Thursday, November 27, 2008

Eating snowflakes

Monday night I was looking through "The Friend" for a quick lesson to give for Family Home Evening. I came across a very easy, fun, and quick treat to make for the night. Edible Snowflakes:

Fold your tortilla in half three times and then cut it up like you would a paper snowflake. Cook in some hot oil for a few minutes and then sprinkle with powdered sugar. The girls love it. At first Adelynne didn't want to eat her snowflake, but she soon caved. We've made them again since Monday and they really are fun.


Amy and Molly

Amy and Molly are just a few weeks apart in age, so they are fun to get together.  We decided to get them to play "Ring around the Roses" together.  Its a classic, and something fun to watch any child this age play.  But here is our cute girls:

"... And they all fall down!"

Kim laughing hysterically (sorry Kim, but I think its a great picture). I don't know if its proof that the girls were funny, or if we were so tired that everything was hilarious.

Amy being tickled because that's what happens when you "fall down." Amy does this little fake laughing sound until we start to tickle her and make her really laugh.
18-month-olds are so cute!  I love this age.

Snapshots

Cute baby:


Strange super hero. She likes to put all the oven mitts on her feet and hands, but wouldn't let us get a picture. And of course, no pants:

Monday, November 17, 2008

"Oh Christmas Tree"



Yes, I know its a little early for this, but the girls and I are leaving town on December 9th, and we wanted to enjoy our Christmas decorations before we left.  This is actually the first year we've decorated a tree because we haven't had one before.  When our neighbors moved out the gave us their tree and some ornaments.  The girls had such a great time decorating the tree.  I didn't think Amy would get it, but she knew just what to do, and wasn't going to just be an observer.  Amy tried really hard to spread the ornaments around the tree, but there isn't too many places you can reach when you are 18 months old.  Adelynne did a great job too and was disappointed when we ran out of ornaments.  



Here are some of the decorations around the apartment:

What I found in the dryer

So I was just doing the laundry like always, and I had my little "helper" right beside me playing with the dryer door.  The next thing I know, Amy is climbing in the dryer.  And it didn't take long for Adelynne to join her.  They played for a good half an hour before I called them to eat their lunch.  Maybe next time I'll just find dry clothes.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Nursery Girls

Yesterday Adelynne picked out pink dresses for the girls to wear to church. Yesterday was a significant day for all of us because it was Amy's first day in nursery! She was old enough last week, but we had stake conference, so there was no nursery. Dustin and I prepped Adelynne about Amy going to nursery and being in there with her. We told Adelynne that she could take Amy all by herself (with us trailing close behind). Adelynne and Amy held hands down the hallway, and Adelynne walked Amy up to the door with the baby gate. Amy grabbed the gate and started shaking it so that she could get in. As soon as Amy was in, she ran for the first baby stroller available, and then she proceeded to find a baby doll to put in it. Adelynne headed off to snack time with the older kids, and Amy was as happy as could be. She never looked back for mom or dad.

When we picked her up, we were told that Amy had done great, but that she had started to get a little nervous. When she did, the nursery leaders just put her in snack time with Adelynne. From there, Amy followed Adelynne to lesson time, and then back into the play room. Once Amy was back with the toys she did her own thing and didn't care who was around. I'm glad that Amy had a great time, and it was nice to enjoy church without chasing her around.

A week of Halloween

Finally, here are all of the activities and pictures from the week of Halloween. We started the Halloween festivities on October 25th. First we went to Border's Book Store where they were having a little Halloween activity for children. The girls got some candy and then got to listen to some Halloween stories. I had just finished the girls' costumes the night before and I was very pleased with the outcome. So I was determined to let the girls take every advantage of wearing them-and they did!

Friday night I put Adelynne's hair in curlers so that she could be a curly-haired witch. Now, you should know that when we asked Adelynne what she wanted to be for Halloween, she would say, "A witch!" And I would ask her if she wanted to be a scary witch or a nice witch. She would say "A nice witch." I figured that having curly hair would accentuate the idea of her being a nice witch. Unfortunately, I did not wash her hair before putting the curlers in, and the curls just didn't stay in her hair. She turned out to be a nice, cute witch anyway. And Amy was an adorable black cat-which I thought made a cute accessory for the witch.

Saturday October, 25th


Sunday night we carved pumpkins, and this year I bought the stencil kit so I could carve a fancy one. As I was carving the top off, I was talking up to Adelynne how cool the inside of the pumpkin was going to be. When the top came off, she was not convinced. Adelynne refused to touch any of it, but Amy put her arm in the pumpkin, as you can see. It was funny to see the girls' personalities come out so differently through carving pumpkins.



Monday afternoon the girls and I decorated some sugar cookies. If I had anticipated all of the cookie decorating we would encounter throughout the week, I would have left this activity out of our day, but nevertheless, we decorated cookies and had fun. Adelynne would have filled her cookie with the pumpkin candies if she could have, but I convinced her that two was plenty.


Monday October, 27th: Trick-or-Treating
Yes, on Monday we started trick-or treating. Living in a college town is great for Halloween. The college students love to have the little children come to their dorms, and that's what we did. A set of girls' dorms hosted a halloween party and trick-or-treating. At the party, Adelynne had a spider painted on her cheek, and the girls decorated cookies. And then Amy colored a pumpkin, Adelynne played, "Put the nose on the pumpkin." Adelynne is really good at cheating at these types of games. And then Adelynne played in a game of "musical chairs." She only lasted two rounds before she was out. Then we headed down the halls for some trick-or-treating. The girls were so cute, Amy was practically running down the hallway from door to door. And Adelynne sweetly said, "Trick-or-treat," and "Thank you," at every door. I love it when the students would let out coos and awws when they saw the girls, and we heard lots of them.


Tuesday was the only day of the week that the girls didn't put on their costumes. But on Wednesday I took the girls to a halloween story time at the Lafayette Library. Sorry, no pictures.

Wednesday night we went to a local church: The Calvary Baptist Church (yes, the Mormons crashed the Baptist's party), for some Halloween carnival fun and trunk-or-treating. The girls enjoyed playing the games and getting more candy. I don't think we'll go back next year because it was really crowded, but we enjoyed it. Dustin and I have just been very ambitious and excited to do all the Halloween activities we could find. Sorry, no pictures.

On Thursday we did more trick-or-treating at the dorms. The first building we went to the girls buckets were over-flowing with goodies. Then we went to a second building, (and we had emptied the buckets), the girls filled their buckets up half-way. The difference in the filling of the buckets was the gender of the students. More female students participate in giving out candy, than the male students do, so naturally Adelynne and Amy received more candy from the female students. But after going to the boys' dorms we went home and counted up the loot. Sorry, no pictures again.

Friday October, 31st: The real trick-or-treating
Adelynne and I made and decorated a cake for Daddy. We just needed another excuse to eat sugar at our house. (Okay, not really). It was a dark chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting-who can resist that? Dustin enjoyed it immensely.

Friday night we started at the Purdue Village Halloween Activity, which wasn't much more than cookie decorating and coloring. We were there long enough for the girls to eat a cookie or two, and then we headed to our church for a costume parade and trunk-or-treating. The girls enjoyed walking around the gym and then they sat very well together with all of the other kids. After the trunk-or-treating I thought we could stop by a few houses so Adelynne could do the real thing. I was thinking we would stop by a friends house, but they weren't home. Adelynne was a little confused and kept asking to go in to someone's house, so I thought we should go to our friend's house, the Everett's. When we got there, Adelynne got to play with her friend Lizzy. This was her favorite part of the night. We visited with our friends for over an hour, and it was hard to pull Adelynne away, but Amy was so tired and crying over everything that we knew we had to go. Dustin and I had certainly had our fill of Halloween. And now we've got the candy to prove it. The girls each have a 1 gallon ice cream bucket full of candy, and then Dustin and I have a 1 gallon freezer bag full of our "taxed" candy. We'll see how long it lasts.