Carving Pumpkins

We carved our pumpkins over the weekend, and for the first time, the girls actually helped clean out the pumpkins.  They spent just about the entire time saying "Gooey guts!" and then giggling hysterically.  Amelia even used her fingers to pull out the slimy innards!

 

I had to choose the photos of Megan carefully, because she refused to wear her pants.

 The girls chose the faces they wanted; Ben carved Amelia's pumpkin with a mouth full of sharp teeth and some wavy hair on the top, and I carved Megan's pumpkin with a very happy face.

The girls and I went to the fall festival at Amelia's school last Friday, and Amelia was thrilled to see her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Tews, at the festival.  Amelia just loves Mrs. Tews!  She was nice enough to pose for a picture with Amelia.

Making Doughnuts

When Mom and Dad came to visit this weekend, we made our traditional Halloween doughnuts.  The girls really enjoyed helping to knead the dough, roll out the dough and cut the doughnuts.

They each tried frosting a few doughnuts, too, but they much preferred to let the adults do the frosting, while they applied the Halloween sprinkles.  In this photo, Amelia is frosting the doughnut "worm" that Grandpa fried for her.  She made Grandpa eat it, though, since she didn't want to eat a worm.

They were big fans of licking the spilled frosting off the waxed paper (and the table!)

Strangely, Megan was a little unsure about actually eating the doughnuts, but as soon as she got one in her mouth, she decided that she liked it.

She even shared a bite of her doughnut with Mom!

 Mom made these matching jumpers for the girls; don't they look cute?  Megan has asked if she can wear hers every day since then, but unfortunately, I do not plan on doing laundry every evening, so she's had to wear other long-sleeved dresses instead.

Choosing Pumpkins....

....in the snow!

I told the girls we could pick out pumpkins to carve after school, since the temperature isn't supposed to get any warmer in the next 10 days.  Little did I expect that it would start to snow as we drove the two miles to the pumpkin farm!  The girls were THRILLED to see snow in the air, and wanted to do nothing more than run around the rows of pumpkins with their tongues stuck out trying to catch the big, fat snowflakes on their tongues.

Megan got cold pretty quickly because we had taken the fleece liner out of her coat, so I forced them to choose their pumpkins quickly, and then got Megan in the car to warm up while Amelia kept running around.  The girls remind me of Becky and me choosing pumpkins - they wanted to find one with a perfect shape, and they didn't like the fact that the pumpkins were dirty!  I told the girls that they could give their pumpkins a bath after school tomorrow. 

Maybe this will convince Megan that she should wear her winter coat without fussing from now on..... but I doubt it.  She's pretty stubborn!

Baby Monarch

The girls are still insisting that the baby should be named Monarch, although Amelia has started to come up with funnier Natalie-and-Noah type names, like Turquoise or Eyeball or Munch-Munch.  Ben and I have not moved any closer to coming up with a real name, but I can promise that he will not be named Eyeball.

I had a doctor's appointment last week (at 32 1/2 weeks) and I got to have another ultrasound.  I know ultrasound photos are usually really hard to interpret if you aren't a technician, but I thought these two were good enough to share.  The first is the baby's legs and foot, which I included so that you could see how FAT his little legs are already.  The second is the face with the right hand gripping his forehead and the left arm crossed in front of his chin gripping his right ear.  Kind of a weird position, and made blurrier by some cord that was in the way, but still a cute little face.

The main thing I learned at my appointment is that the baby is quite large already - the ultrasound estimated he weighed 5 lbs (plus or minus at least a pound) with an abdomen and head in the 90% percentile.  Somehow he ended up being only 72% in size overall (which I don't understand) so the doctor isn't too concerned, but said we may start talking about getting induced even earlier than 39 weeks, if he is still large at my 36 week appointment.  She said it's likely that he's just large genetically, rather than anything being wrong.

Something Exciting!

Can you see what's different?  Amelia lost her first tooth!  It's a little hard to see because the adult tooth is already half-way up behind the gap, but she lost her bottom left incisor.  She woke me up this morning to tell me that her tooth had fallen out on her tongue - she's lucky she didn't swallow it!  She was so excited that she wanted to call everyone right away to tell them.  But since it was before 7am, I made her wait until after she'd gotten dressed and eaten breakfast.  Then she called both sets of grandparents to tell them her exciting news.  She has the tooth carefully nestled in a tiny jewelry box on a bed of cotton batting "to keep it safe".

I hope the tooth fairy remembers to come tonight!  Amelia is sure that the tooth fairy is going to bring her a dollar..... perhaps the tooth fairy should bring it in pennies?

Summer - Visiting Grandma & Grandpa (4th of July)

Amelia made her traditional 4th of July chocolate cookie and Cool Whip cake, and this year Megan wanted to help spread the Cool Whip.  We couldn't find the flat chocolate cookies, so Grandpa split Oreos apart and scraped the frosting off.  It tasted delicious, but took a while longer.

The Weidners came over for the 4th of July, so we got to spend most of the day playing with Natalie and Noah.  Mom bought the girls matching 4th of July dresses, and my girls thought it was so fun that they all matched.

We went to the Glenview parade in the morning, and managed to get the very last seat on the curb that was available, right in the hot sun.  The kids were excited to get the candy and toys that were handed out, but they were probably most excited about the blowers that Mom had brought for them.  We stayed for about half the parade, then headed home because it was so hot!

Here's the cousins all together:

We went to Elm Park to watch the fireworks, and the kids had fun playing with the glow sticks Grandma provided.  We played hide and seek with the glow sticks, which everyone thought was very funny, especially when Natalie discovered she could hide the glow stick under herself.  The fireworks were very nice, but a little hidden behind trees.  I guess we'll have to go to the golf course next time.

Summer - Visiting Grandma & Grandpa (birthday party)

Grandma planned a very fun birthday party for Megan and Amelia with all kinds of fun games to play, including an obstacle course.  First the kids had to crawl under the picnic table benches, then push a train car along a curving track, then jump in hula hoops, then walk on a balance beam, then climb a ladder to reach their pinwheel prize.  For some reason, I don't have many photos of the kids doing the obstacle course, but I do have photos of the adults!

Here is Noah very patiently waiting for his turn on the obstacle course while making monster faces:

Then Grandpa got out the wheelbarrow and gave everyone wheelbarrow rides.  That was a big hit with everyone except for Megan.

 

 

 

Then Mom filled up the metal washtub with water and had the kids fish out prizes using tongs.  There were necklaces and plastic animals and little fairies.  This was a huge hit!  They ended up putting all the prizes back in and then fishing them out a few more times before the day was over.  They were all pretty good at using tongs, too, even Megan!

Next up was a water balloon toss, which was hilarious!  The goal was to try to toss a water balloon as many times as possible without breaking it.  Amelia took the game very seriously, and she and I got over 20 tosses, although we were standing fairly close to each other.  I think Natalie tried for a while and got maybe 7, and Megan attempted it, too, although she's not very good at either throwing or catching yet.

But Noah, oh funny Noah!  He pretty much just threw the water balloons at Grace.  Good thing Grace is a good sport!

Then we had a sack race and a strange hula hoop race:

 

 Grandpa created clues for a treasure hunt, which all the kids loved.  Amelia read all the clues out loud, then the kids went charging through the house to find the next clue.  At one clue, both Grandma and Grandpa had put Andes mints on Amelia's pillow.  What a treat! 

Amelia and Megan both wanted cat cakes, but we managed to convince Megan that hers could be a three layer chocolate cake with cats on the top.  Mom found cat shaped animal crackers at Trader Joe's and Megan used them to help decorate the cake.

 

And we had a pinwheel cake for Mom and a cherry pie for Grace.  They were kind enough to let the kids help blow out their candles.

 

Dad told Megan to "show him how the piggy eats" and so she did:

Amelia and Megan got some very nice presents, including this cool road puzzle and some Matchbox cars to drive on it. 

Amelia had mentioned that she wished she had a fancy doll bed, so Grandpa built this lovely bed and Grandma made a quilt, bed curtains and some fancy pillows.  So far, it has been used mostly by Barbies and stuffed cats, but maybe someday a doll will sleep in it!

Thanks to Mom and Dad for planning such a fun birthday party for the girls, and to Natalie and Noah for coming and playing with us!