A hunting we will go...

The Pumpkin Patch 2011 in pictures.

Introducing Our Newest Family Member...

This is the newest member of our family... Kitty Kat.
You may remember Reese's puppy friend Hasher... well, I've become quite jealous of Hasher and constantly attempt to puppy nap him. Mommy and Daddy have been on the lookout for Hasher's sister Pasher, but they've been unsuccessful in their search. It wasn't until last night after visiting the country store in Cracker Barrel, that they found Kitty Kat... from the exact same line of annoyingly loud mobile pets! Can you believe it?! Kitty Kat fits right in, and she just loves to play with Hasher. All is again right with the world. :)

No rhyme or reason...

... as in this post has no rhyme or reason to it at all... but since I'm not on facebook anymore, I feel the need to share meaningless things here. Awesome. Rachel here by the way. We've been up to a whole lot of nothing these days, and it sure is nice. By a whole lot of nothing I mean... playing outside, playing with playdoh, painting, taking extra long baths, and watching "Chockie Facky" (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) like it's going out of style. It's been nice to not have to get in the car... really nice. Things have been getting done around the homestead as well... slow and steady. Yesterday I was cleaning out the videos/dvds for the 300th time and decided to see what some of the little tapes (i.e. from the camcorder) were. One of them was tons of footage of baby Reese staring up at me, trying to sit up, and some from her first birthday. I have quite a bit of footage of the girls now from my Kodak, but I hadn't picked it up in a while. I got some funny footage of Emma Grace working on her flashcards with while sitting on the potty. Wouldn't you know I can't get the driver from the camera working on the computer?! Bastards of America! Yeah I just said that. It was the best 4.5 minutes you'd ever spend watching a video that's for sure. Until I can figure out that mess, I'll share some photos from the past week.

IF I were still on facebook, this would be my new profile picture because seriously... could you die right now? Emma Grace is being so cooperative when it comes to photos right now. "Emma Grace can I take you're picture?" "Sure Mommy." I take the picture. "Now me see Mommy! Mommy!" Instant gratification is this girl's motto for sure.
Editor's note... this helmet is nowhere near actually on this child's head. Let's hope this means her brain is extra absorbent... in a good way.Recent mornings routine... wake up, demand pancakes and syrup, go potty, get into undies, eat breakfast for 3.5 seconds, play dress up (hence this ensemble), eat for 2.5 more seconds, demand one of the following "Chockie Facky," "Itty Poppins," or "Chee Bang Bang." This morning... "Tangled"... Reese is Rapunzel because of her "long beautiful hair", Emma Grace is Tinkerbell wearing rain boots... what story doesn't need a fairy, and I'm Mother Gothel... probably because I haven't showered or brushed my teeth. And just in case this post was starting to make too much sense... we have critters. First... I found this praying mantis while pulling weeds the other day. Can you see him? He's brown with green eyes. And yes, I pulled weeds... I may never do it again, since we're on the subject, because now I have an itchy mess on my wrist covered in ointment (isn't that one of the most disgusting words?) and a Barbie band aid. And then we have Billy Murray... our latest resident groundhog. Would it kill the little guy to go eat the weeds? I mean seriously!Up and coming highlights... Reese has her "open house" for dance class Saturday AND preschool starts in 11 days! :)

Dino-mite!

Emma Grace here... I know right?! HELLO WORLD! :) I've been invited here to blog today about my lover Jackson. I love him. He's amazing. And did I mention I'm willing to push my sister down and pull her hair in order to prove my love to sweet Jack? I love him. He's 4 now. I love 4 year olds. Swoon. Oh wait... I better get to the point before they don't allow me to guest blog here anymore. ;)

We traveled to Maryland this weekend to help celebrate Jackson's (SWOON!) birthday, and we definitely did it in style. His mommy and daddy threw him a dinosaur party at their local nature center. It was awesome... there wasn't a detail left undone. Mere can throw a party... for reals. It's a constant inspiration to Mommy. Mommy may have finally decided to buy some super cute downloads, for Reese's Jessie cowgirl party in October, from Etsy... because seriously people... Jackson's (SWOON!) were cute! But more on those later... here are some of the yummy goodies we took part in...Check these out! Mere cut squeezed oranges in half and filled them with blue jello. Once they were solidified, she sliced them... so cute!Bug nets filled with goodies for our favors.Here starts the pdf downloads from Etsy Meredith found... so unbelievably cute! She had some really sweet banners as well.Look at our adorable party hats!
Party shenanigans.After some eating and running around, we gathered in a room to get some hands on time with various creatures. We got to touch turtles, bearded dragons, snakes, and hissing cockroaches... we also got to examine (but not touch) a tarantula. It was awesome!Time for cupcakes!
There was also a bit of time after cake to explore the nature center...... and pose for a group picture!Thanks Jackson for inviting us... we love visiting!!!! :)

Safari Hell...

Mommy and Daddy threw us in the car after preschool on Friday for a balls to the wall adventure. We drove about an hour and a halfish to Virginia's Safari Park (a drive thru zoo of sorts). I had the time of my life with the animals peeping in on us... pecking at the windows.
As you can see in the above photo, Emma Grace was scared out of her mind. She was so upset and crying that she puked all over herself. Mommy wanted to jump out and run around to her door to help her but was scared for her life. There were two camels giving her the stink eye, so she cleaned Em up and sat on the console rubbing EG's leg for the remainder of the ride... while Emma whimpered and repeated to herself... "I skeeeeered." :(

I think it's safe to say we won't be going back until Emma Grace has graduated... from college.

A little of this... a little of that...

Mommy gave us the week off. We flew by the seat of our pants, and I won't lie... it was pretty fun. :) Mommy first made us over sized lacing beads from pool noodles. She saw these flower beads on Activity Mom and thought they were adorable. We walked into the dollar store the other day, and VOILA... pool noodles. Pool noodle + bread knife = over sized flower lacing beads. HOLLER.
Once Emma Grace got over her initial excitement...
... we used the new shapes as stamps for painting flower gardens. We'll try lacing later. ;)

Our new kit from Time for Tots came. To be perfectly honest... their ideas are fantastic... but the actual product was mediocre at best. Just not worth the money. We'll continue our subscription, and definitely continue to steal their ideas... Mommy knows she can handle creating these herself... with things we have on hand... for realsies.

Emma Grace played with glass beads. Sorted them by color... we also sorted some new 3D shapes Mommy got by both color and shape.I had my very first book fair Thursday and Friday. We meandered on in there bright and early Friday morning in hopes of finding something useful. We found 4 somethings useful. :) 4 great make and do art/science books... so exciting. I told Mommy I wanted to do a special project just this morning from my new book. She handed me one, and I picked this "cowgirl" made from a cardboard tube. We had all the materials on hand... FREE. Cute right? Summer is going to be so much fun!

Mommy and Daddy concocted this Alphabet sorting game when I started to show an inkling of naughtiness. Alphabet book, magnetic letter, Little People animals.

Daddy caught a ginormous beetle and placed him in captivity for me to observe. He was awesome.

I turned my freshly cleaned water table into a witch's cauldron. Much to Mommy's chagrin. ;) Not really... she's certain now though that I must own a mortar and pestal to make my concoctions.

With all that dirt... why not get a fancy bath. And by fancy bath, we mean water dyed red, bubbles flying, and washing our bath toys with shaving cream... it's the little things.

Our laid back week ended with my special Daddy time. I earned 15 extra minutes of awake time today to spend with Daddy. He wanted to do my princess puzzle with me. It was priceless. :)We also spent a BEAUTIFUL day at the playground, and took an impromptu trip to The Safari Park... more on those adventures later. Here's a happy week ahead to all! :)