Gracie

So beautiful. I actually took this one for our Christmas card, but couldn't use it since I didn't have my camera cord. She's growing up so fast, and we couldn't be more proud of her.

Remember when lollipops were bigger than your head?

Playing in Nana's playhouse on Thanksgiving.

Umi Goggles

Remember when we were going to visit Dora on Saturdays over the summer? One of the giveaways that we got was toy binoculars. Gracie enjoys a Nickelodeon show called Umi Zoomi, about three mini characters that help kids out when there is a problem. In a few of the shows, "Team Umi Zoomi" has asked their "Umi Friends" to get out their "Umi Goggles." They just put their hands to their faces on the show, but when Gracie found her binoculars from Dora, she was convinced they are her "Umi Goggles." She begged me to put the show on (it's OnDemand), and I was sure to pick an episode that included "Umi Goggles." Here she is watching:

Anticipating the request to "get out your Umi Goggles!"

Santa

I have a lot of stuff to blog about. Cute pictures and videos of the kids learning, playing, and growing up. However, I cannot find my camera cord! I promise to keep looking and post as soon as I can. Until then, I'll leave you with these two little gems. Taken by the Hudson newspaper and put online after we met with Santa yesterday.

Snowman

With our first snowfall this year, we decided to get out and have a little fun. Gracie has experienced snow before, but never really played in it. I had grad school all weekend, but they gave us a long lunch on Sunday, so I went home and played with the girls.

Gracie LOVED it. She had so much fun packing the snow together and adding it to our snowman! I just wished I had more time to play with her, and had to remind us both that we have a very long winter to play in the snow together!

I think this is my favorite picture.

Bee was not as impressed with snow. I think part of it was that one of her mittens kept falling off and, of course, that's the hand she would grab the snow with. She was screaming within ten minutes and needed to go back inside.

We got some branches for the arms, but didn't have anything for the face. With Bee screaming I had to just find something fast so it would seem finished and Gracie wouldn't scream about not being able to finish it. So, I grabbed some food coloring. I made the face and Gracie emptied the yellow on the head for hair.

Here's our completed snowman. Pretty unique, but LOTS of fun!

Trapped!

We have a new rule in our household.
If you get yourself trapped, Momma would be happy to help get you out~after taking pictures and laughing at you.

Fall Bazaar

One of my schools has a wonderful Fall Bazaar as their main fundraiser for the year. Last year I was not feeling up to going, with Brianna being only a few weeks old, but the girls and I made it there this year. As an elementary school, most of the activities were a little advanced for my little ones, but they did have a lot of fun. On the way out, Gracie said it was fun, and she wanted to go back. I promised her we'd go again next year.

Squirting the second of three colors onto her spin art.

Spinning

Amazed at the results.

Ring toss onto pumpkins.

Catching duckies with a little net. They each had a number under them, and she was given that many tickets. They had a prize room to cash in the tickets.

Plinko

Tossing fake apples into buckets. The actual goal was a tic-tac-toe, but I was just impressed that she made all but one of them into a basket from the line!

She didn't exactly get the concept of standing tall to drop the balls into the fishbowls!

First time getting her hair done!
She picked gold (closest they had to her fav: yellow) and pink.
Bee also got her hair done, but I had to hold her on the barstool so I couldn't get any pics of the process. There's a pic below of the results though.

Gracie loves getting her face painted! She changes her mind about 50 times in line and then picks something completely different when she sits in the chair. This time she got fire.

Pink haired beauties.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween! Our trick-or-treating adventure began at a local grocery store. We expected a handfull of candy, but ended up with a corndog, go-gurt, soda, helium balloon, carmel apple, cookie, AND candy~for each kid! It was a full meal!

Swiper's so fast!

Dora and Swiper, with Grandma towards the end of our grocery trick-or-treating adventure. Look at all that loot in the cart! That is ALL from the trick-or-treating!

Gracie insisted she did NOT need a nap before going to her cousins' house to do real trick-or-treating, but momma and daddy insisted. Good thing we did, this is how I found her when I went in to wake her up to leave!

Dora, Swiper, and Princess Fiona.

The whole crew, before heading out.

Gracie found Elara's Dora scooter in the garage and tried to convince us she should ride it to go trick-or-treating. It was tough going until Elara said "You have to wear a helmet!" and Gracie said (in a very dismayed voice) "I don't have a helmet!" That ended that.

One of the first houses.