More fun than a kitty in the pumpkin!

This is what I saw when I looked in on the playroom one day after hearing strange noises.

She looks guilty, doesn't she? I said, "Grace, what do you have in your hands?" She said, "nothing." Hmmmm. I asked, "What did you do?" She said she didn't do anything, giggle, giggle, giggle, smirk. I said, "Grace, what do you have behind your back?" She said, "Um....nothing..." and turned around really quick. I asked her to step to the side but she wouldn't. When I picked her up and moved her, I saw what the giggles had been about. She had a captive.


Greta was a happy captive and unwilling to come out! A little bit of Stockholm Syndrome, maybe? She even persuaded the others to join her!






Grace was convinced to trade places too!



When I first found Greta in the oven, I thought I'd have to mediate tears and talk about how it isn't nice to hold your sister captive in the toy appliances, but it turned out to be the most fun they all have had since they put kitty in the pumpkin! All four of them spent the next hour or so trading places in the oven.

Why boys are different.

Usually Xander and the girls play so well together that I wouldn't say that certain things they do are "boy" or "girl" things. But sometimes, it is clear that Xander is definitely a boy. Yesterday, for instance, he had a really bad stuffy nose. He sounded really congested and was having a hard time breathing. He was telling me about how he wasn't feeling well and then said, "And when I brushed my teeth, I didn't know it, but there was snot in my mouth, and I saw it when I spit it out!" Ewwwww!!! I think I did actually say "Ewwww" out loud. He then went on, "well, it is kind of cool if you are a boy.....because it is DNA. I had my actual real DNA right there. And nobody else's DNA would look like that. I bet nobody else's snot looks like mine either. There's would be maybe more green, or black, or maybe a different shape or size. It's sort of cool. And gross."

Ewwww!! I can't see Grace and Greta having that conversation with me. Because they would just think it was gross. And that's all. Just gross for them. Not gross and cool.

That time of year again!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Xander and Me in the Pumpkin!

So after the girls got out of the pumpkin, they thought it would be super if Xander and I got in too. Xander thought it was a great idea and I thought, hey- why not???
Because we're too big!! That's why not! I don't think the pumpkin was that big! And even if I did manage to squeeze in, I'd need help getting out. And do you think Jon would have helped? Of course he would. After spending hours taking pictures and laughing at me!

9 Months Ago!

Marie wore this outfit 9 months ago. She actually got it right after Christmas last year but these pictures are from Feb. and March 08.





And here we are in Nov. Still getting our money's worth out of these clothes!! She's gotten a little bigger and her face has lost some chub and matured, but I think she still looks a lot like Baby Marie.

Girls in the Pumpkin

Greta and Grace's initial excitement about getting into the pumpkin cooled a bit when they saw inside and then again when fitting inside wasn't as easy as they had expected. Still, they were easily convinced to go along with their plan and pose for some pictures!

Marie in the Pumpkin

The real reason for cutting up our giant pumpkin wasn't to humiliate Kitty. It was to stick Marie in and try to get some cute pictures. At first, she was not happy.



I didn't think we were going to get any good pictures. In fact, after we put her in the first time, took her out, played for a little while, and then went back into the kitchen where the pumpkin was, she took one look, started backing away, and said, "Noooooo." I think she was afraid we were going to stick her back in there. And that was the plan, but we decided to wait until later. When the girls got home from school, they thought the idea of getting into the pumpkin was the most fun thing ever!! They were practically racing to see who could get into it first! Who knew climbing into a pumpkin would sound so appealing to 4yr olds?? I don't know if it was seeing how cool Grace and Greta thought it was, the candy I was bribing her with, or the chicken dance I was doing to amuse her, but she was much happier in the pumpkin the 2nd time!

Pumpkin Fun

My friend Melissa put up some really cute fall pictures of her youngest. I thought they turned out so well but didn't really plan on copying her until Jon brought home a huge pumpkin for Halloween. I think when you wait until the day before Halloween to buy a pumpkin you either have to get a teeny one, more accurately called a gourd, from the grocery store, or you have to get one that was too big for everyone else! So we are copycats. We started off just trying it out quickly in the kitchen, but then we realized it had so much more potential so we moved to some better scenery outside.

I don't think Kitty thought it was such a great idea or as much fun as the rest of us.



Grace and Greta (and ok, Me!) thought it was a great photo op, however!!

Baby Love!

Marie has turned into a good little mommy to her baby dolls. She loves babies! I wonder if she knows she is still a baby? She has one baby that is more special than the others but she will love on any baby she can find and I think it is so cute! She feeds her babies, gives them kisses, pushes them in the stroller, tries to put clothes and diapers on them, puts them in the swing and does everything a good doll mommy should.

Here she is surrounded by some of her babies that she collected and placed around her by herself. She then went and kissed them all one by one!



And here she is sharing her lunch. She asked for "Baby" while she was eating so I stuffed her in beside her in the booster seat. Then, she proceeded to alternate giving her baby bites of her cookies and kisses.

My friends- NKOTB

Please vote for my good friends- NKOTB!!

My friends are trying to win a trip to Las Vegas to see NKOTB and have put together a little video. Please check them out and vote for them! They are the first video on the page.

NKOTB Video

Clone Wars Party!

Saturday, we hosted a Star Wars Clone Wars premiere party for the kids and some of their friends. About a month or so, I heard about something called Houseparty.com I signed up and just a few days later I was invited to participate in the Clone Wars premiere party! They sent us a big box full of free party favors, a new Darth Vader light saber for Xander, and a DVD with the premiere episode of the new Cartoon Network's Star Wars series. I think the series will premiere on tv in a week or two.

It was a lot of fun! The kids destroyed chalk deathstars, and then did an obstacle course where they knocked Darth Va-bear down the slide, zig-zagged through the bubbles, climbed to the highest tower to rescue Padme, and then defeated Darth Vader in a light saber battle! Actually, more than half of them were too scared to confront Darth Vader. After the games, we had pizza, watched the new show, and then they had fun trying on the masks and playing with their light sabers!

Wild Zoo Animals

The lions weren't the only wild animals we found at the zoo! Marie had a lot of fun being free to walk around and pointing to all of the animals she saw.

At the Park

When my parents were in town, we went to a nice park with a little lake. The plan was to get some nice pictures of the kids with their grandparents in a scenic area. Getting all 6 of them looking at the camera without looking goofy was hard.

This is one of the better ones:


When we weren't taking the group pictures, we had fun feeding the geese and ducks, climbing trees, exploring the banks, and playing on the playground next to the little lake.

Separated at Birth?

I was flipping through some old pictures of Xander to do a birthday post. I thought at around 2yrs old he looked an awful lot like a much photographed celebrity baby. What do you think? Ok. I know the other baby is a girl, but Xander was a very pretty baby! Funny, that she doesn't look anything like Xander's actual sisters!

Xander:



Other Baby:

More From the Gardens

Marie wasn't the only one being cute at the Botanical Gardens! Grace and Greta were also posing nicely. The girls love the gardens. They love flowers, fountains, pools of water, and all the pretty things. Xander's smiles that day, however, were a little forced.