Eleanor's Birthday Party

Eleanor is one of our friends from church.  Well, she's in Lilly's Daisy troop and her older sister, Mary Price, is in Sophia's Brownie troop.  Eleanor just turned 6 and both girls were invited to her party. It was held at their house and in honor of the season it was themed "fall fun".

Eleanor's mom and my friend, Julie, had her sister plan the party. She planned fun activities like painting a pumpkin, bobbing for apples, getting tattoos, a hay stack candy search, face painting and, of course, cake and ice cream after opening presents.  Sophia was the only kid who snagged an apple! I was proud of her, but so grossed out.

Both Lilly and Sophia had a great time searching for goodies in the haystack. 

A morning out with Haley and Carlie

We went to a place called Color Me Mine with Haley and Carlie a few Saturday's back to paint some pottery. Haley and Sophia were earning the Pottery Girl Scout badge which is to be worn on the front of their vests.  Only earned awards are worn on the front of the vest. Everything else is called a "fun" patch and is worn on the back of the uniform.  Carlie and Lilly will receive a fun patch for participating in "pottery fun". 

Sophia and Haley got a quick tour of the facility and learned about the process of creating a finished piece of art.   I think the tour-giver said the ovens heat up to 1,300 degrees and after a green glaze has been applied the painted pieces get "fired" for 24 hours.  Then they cool.....for a few days.

Sophia chose a cat piggy bank and a DAD piece to give to Will for Christmas.  She painted it in Redskins colors. Lilly chose to paint a snowman ornament for baby Caroline and a cat piggy bank for herself.  

The store just called me and the pieces are ready for pickup.  I can't wait to see how cool all of it is.

The girls also had to get some hands-on experience with clay so we bought some modeling clay (that never dries out!) and made a few things.  Sophia did the Rudolph and I did most of the little figures. 

Lilly's class photo

This is Lilly's class photo.  Her best friend is the girl in the middle wearing the blue dress.  Her name is Sydney. 

Yep, it's only three weeks old!

I dropped my phone face down on the driveway yesterday and even though it was wearing a rubber protector it still shattered!  Of course, we never buy the insurance coverage.  You would think we would have learned our lesson with the number of ovens we've had to buy in the last four years. 

I immediately got in the car and rushed to CPR (Cell Phone Repair) to see if they could fix it.  Will and the girls weren't home so I was going to get it fixed before they even found out!  Well, when I walked into the store the employee didn't even know what the phone was called. I found out that it's so new to the market that he won't even get the new screen for a few months. So indeed I had to break it to Will (no pun intended).  He was surprisingly very calm and cool about it. I was in tears, but he wasn't mad at all. Probably because he did the same thing about two years ago.

Playing outside

The girls have been playing outside with all the neighbor kids all weekend. Our next door neighbors have two little kids.  I think they are 2 (Jillian) and 4 (Rylan) years old.  A girl named Kennedy was riding her bike around the loop yesterday and decided to stay and play and she was back again today.  Of course, Taylor and Riley were in on the fun both days and Summer and Lilia (sisters) that live way down the street showed up today. 

I was able to get a picture of Riley, Taylor, Sophia and Lilly before I had to run inside because it's soooo cold outside - it's 69 degrees right now!  It's been raining and super windy for about a week and there isn't any relief in the forecast until Wednesday when the sun may peek out from behind the clouds for a little bit. I already miss summer and am not looking forward to the cold weather.

The start of pumpkin season

Lilly and I stopped on the way home from school the other day to pick up some fall flowers, a hay bale and some pumpkins to decorate our front yard for fall. It's been raining all week so I haven't been able to plant the flowers yet, but at least they are getting lots of water.  Lilly asked me to take a few pictures of her with the pumpkins.  This is the start of our fall pumpkin picture-taking season for me.  I always seem to take a lot because the kids look so cute surrounded by pumpkins.  O like dressing them in orange so they kind of blend in.  We found out about several fall festivals that we plan on attending so we'll get some good photo opportunities.  Fun Fun!

Playdate with Norah

Lilly invited Norah home from school with her on Tuesday. The girls had a great time dressing up and using my camera. There were some very interesting poses among the pictures, but I'll only share the "safe" ones.

When Sophia got home from school she entertained them for a few hours before we had to take Norah home. Norah said she had such a good time that she wants to come over every Tuesday. That's always nice to hear.

Mystery Reader

Every Friday Lilly's class has a "Mystery Reader" come in during the last 15 minutes of class and read a few stories to the kids. 

I was the mystery reader yesterday. Lilly couldn't have been happier when I walked into the classroom. She got to sit in the chair next to me.  Can you see her grin?

I had to give three clues about myself that Mrs. LaSalle read to the class throughout the day.  Lilly guessed correctly after the last clue which was "I have two daughters".  The other clues were "My favorite color is blue" and "My favorite food is chocolate covered bananas".

Girl Scout Park Clean Up

Last Sunday my Girl Scout troops had a joint park clean up. Three families (including mine) has a girl in each troop so it ends up being pretty convenient.

Here's a few pictures and a video of the girls at the park...

Here's some of  my girls from the older troop. Paige, Mary Price, Sophia, Elizabeth, Kaleigh

 This is Lilly and Eleanor from my younger troop.

 

And here they are doing a slide train.

Are you scared?

Sophia has strep throat for the first time this season. She felt it coming on yesterday at school and informed me when she got home that she thought she needed a trip to Patient First.  After our trip to visit the doctor we ordered a pizza and waited to pick it up.  While we were waiting we went to a store that has tons of Halloween things for sale. Here's Sophia being scary...

Obama Stinks!

The girls have gotten into the habit of Will bringing something home for them after each of his business trips. It's usually a toy, but this time is was a Barack Obama Chia Pet that he was gifted from his boss.
 
The seeds were actually growing after a few days of "planting" them and it appeared that it would be a successful adventure.

It was super funny to see the seed sprouting from inside his nose. It looked like a booger. The girls really got a kick out of that. 

A few days after it sprouted it started to smell really bad. It was so bad that I had to throw it away.  I know of at least one person in our family who will be thrilled that I threw it away.  You know who are you! (smile).   

Juliette and Penelope's 1st birthday party

Last Saturday we hightailed it up to Street, Maryland for Juliette, the older, and Penelope's first birthday party. It started at 1:00 and we rolled in around 1:40.  Not too terribly late considering it was a five and 1/2 hour drive.  Penelope is on the left and Juliette is on the right.

The twins are absolutely adorable and look absolutely nothing alike.  I didn't get a good picture of the two of them together from the front.  I have tons of them from the side like this one. Here they are not really enjoying their huge cupcakes. It was funny to watch Penelope take globs of icing and flick them on the floor. 

Will was throwing around the football with the guys while Sophia, Lilly, Nana and I chatted and ate food.  Actually, the girls did a lot of coloring and playing with the ball too.

At one point I actually got to hold Penelope.  It's too bad she wasn't looking at the camera because she's so darn cute.

 I think it was a little overwhelming for them (in a good way).

My girls had a great time....and an even better time when the cake was cut for guests.  Just check out Sophia's face here as the moment arrives - the cutting of the cake!

 
After a while Sophia and I found ourselves relaxing outside. I was trying to book us a different hotel for the night rather than the one we had already booked because Meg basically said ours was going to be in "da hood". Sophia was reading one of the books that Nana gave to her.  When Will saw this picture he called us nerds.

Another picture of Penelope. 

I uploaded the wrong picture in an earlier post. OOPS!

I'm lovin' it.

I love the fact that Lilly's teacher, Mrs. LaSalle, takes so many pictures of what's going on in Lilly's Kindergarten classroom. These are a few of the really cute ones I saw just this week.

Today Lilly went home with her friend Norah. Norah's mom is a good friend of mine. Charlotte, her 7-yr old daughter is friends with Sophia.

Lilly and Norah had a short play date and then both took Rebekah's group piano class. Lilly said she really enjoyed it and wanted to practice a bit tonight after dinner, but before she could Sophia wanted to show us all of her skills and cut to the front of the line. Oh well.  Lilly brought home a book so we'll have to take a peek at it over the weekend.  She told me she has a bit of homework.  

Taking a walk

Sophia and I were taking Sadie for a walk tonight like we've been doing.  On these walks she likes to hear herself talk the entire time! I can't even think about it being relaxing because she's always talking. Tonight her topic was "fashion".  I would ask her what's the latest fashion trend in shoes or what nail polish colors are in this season.  It was so flattering to watch her glance at me and then answer back as if I was the fashion expert. At one point she even asked me my favorite color and then pronounced that aquamarine would be the most popular color this season.  Too cute.

She calls our walks special...and they are....because we have some alone time. We are the "S Girls" because both of our names start with "S".  Sadie is also in our club.  Will and Lilly are the "ILLS" because they both have I-L-L in their names.  Together we are the "SILLS".  Gotta love the way a child's brain thinks.  

Another tooth

Lilly lost her second bottom tooth at school today.  She came running up to me with this sticker on her shirt. Her teacher has a giant tooth hanging on the wall and Lilly was so excited because now she would be on the tooth wall - even though it's the third one she's missing.  I'm guessing that she was too shy to say anything at the beginning of the year.  She's made a friend named Sydney. They are too shy to say anything to each other in the mornings, but they are always together at the end of the day. 

Sophia is doing well in school. She's got a lot of homework every night.  She's got a language paper, a math sheet (front and back) and she has to log her reading and read at least 15 minutes per night.  It also counts when someone reads her a book. You can guess which one she likes best.

New Phone

On Friday got a new phone because I lost my phone.  Little did I realize that Friday was the day that the iPhone 5 came out.  There were lines out the door. 

I took these pictures using the camera feature on my new phone.  I'm pretty happy with them. This picture of Sadie happens to be my new wallpaper. 

My new phono, the Moto X, is white so hopefully I will be able to keep track of it a little better - especially when it's in my purse. Although, yesterday I had some papers in my purse and the phone blended right in.  It's a good thing that I just ordered a new purse with lots of pockets. Hopefully there will be one for papers and one for the phone.

More pictures of Lilly at school

These two pictures of Lilly were posted on the school's website.  

It's so cool that they take so many pictures of the kids.

Lia's birthday party

Lilly went to a pink cowgirl birthday party on Saturday evening. There literally was a temporary fancy farm complete with a baby pig and a llama in Lia's backyard. Lia is Lilly's friend from Beach Manor. They were in class together the last two years.

It was a drop off party and Lilly was nervous for me to leave but her best Beach Manor buddy, Lizzie, showed up and I told them to keep each other company.  It was so nice of Lia's mom to send these pictures.

Sophia is now officially a cheerleader for the Broncos.

Sophia joined a league where the cheerleaders cheer for the boys' football and basketball games (fall and spring seasons).  Last night was her first practice and her first game was this afternoon.

When we left practice last night she told me she absolutely loved it. I should have known because right now she loves singing and acting along to her favorite movie.  She loved singing the songs at vacation bible school and doing all the hand movements too.  Hmmm....maybe this will be her thing.  We'll see.  The good thing is that the seasons are short and you take a break in between.  I don't think she'll suffer burnout with this schedule.

She joined the season late and the other girls on the squad had 5 practices up on her. If you would have seen her last night trying to learn the moves and the words you would have thought it was going to take her forever to catch up, but today she totally proved me wrong. She knew every cheer! Will and I were so proud of her. She had a huge grin on her face throughout the game because she was having so much fun even though under normal circumstances she would have been complaining that it was too hot outside and that she was dying from the heat. 

We will have practice twice a week and have a game every Saturday. I can't wait until she has to cheer on a crisp, fall day.

Click on this link to see her cheering at half time.