picture parade

Brendan wrote this, Siena has just learned how to write the names of all our family members.

Siena and her cousin Brendan love drawing and doing art. They sat around doing art together for a good portion of the day. They went through a lot of Grandma's paper but they were having fun together and it was very interesting what they came up with. They said they were going to put on a picture parade. I thought I recorded it but can't find it. It was a pretty quick parade where they told us where to sit and then ran across the room with their pictures. It was really funny. I guess they each made books of all their drawings. They are very creative and I am glad they can play together that way since Siena doesn't have any other close girl cousins to play with.

remembering

We went up to Hershey this past weekend to spend time together as a family. It was the year mark of Daves dads passing. The kids were really excited to see Grandma and it was beautiful weather. We went to the cemetary with the cousins and Grandma and family to plant some bulbs for the Spring. It was a beautiful fall day at the cemetary. I find cemetaries very peaceful and I like visiting them. Siena and Ben still don't grasp the whole concept and I don't really think they understand it all. Siena got really quiet when we were riding up to PA and we told her we were going to go visit the gravesite of Grandpa. I think it scares her. We had a good time spending time together as a family though. We also raked millions and millions of leaves at Grandmas house and of course visited chocolate world.

pumpkin cooking

Siena has learned a lot at pre school. She comes home with all these great ideas of new things that she has done there that she wants to do here at home. Some of them are good. She decided at school that she liked pumpkin flavored things. We had 3 pumpkins outside our door so before they rotted too much we decided to cook them. They were delicious. We made cookies, pie and donuts. The donuts were kind of like scones. They were all good.
taking the faces off our pumpkins and cleaning them.

making sure the pumpkins are really clean

gutting them. Siena and Ben were never too fond of the seeds so we skipped the whole roasting part. they were actually pretty good at seeding them out though.

rolling out the donuts. making a mess.

the finished goods. they were really good, not too strong with the pumpkin flavoring.

I love finding my kids like this. Usually it is Ben clawing at Siena. Siena has finally taken to 'reading' to Ben. She knows most of her books now well enough to tell them. She does know how to spell some things.

Never again

It's finally done and Ben is almost three years old! Daves mom and my mom each made our own Christmas stockings when we were little. We are both really stubborn and like our stockings and didn't want to give them up so we could look matchy matchy as a new family. So we decided to be eclectic. We each kept our own stockings and I made Siena one and finally Ben has one. This is the third one that I made. I hated the other ones. Siena's is a basic felt cut and stitch around the picture. I decided I wanted to try cross stitching Ben one. O my gosh I will never pick up a needle and cross stich again. I hated it. I think I am going blind now but it is done. I definately didn't know what I was getting myself in to. So for the next baby I will be doing one of those easy felt ones again. I feel like I should get started right now for the next baby so she will have one by the time she is five. I am glad it is finally done with.

I found Ben this way after a long playdate day with no nap. He still needs his nap and takes one happily but he plays a lot more at bedtime now when he has a long nap. He was sitting on my computer chair eating a muffin watching pictures of himself on the computer. Poor boy.

Halloween

Siena decided to change costumes for this event. She didn't want to be either of the 2 other costumes planned. so she was Snow White and Ben is cooperative and Buzz Lightyear again.

Siting by their Mr. Potato Head pumpkins

knocking some doors. They were really impatient and left many houses before the people could come to the door. We went in our new neighborhood and didn't take into account that the houses are much farther apart than last years townhouses. Siena made it to one culd a sac street and a couple houses, Ben took Dave and went much further. It was funny that Siena came back first. She wanted to be home and give out candy to the people that came to our house. Unfortunately there were only 3 groups of people that dared come back to our house but Siena was really excited when she got to hand them candy. She was very generous with the candy too. Before we went out for the night we all got to put dibs on our favorite candy. I got all the Tootsie rolls, Siena got all the Smarties and Dave got all the Reese's cups. Ben didn't understand the whole concept of sharing at all. He did love running to each house. Dave and I were excited to meet more neighbors and while we were talking to them at the door Ben and Siena were already to the next house. Everyone was very friendly and very generous as there aren't a lot of trick o treaters around this neighborhood. Lucky us I guess.

school parade

my handsome buzz light year shooting laser beams at me.

Buzz ready to fight. He doesn't know what Buzz lightyear says he just knows that he shoots laser beams.

Mrs. Crawford and Mrs. Rawls preschool class

Siena is one lucky girl. She had lots of fun Halloween festivities. She was lucky enough that she can still dress up for preschool. Lucky for us we have a lot of costumes in our dress up box. She decided to be a ballerina for her school parade. She liked walking around with her teachers and when I showed up and tried to get a picture of her she completely ignored me. Real nice. I let Ben go dressed up and he was so excited. While we were walking out Batman and a Power ranger shot at him and Ben shot back with his laser beam. He loved his costume.

Trunk o treat

Jessie after a couple pieces of candy

my toy story gang

Ben getting the hang of it.

Jessie knowing exactly what to do.

my costume every year. we marched around at a parade before we went outside to get the goods.

We had our church trunk o treat the Thursday before Halloween. The kids were so excited. I think Siena remembered what to do from last year. Ben caught on quickly. We let the kids eat a good deal of candy afterwards and they were bouncing around the car on the way home and didn't go to sleep till 11 that night. Luckilly I hid the candy that night and I think when they woke up the next morning they thought all the candy was gone. They still haven't asked about it. The day after Halloween they remembered about trick o treating and they are asking for the candy constantly. I think next year they will remember their candy a little more.