Happy Halloween!

Penelope Decorating Our porch

Violet on the way to the walkabout.

Penelope and Celeste downtown.

Penelope, Celeste, and Deagan getting treats.

The girls petting a hot dog.

This is Boo, one of our neighbors. She was born on Halloween.

Steve is pretty scary.

Our porch with all our pumpkins.

On Halloween morning at The Buttonwood Park Zoo.

So cute I can't stand it.

I really loved having my girls dressed as fairies  for  a couple  days in a row.

Vinny throwing candy to the kids after the show.

Violet so proud of her lollipop.

Penelope with her hoard.

This cat moved it's head every so often and Violet was at once terrified and fascinated.

Halloween night, the girls getting ready.

On the porch right before trick or treat time.

Pen was really scared to go here because it was very haunted looking.

Pen got into a fight with a stingy candy hander outer here.

Cool spider pumpkin on our neighbor's porch.

I loved this one!

I think she counted 23 of these.

Happily going through the loot.

This is what happens when you give a baby candy and let her stay up late.

Vi stirring the cauldron before picking out her animal card for the year.

Pen stirring the cauldron.

Reading Sheep Trick or Treat before bed.

Halloween was a lot of fun this year because Penelope was big enough to really get into it. She and I had the best time decorating our porch while Violet napped one afternoon. She was too cute going through the Halloween stuff in the big Halloween bin in the basement. She surprised me by pulling out a pumpkin decoration and telling me she found one that said "BOO". When I asked her how she knew what it said she told me that she knew that  B O O said BOO. I made a big deal out of it, that she had read her first word, and she was so proud and excited. She must have learned it from a Halloween book we read, I guess.

We had a great time at the walkabout downtown on Sunday. Aunt Linda and Jess and the kids came over and Penelope was so happy to have her cousins here. There were tons of kids this year, and I think maybe just as many dogs who were dressed up too. My favorite I never got a picture of, but the dog was a banana and the little girl he came with was a monkey.

We had a family pumpkin decorating party, Steve carved two, but Penelope and I used paint, glue, feathers, pom poms, pipe cleaners and glitter to make some fabulous creations. Violet was content playing with pom poms at her highchair.

On Halloween The girls and I went to the zoo for Toe Jam's Halloween party. They did spooky shadow puppets, sang Halloween songs, and threw out candy for the kids. Last year Pen only got a single lollipop and was perfectly happy with that,  but this year she was just as aggressive as all the other kids and got a bunch of candy. Violet scared me by disappearing into the crowd and then came out just fine with a lollipop clenched in her chubby fist.

After a long nap for both girls we headed out for trick or treating. Steve joined us after he got home and it was so much fun. Penelope was really into it, and she knew so many of the kids we met along the way and was excited to see their costumes. There was only one near ugly incident when Penelope went to a door and was given a single Reece's mini peanut butter cup and she asked if she could have one for her sister ( Vi was in the stroller and Pen was bringing her candy from each house to put in her little bucket, just to keep her happy)  and the woman didn't believe she had a sister. Penelope pointed Vi out and then the woman said that no, she couldn't have one for her sister because her sister was too little for candy and anyhow she didn't even have any teeth. Penelope became enraged and told the woman that her sister did too have teeth, seven of them, in fact! And she also informed her that it was her mother's job to decide what her sister could and couldn't have. Fortunately this was when Steve called to say he was home and find out where we were.

After trick or treating was done we came home and Penelope counted her candy, she ate as much as she wanted (which really wasn't much at all), chose five pieces she wanted to keep, and put the rest out for the Halloween fairy. Then we all chose our animal cards for the year, read a couple Halloween books, and went to bed. In the morning the girl's candy was gone and two cute little dogs on wheels with strings to pull them with were there instead. The girls have been playing happily with them all week.

"F" Week

Feeding Friends

In the Forest

In the Forest

Fern in the Forest

French Fries

Flap Jacks

Frittata

Fraction Flowers

Fort

Penelope and I have been homeschooling  preschool since just after Labor Day. We just finished our week of "F". We began our week with a walk in the Forest. Penelope loves the Forest we went to because of the darling trio of horse Friends we pass on our way to the trail. Penelope brought them an apple and was so very happy to visit with them. Then we had a wonderful Forest walk while Baby slept peacefully in the baby carrier. Penelope found so many Fairy houses and also  bunch of Ferns.

For foods we made Falaffle, French Fries (baked, not fried), Flap jacks (three times), Frittata (the tofu kind), and an amazing Farfalle pumpkin, sage, sausage dish.

We made a beautiful rainbow Fish, a Fan, and Fraction Flowers. Penelope used her F stamps a lot this week. Both the letter F and Flower and Fawn stamps. She was also  was very much into her tracing workbook and sat down and did 15 pages at once one day and 12 pages another day. She did lots of cutting with scissors, as she always does, and even though they don't begin with F both girls were very into puzzles this week. They also spent a lot of time at the sand/water table and Pen colored a bunch of Fairy and Fish pictures.

Pen decorated our F table with Flowers, Foals, Feathers, and Fish. We read Ferdinand, Fairy books, books about Foals, Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, and so many more. We had ordered One Fish, Two Fish, and The Rainbow Fish, and The Foot Book from the library, but they didn't come in time for F week. We also did the hand rhymes I Have Ten Little Fingers, Five Fat Peas in a Pod, 1 2 3 4 5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive, and the song Five Green and Speckled Frogs.

I was so excited when Pen spent a long time writing and showed me her work and it was half of the alphabet and completely on her own she copied the word peace from the golden peace sign that hangs from up high in our living room. I'll keep that one forever. The first word my little Penelope wrote on her own was PEACE!

So we are done with F and onto G!

Tooth Brushing Sisters

Violet is a little obsessed with brushing her teeth right now. I remember Penelope being exactly the same way about it when she was Vi's age. Violet must brush her teeth five or six times a day, Penelope only does it about twice a day, but finds herself constantly in the bathroom helping her clean teeth obsessed sister turn on the water, and turn off the water, and turn on the water and turn off the water.

These pictures were taken in the morning before we went apple picking last weekend. I don't mind the excessive hygiene but I am trying to get Violet to understand that she needs to keep the toothbrush in the bathroom at all times. I keep finding it in odd places, like in a pot in the cupboard or in the bathtub of the dollhouse or a random shoe. It's not so bad to find the toothbrush in weird places, but she does this with everything lately. She was toddling around with a banana a few days ago and after the girls were asleep I realized the rest of her banana was unaccounted for. I searched high and low before deciding to try and think like a one year old. Where she put it actually made sense, sort of. I found the browning and somewhat mushy banana remains in their toy kitchen's oven, right next to some pretend pizza and a doll's shoe.

The Very Cutest Punkins

Penelope at one year, picking pumpkins.

Penelope with her "pum pum"

Violet at one year picking pumpkins.

Violet swinging at the apple orchard.

Penelope swinging at the apple orchard.

I can't believe how cute they both are in these pictures. I remember that Penelope called pumpkins pum pums. Violet has no word for them yet, although this afternoon when I was frustrated with Pen and began to count out loud from one to three for her to stop doing what she was doing I said "one" and Violet said "two, three"!

They are such very different people, but both the cutest pum pums ever.

Pumpkin Time

These pictures are from the past two weekends. There are two separate Saturday Farmer's Market days, and our big apple picking trip of the year. My brother Charles came with us, he and Penelope were most excited to get their pumpkins. We had a great day with a peanut butter and jelly picnic, lots of roaming around the huge apple orchard, picking and sampling apples, and choosing the perfect pumpkins. We ran into some pretty cute little pumpkin cousins while we were there too. And everywhere we go lately there seems to be a big box of squashes right at Violet's level, which she loves. She is wearing Penelope's old pumpkin hat, and I need to find some of the pictures of Pen here at this very orchard when she was one year and wearing the same hat to show her.