Trick or Treat!

Emi's Scarecrow

Emi had "homework," to create a scarecrow for school… it was supposed to be a "family project," but she really preferred to do it herself. Her stubborn sense of independence is both cute and annoying!

 First she colored the shoes

Then she glued on ribbons to make clothes

(Cora and mom cut the ribbon strips, so I guess it was kind-of a family project…)

I'm not sure where the finished product picture is, but she (scarecrow) was pretty cute, complete with a glittery hat. The amount of glitter around the house reminded me why I don't encourage it EVER!!!

Trunk-or-Treat

Today our church hosted "trunk-or-treat" and we decorated Big Red as "Madea Animal Control" - complete with dog kennels and stuffed dogs and cats, dog toys, balls of yarn and some catching nets. The ladies were all black cats and Greg was a dog catcher. We missed having Finn and Bonny present, but it would have been too crazy, we fear… The weather was perfect and we had lots of fun!

Cute family shot

The girls blowing down the walls of Jericho (all to get candy…)

View from our spot

Scheming cats

Emi steering an airplane

Cora an old pro, cute tail!

 Louisa trying to sneak some candy for herself

"Scare on the Square"

The Halloween season officially began this afternoon in downtown Collierville. The girls dressed in costume and trick-or-treated around the town square at the various businesses. There were plenty of games and treats, of course. We had a ball!

Emi's best monkey girl imitation

 Cora dusted off her old cowgirl costume for another year

Showing off their balloon flowers

Playing some games in the gazebo 

Louisa's just about had it…. crawling to her pumpkin in her doggy costume

Louisa's 8 months old!

Same, same, my my time flies! Louisa continues to make us smile daily. She's very happy and attentive and seems super eager to join her big sisters in all they do. Her only word is "dada," but she's forever babbling... so much that we've nicknamed her "parrot!" She seems most fond of chatting during the night... Otherwise, Lou seems to be catching up with her big sisters in growth (we won't know official numbers til next month's appointment). She's eating rice cereal and applesauce and puffs by the handful (wish we bought stock!) AND she is a crawling machine! She loves to get around the house and explore. I'm considering pinning swiffer sheets to her to help with cleaning our wood floors :) 

Face painting

Here's what happens when you let your kids choose what to get painted on their faces...

Pink unicorns, of course!

Part of the "fun" at Calista's birthday party today :)

Look out, world!

She's still a bit rough, but she's getting this crawling thing down! Lou definitely takes the cake with crawling at 7 months, the others were a bit later... 

A fall break week in review

We've made it to Friday! I cannot lie, I was a bit nervous having the girls home the whole week while school vacation happened... but we had a ball! The weather started cool like fall but has ended back in the 80s. 

Monday: meeting up with friends at Johnson Park

 They "chalked" every sidewalk! My favorite was tracing around their bodies and watching them decorate themselves

 With friends from church

Tuesday: a backyard party at Calista and Camryn's house

Painting with vegetables

 The gradation of swings...

Wednesday: storytime at the Collierville Library

 The topic was "Fall"

 The girls crafted their own fall trees as a craft

Thursday: a trip to the Dollar Store -- a great lesson... shopping! I gave each girl $1 to spend however they wanted. I'm not joking, Emi lost her dollar before we got to the store. Cora generously offered to buy for Emi instead of herself, so I loaned her a second dollar to choose her own treasure (what a kind big sister!)

  What did they choose? Fairy wings, of course!

Friday: More park time and puzzles --- both "for real" and on Daddy's iPad

Cora's first apple pie

Today feels remarkably like fall and we had a whole bowl of green apples that weren't getting eaten, so we decided to make an apple pie. Cora did most of the work and I did the cutting and transfer to oven and out. I also helped read Auntie Allie's recipe :) We love our apple peeler/corer/slicer and don't think the "old fashioned way" would be much fun... 

 Really working her muscles

 Ta-dah!

 Cora's tentative first bite. Her critique? "It's a little bit sour!"

Greg's critique "YUM!"

Tom's Farm

We tried to get over the 80+ degree humid weather on our visit to Tom's Farm today. Everyone had a ball and we got some gooood pumpkins :) 

Obligatory pose

We took a hayride out to the pumpkin patch where we got to pick our own pumpkins

 Cora chose the PERFECT carving pumpkin!

 Louisa's "ride"

 With friends Julie and Janet (and baby Emily) and my prize Cinderella pumpkin

 Cora with some kids from school, overlooking the corn fields

 

 Emi really got into playing "corn hole"

And grinding corn cobs

Hands down, my favorite picture of the day... our Southern Belle chewing on a straw of hay :) 

Another session ended

I've lost count on the number of sessions of gymnastics Cora has completed. She's doing so well and loving it still. Emi is itching to begin, hopefully in the spring...

"gooooooo Gymstars!"