lilli did help me last year, but she for sure enjoyed it a lot more this year!

Of course Pippin was on hand to help with clean up! He also helped me last night when I made the dough. Tonight all we had to do was roll it out and decorate.She loves to help in the kitchen and a lot of times when I'm cooking dinner she's up on a chair watching. And she's helped me make my "famous" sugar cookies enough that she knew just what to do and pitched right in.


She loves using my little roller.....
And then came sprinkles time! My dough recipe makes enough for about 3 trays of cookies (we like them kind of thick) so I gave her one entire tray to do with whatever she pleased. And she pleased a ton of sprinkles.
She pressed them in and would squish them all around.
And then she caught me eating one of her stray sprinkles....

And she became the little sprinkle monster!


She was running all around the kitchen eating sprinkles and then just started dancing. I guess the sugar got to her! And the sandals - those were her pick around the house tonight. She is VERY particular about her shoes and what she does and doesn't want to wear. VERY particular.
Lilli's finished goodies:
Mine were a little more refined.....
And of course we had to have a sample before bedtime tonight. Even with all that sugar she still went right to sleep, whew!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Vacation Day 5: Fort Worth!

We spent Wednesday of our vacation in Fort Worth all day. The ghetto fabulous place we had stayed the night before didn't offer breakfast, but there was an IHOP across the street and we were ALL happy not to have waffles in the shape of Texas for a day. Lilli wolfed down her breakfast (pancakes, eggs and bacon). Obviously I ordered something not even remotely healthy (Nutella and fruit crepes. At least it had fruit....)It worked out fine because the Fort Worth Zoo didn't open until 10 am (really late if you ask me!) And we struck it rich - Wednesdays were half price days so it was only $12 for the 3 of us to visit the zoo! According to my guide books it's one of the top zoos in the country, and it really was nice. They had lots of monkeys which is always a crowd pleaser for our family.
They also had a really cool aviary where you could go in and be really close to parrots and other little tropical birds. For $1 you could buy a little stick with food on it and they would land on you, but they'd still come really close without the sticks.
Lilli loves birds and was all about the bird room....
She kept her little arm out the whole time she and Brent were in there but none ever landed on her.
Chilling with Daddy at the zoo!
Making friends with an alligator
Someone figured out how good Momma's Icee was so now I have yet another person to share it with......
From there we headed over to the Fort Worth Stockyards. It's a historic cattle area where cattle are still driven each morning and afternoon down the road, and there's lots of little Western shops and things about cowboys/cowgirls.
They have all these little mechanical horses and rides all over the place. Most of them are still just .25, so it's not too bad of a rip off. And with them EVERYWHERE it's kind of hard not to give into the whining to ride one!
We ate lunch at a little BBQ joint, and then she wanted to ride this little horse and wagon that Brent could also fit in. It looks like one person is having a great time and one is about to lose his lunch.
Running through the old Stockyards.
Trying on little Texas hats....

I think the hat looks best on Lilli!
They have cowboys riding around all day talking to the tourists and this guy came over and let Lilli pet his horse, she was in heaven.
It was SO hot and we had time to kill before the cattle drive, so we went over in the shade and watched the cattle for a few minutes. It was nearly 90 degrees.
At 4 sharp the cattle come down the street. People go crazy and have to be asked to move back onto the sidewalks.
There they came, and just as quickly they're gone.
From there we left Fort Worth and drove a couple of hours south to Glen Rose, TX. Lilli napped along the way but was still so tired that night. This town was pretty small and there really weren't many places to eat, so we just got Sonic and headed back to our room. She had fallen asleep while we were waiting for our food and the poor thing stayed asleep all the way back to our room and even after we had all our food set out.

We did wake her up so she could eat though!! And a few sips of Cherry Limeade certainly helped her find her second wind.

Up Next - Dinosaurs and Safari Parks!