Swiper and Jessie playing.
I love this picture. The only thing that could make it better would be if Gracie was wearing her Dora Backpack to show her Halloween costume better. Still, they're pretty cute checking out all the fish together!
"Look Momma!"
Three of the four kiddos.
Gracie loved seeing the leopard up close and personal.
Here, Gracie is following a Prairie Dog along the edge of the glass wall.
Gracie "helped" me carve a pumpkin for the first time the other day. I thought she and Bee would have a fun time pulling the goop out of the inside, but because the pumpkin was outside it was pretty cold. She'd touch it and squeal "COOOOOOLD!" Needless to say, she didn't help with that part at all. 
Bee thought about helping.
I asked Gracie to draw eyes, a nose, and a mouth for me.
Here's the template she drew for me.
She had a lot of fun shining the flashlight into it when it was completed.
I think it turned out pretty scarey! 
Gracie has advanced beyond the scribbling stage, and has started telling me about what she is drawing. She even makes attempts to get certain details correct. In the top picture, she was drawing our kitty. When she started it the cat was on our rocking chair and she knelt in front of the chair, drawing on the tablet of paper on the edge of the chair. By the time I got the camera out, the cat was walking away so she started following her to get all the details right. 
She stopped at the baby gate to finish the image.
Here is her completed drawing of Mary. I wrote Mary's name on the top, obviously. If you look carefully, you should be able to see four legs at the bottom~three are yellow and one is red. Her head is on the right, and the ears are pretty easy to find. I was so impressed with her concentration and focus!
Here's her other drawing from that night. She created this one before her Mary drawing. She explained to me that the four ovals/circles are our family. "Here's Daddy....here's Mommy....This is Bee....And ME!" Funnily, she is the biggest and Daddy is the smallest (she started on the right). As she drew the big circle around all of us she exclaimed "And Mary!" I guess she was in a loving the kitty mood that night!
We had a Bee theme.
Gracie liked Bee's hat.
We had a kiddie obstacle course set up.
Singing to the Birthday Girl.
Cake!
Checking out the new toys at home. It's so fun to watch them play together!
Baby Bee turned one on Monday! Tomorrow is our party for her, but I just wanted to post a few pictures of how big she has gotten.
She surprised me by picking up both dead and live bugs with her tweezers, and even used her bare finger to push them off the tweezers into the container when needed.
She was especially funny when the bug would fall off the tweezers and she would scream and quickly step back a few feet like the bug was going to attack her. 
The container has a magnifying glass on one side, and she had a lot of fun examining them.
When she finished torturing-I mean catching bugs, she spent a long time using the tweezers on other objects such as sand and small pieces of sidewalk chalk. Working those fine motor skills!
I think I dyed my children today. After filling the tub and scrubbing the kids 5-6 times they both still have a slight orange tint to them. Note to self: NO POWDERED TEMPERA.
Watching her friends draw the hopscotch. . .Oh well.
There are days, and particular pictures that simply make me wonder where the time has gone so quickly. How did this girl get to big?!
Last weekend we went to the Pine Tree Apple Orchard to celebrate my brother's birthday.
Doesn't she look SO grown up here?!
The big girls had fun putting their faces in the different characters. 
They had a little playhouse.
Gracie was just a tad excited to see Elara...
The birthday boy and his youngest, Meira.
I love watching them play togther!
This picture cracks me up! Brianna kept giving Meira hugs. If someone was holding them, she'd throw herself at Meira with her arms wide open. So sweet. She loves her cousin!
