The Princess and The Pea

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

This is Ella & her little girlfriend. They spent some time together at our Lunch Bunch Halloween shindig. The "Little Stinker" (she's a skunk) was indulging in a little treat, and Ella was anxious to get a taste!

Pumpkin Carving

Lexi has been excited for weeks to carve her pumpkin. She picked it out all by herself when we were at the apple orchard. Tonight we finally did it. She designed the pumpkin face all by herself, drawing a little sketch on paper for Daddy to follow. Then she helped Daddy do the work- including drilling the holes for the nose and eyes- and signed her work. We are definitely not expert pumpkin carvers, but it was fun! Too bad I kind of burned the pumpkin seeds.

Angry

Lexi and I had a power struggle this afternoon. She was really exhausted, which I am sure contributed to her attitude. I won't go into details, but she was really angry and stomped off to the living room to cry and pout. She ended up falling asleep in this position with her head under the pillow.

Halloween Party

Tonight we went to the ward Halloween Party. It's always well attended. The kids go trick-or-treating around to all the classrooms and there's food, music, games and a costume contest. Matt & I are rather non-festive, but Lexi & Ella wore costumes. Lexi was Belle (from Beauty & the Beast) and Ella was a peapod. Lex was VERY uncooperative and wouldn't let me take a good photo of her. (Jess, did you get one?)

The Forbes Galleries

Today was a rainy day, so I decided to take the kids down to visit the Forbes Magazine Galleries. I've heard about it a couple of times in the past, but had never ventured there before today. It's not a huge place, and there's nothing really hands-on to do there, but it does hold a fairly impressive collection of toys- mostly boats & soldier dioramas and old game boards (mostly Monopoly). One display in particular had a glass-bubble window and when you look through the window, it appears that you are laying in bed with all your toys all around. The display was inspired by a Robert Louis Stevenson Poem.

After the gallery, we got some pizza for lunch and stopped at Trader Joe's. Thank goodness there were elevators at all the subway stops after we picked up a hefty amount of food.

Jumping

For your entertainment... seems Ella is very interested in the door frame.

The Entertainer

Lexi is taking her job as big sister very seriously... she's becoming better and better every day at entertaining Ella.

Food Glorious Food

I did not plan on starting Ella on solid foods until close to Thanksgiving. I started Lexi around 4 months, and looking back, I don't think she was really quite ready at the time. However, the past couple of weeks, Ella's eyes have been carefully following food to our mouths, she has reached 15 pounds, she can sit up fairly well in her high chair, and her sleep periods at night have gotten a little shorter. When we visited the pediatrician last week, she said, "Oh, she's definitely ready to try some solids." So today, we bought some rice cereal for her. At dinner, I had Ella on my lap for a little while and was kind of teasing her with a biscuit- just touching her lip with it to see if she would open her mouth. She did! And when I pulled the biscuit away, she started crying. This from a kid who doesn't really cry very much. So, we popped her in the high chair, mixed up some cereal and gave spoon feeding a try... as the saying goes, "She ate it up!" Looks like we're moving into the world of solids.

**Oh, and in case you noticed the splint on my left hand... it's to minimize my use of my left thumb- it was injured in "the incident". It's on the mend and I'll hopefully be able to rid myself of the splint in another week and a half or so. The girl is facing 5-25 years, though, now that I have a documented injury.

Lexi's Family

Lexi recently drew this picture of her family. From left to right are: Grandma Susan, Aunt Allie, Daddy, Alexis, Ella, Mommy. Is it significant that I have the fattest head? She wrote her name by herself, without even asking what letters to write (we're still working on making the *X* different from a *t*).

Apple Picking!

 

 

 

 

On Monday, Columbus Day, Matt & Grandma had the day off, so we opted to go apple picking in beautiful *upstate* New York (so it's not really upstate, but anything north of the city is considered UPSTATE. Matt has always teased me for wanting to do this sort of thing because he feels that we are really just cheap labor for the orchard. Hey, we want some apples, so we'll come to your orchard in 90 degree weather (yes, it really was that hot that day!) and we'll even PAY to perform some manual labor. But, as we were driving away from the farm, Matt was the first to pipe up and say, "Well, that was a fun little excursion!" We visited Lawrence Farms and came home with several pounds of apples & a couple of pumpkins. We also spent some time driving through Cornwall & reminiscing about our summers there as kids (both my mother & I).
Lexi was not really cooperating with the picture taking, hence the photo of her backside... but we did manage to get a smile out of Ella!
Yesterday, Lexi and I made some homemade applesauce from our hand picked apples. Looking forward to some apple pie, too!