This Week

Ten things we did this week....

1. Completed costumes for Halloween! Well, I made Big Sister's, while I pieced together Little Sister's. As for the homemade costume, I went for simply attaching a felt face/ears pieces and yarn mane onto a hoodie, with a yarn mane for a tail on the leggings. I wanted to be able to unattach the felt and re-purpose the clothing once the holiday is over. It's not perfect; heck, it's not even fabulous. But it was made with love, is exactly what she asked for, economical, and no one else will have her costume. By the way, she is a purple pony with rainbow hair.
2. Halloween crafts for our art wall! Color sheets, bats, practicing the letter 'P' for pumpkin, and jack-o-lantern faces on paper grocery sacks. Little Sister went for a more Picasso-esque look.
3. Pajama Party! Big Sister had a Fruit & Vegetable Festival Friday morning at preschool, and they invited all the children to wear pajamas. For snack they had a large fruit & vegetable platter, and the kids were each required to try a bite of everything. Big Sister told me about the produce she tried, and she said, "I tried tomato again. I still don't like it." Tomato is one of her dislikes. (At home, we don't require our girls to clean their plate each meal, but they must try a bite of everything. However, they are allowed 2-3 dislikes that we do not require them to try again and again).
4. We carved our pumpkin on Friday after quiet-time. Our first jack-o-lantern!! The girls watched while I cut the top out, then they took two wooden spoons and gutted it. For about 5 minutes. Then they decided it was sticky and dirty (so don't touch it?) and left to go play. It wouldn't have taken me long to finish gutting, but I was picking out the pumpkin seeds for roasting. (Which I later discovered the girls do not like). Then I had Big Sister come back and draw the shapes she wanted for the face--I helped with the mouth, then did the cutting. All in all, a fun experience. It will get better as they get older, and can participate more in the process.
5. Big Sister is having a marvelous time in preschool. She is continuing to blossom and grow more comfortable there. Her writing skills continue to improve. She has always enjoyed carrying around a little 'journal,' but now she asks us to spell words for her, and she writes them down as we spell them. "Apple, Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, I love you," etc.
6. Our home has been especially domestic this week. Something about crisp Autumn weather has reignited my desire for freshly baked bread, so we've been eating a lot of banana, pumpkin, and focaccia bread lately, along side our homemade soups and cider. Not that any one's complaining.
   
7. Little Sister in unusually feisty this week, and it's pretty hilarious. She spent most every day this week wearing swim goggles and crawling across the floor, waving her arms over her head as she 'swam.' I also caught myself saying some strange things to her, too. For example, "Please don't pretend your yogurt is sunscreen. We should not put yogurt on our arms."
8. We are not too concerned about bugs in the house; it happens and we're mostly non-sprayers. After living around the country and previously dealing with scorpions, fleas, cockroaches, silver fish and ant infestations, a few crickets in this house is hardly a concern at all. Unless it's in your bedroom, chirping away and waking you up. At 11:30pm. And 3:16am. And 5:45am. Before Hubby finally rolls over at 7:45am and can no longer stand it, hunts down the little booger in the curtains, and kills it dead with his slipper.
   
9. Big Sister's first school picture! We normally don't prefer 'studio' portraits, but our girl looks absolutely so darling in these we just may have to buy one. (They let you take the package home and think about it for a week).
10. Halloween--we'll deal with that on the next post.