Today

 I had grad school this morning, but boy did the kids and I pack a lot of fun in once I got home!

 First we went to the park. . . 

 Bee decided she was tired, so she stole JR's blankie and settled down for a nap-at the bottom of the slide!

 JR was jealous.

 The girls rolled down a big hill, which we plan on sledding down this winter. 

When we got home we decided to do a very Fall-ish art project. Apple painting! It took a while for the girls to catch on that it's more fun to stamp with the apples, but eventually they did and Gracie was thrilled that the stamps look like hearts declaring that hearts are her favorite shape.

 

 Last weekend we went to the apple orchard with my parents, my brother's family, and my friend Carrie and her daughter, Jolynn. We had lots of fun picking out pumpkins, riding the wagon, eating apple treats, and playing at their attractions. 

 Bee was impressed with the humongous pumpkins.

 Gracie's mission was to find one she could pick up. She kept rejecting them, saying they were too heavy if she couldn't hold them for a while. The picture above she had just dropped the pumpkin at her feet and declared it "not THE ONE." 

 Mission accomplished! I'm not certain it's actually a pumpkin-it may be a gourd, but she was happy and satisfied. She waltzed to the scale without me and tried to pay for it. The worker said "It's one dollar and sixteen cents." Gracie: "ok." Worker: "Do you have one dollar and sixteen cents?" Gracie: "Yep." Eventually, my dad came up and paid for the pumpkin as I was busy chasing Bee and the stroller, with my wallet was a ways away.

 Gracie, Bee, Jolynn, Elara.

 Bee loved this cutout. She kept running into other people's pictures. She kept me busy!

Hudson Art Fair

 Gracie and Bee each made sand art pictures at the Hudson Art Fair two weekends ago. They made a design in glue and poured sand from a bottle over the wet glue. Bee had a blast showing off her knowledge of colors, even asking for white. The lady running the booth had to grab white from under the table as she hadn't put it out for the kids! Gracie was also very into the project, and got a little upset that Bee was done so quickly and she had to go. They both had plenty on their papers by then though.

Gracie found a "Spider-Man snake" at one of the booths. To talk her out of trying to buy it, we took a picture of her with it instead.

He Smiles

 

Playdate!

 Shirley came over today! This always calls for a fun activity, and I've been meaning to do this painting activity with my girls all summer so it seemed like the perfect time. I rolled tennis balls in paint and put them into the pool and the girls gently tilted the pool to make the ball roll over the paper that was taped to the bottom of the pool. The older girls did awesome, and seemed to really like the process but Bee was slightly tortured that there were balls and she wasn't allowed to grab. 

 Shirley declared that she was making the painting for her Daddy, so Gracie agreed that the next painting was for her Daddy. What a lucky couple of Daddies!

 When all the painting fun was over the kids started begging to swim. I tried to talk them out of it, saying they'd get cold, but all three were asking so sweetly that I got the suits and hose out. Funny, though, as soon as we were situated and I started to clean the patio they all wanted to "help" clean the patio. I gave one of them a sponge to wipe off the picnic table and went in to start lunch. When I came back out, all three of them were using the water to "clean" the patio! It's never been cleaner :)

Scottish Festival

Grandma took us to the Scottish Festival today. The girls had so much fun, they didn't want to leave. Both of them got their face painted. Gracie started to get her hair braided but lost patience with the process. They rode on a car with "Nessie" on top, listened to Scottish music, and shopped at the little vendor booths.

Gracie chose to have her face painted like Ironman.

Of course, it had to be sparkly, so she is "Sparkly Iron-Gracie."

Bee was next. She was quite agreeable to pretty much anything I suggested, but when I said "Puppy?" her face lit up.

Becoming a puppy.

Bee Puppy!
The woman was working on her spots and Bee was excitedly pointing to her pile of paint and exclaiming "Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!" so she became a brown and yellow spotted puppy.

Riding "Nessie."

Gracie went back to the face painting and asked for Spider-Man on her arm.

Mini Ninja

Bee cracked me up today when she grabbed Gracie's Karate uniform off the desk and proceeded to put it on. She asked me to help with the pants and belt and then walked around the room kicking the air and yelling "hi-ya!" Of course, she toned it down as soon as I got the camera on, but towards the end of the video she does a couple of cute kicks.