Pumpkin Carving!

Anna, Matt, & I carved our pumpkin today.

First, we separated the seeds from the glop so we could cook them

then we cut out the face

ta-da!

Exersaucer!

In the past few weeks Abby has been busy with a new toy:

I'm busy spinning the wheels, chewing, and making music!

Green Beans!

A few weeks ago I posted about Abby's first meal of rice cereal. We ended up taking a little break from the solid foods after she had a few nights of crying spells after her cereal. In the past few days Abby has tried a new food: green beans! She seemed to enjoy them 2 out of the 4 times I gave them to her - so I guess I would say we've had mixed reviews. But now that we've tried them for a few days we can move onto something new tomorrow!

Happy Halloween!

Anna, Abby, and I kicked off the Halloween celebrations today by attending our playgroup Halloween party. Anna was excited to wear her Mini Mouse costume. Given that it was a little warm here today and the party was inside, I decided not to stuff Abby into her furry horse suit (which she will be wearing Sunday night). Instead she went as Eli Manning:

Anna the Artist

Both at school and at home Anna has been busy painting:

apple prints

painting done with special paint brushes Anna got from Nana

water color

a sunflower

a pumpkin!

Milestones

On Monday Abby got up on her hands and knees for the first time! Yesterday and today she's been busy rocking back and forth.

On Monday I gave Anna a new sippy cup to use which had a picture of Tinkerbell on it. She asked me who it was. I told her. Then she looked at the other two fairies on the cup and asked me who they were. I said I didn't know. She said, "Look it up on the internet, Mommy." I couldn't believe that she thought to do this! In case you are curious, these fairies did have names. (I was skeptical). Apparently the modern Tinkerbell comes with a crew of 4 other fairies who all have identities - who knew?

On Tuesday we noticed that Abby knows her name! When you say "Abby," she turns and looks at you with a big smile!

On Tuesday Anna asked me, "What letter does the word, 'Dora,' start with?" After I told her, "D," she asked me about a whole bunch of other words.

AND today was a milestone for me. I actually did something productive with both girls in the double stroller. We went to the mall. Okay, I didn't actually buy anything except for a pretzel, but they both seemed to enjoy the trip. For Abby, she's just enjoying the stroller more because she can be in the sitting position instead of the reclined position. For Anna, it took some serious negotiation to get to the point where she was willing to do a whole mall trip in a stroller, BUT I think she actually had a good time.

Kieran John!

Yesterday Anna and Abby's new cousin was born: Kieran John! Congratulations to Aunt Becky, Uncle Jeff, and Liam! We're so excited for you and can't wait to meet our new family member!

Abby the Explorer

Abby loves being on her tummy, which I guess is how she got so good at moving. Sometimes I'll be holding her, she will start to fuss, and I'll think, "You shouldn't be tired, you shouldn't be hungry, I wonder what the problem is...hmmm, I'll just put you down for a minute and think about it...ah-ha: you just wanted to be on the floor so you could go exploring!" Abby's favorite places to explore are sides of walls, windows, and cabinets. She likes to roll over right next to a vertical surface so that one hand is on the floor and the other is reaching up the wall. Then she'll just hang out there until I decide the edge of the cabinet might not be the best object to chew on.

Of course when I tried to capture her new skill, she did not perform, but this is a really cute video anyway:

Matt said to me today after watching Abby military crawl across the floor, "What do we do with all this (boxes of unsorted small pieces of toys in our family room) once Abby is really crawling?" Good question. That's my next project.

Playing school

When Anna gets out of school each day I'm eager to hear what she has been up. I've learned that the best way to find out is not to ask her right away, but just to wait. She shows us a lot of what she does at school when she is playing. We often hear her sing, "If your name is Ernie, get your bag." In fact one day Mommy, Daddy, and Anna all had to get their bags and line up at our front door to wait to be "picked up." Last week she set up an "art center" with her farm set. Each of her dollhouse characters came to the art center, made a painting, set their painting aside to dry, then went to go play somewhere else while the next character came to the art center. This week she's been conducting entire classes with her as the teacher and her stuffed animals as the students. She sets them up in a line to read them stories. Then she sets up a sink using a mixing bowl and they each wash their hands before getting their snack. Then it's time for music class:

Cox Farms!

On Friday we took a family trip to Cox Farms. The weather was great, the crowds were small, and both our children surprised us. Anna loved the slides (which we thought she might be scared of) and Abby was good for the whole time we were there. Anna not only loved going on the slides, but she showed us her new independent side, by stating, "Go by myself, Daddy, you stay here," before climbing to the top of the slides. Some of the slides are pretty tall so Matt did follow her a few feet behind. Anna ended up loving the idea of Matt or I sliding down right after her.

In addition to the slides, we enjoyed apple cider, seeing cows, horses, and pigs, going on a hay ride, and walking through a corn maze.

Our little Mommy

Anna loves to play "Mommy" to her stuffed animals and babies. Over the past few weeks she has been busy carrying Minnie Mouse in the Bjorn, tucking Abby Caddaby, Elmo, and Cookie Monster in for bed (including singing lullabies), and rocking her baby doll to sleep.

Me too!

Abby is 5 months old now and on the move! She is not crawling, but she is able to get where she wants to go by rolling around and pushing herself around with her legs and arms. She does have a lot of fun playing with the toys that we have designated "Abby's toys," but her real interest seems to be getting to the toys Anna is playing with! I had to break it to Anna yesterday that as Abby starts to crawl she's going to be able to play with more things. I explained that was okay because Anna couldn't really play with all her toys at once anyway. She seemed skeptical.