stored away on my phone

cute new outfits by Grandma.

Ben, Claire and I went to the Burger Joint for my birthday lunch one day. I don't know if Ben was especially cute or if it was because we were the first customers of the day but they gave us this huge free cookie. So good. Ben is showing us that it is as big as his face.

Ben and Siena went to an awesome birthday party this past weekend. It was a carnival theme with a bounce house, pumpkin decorating, face painting and balloon animals. It was amazing. The dad even made this picture cut out. So cool.

Another class at Hidden Pond Nature Center. This time it was all about butterflies. The teacher, Ms. Carmen bought one of those kits where you can raise butterflies. Today was the day that we were going to let them all go. It was very cool. I think there were only 3 or 4 that survived and flew away.

Ben helping plant some milkweed at the Nature Center. These are plants that the butterflies love to land on. At the end of the class we took some seeds home too so hopefully come Spring we will have tons of butterflies to look at on our plants.

playing toss the bean bag into the box. I guess it was to occupy the kids because we all couldn't plant at the same time. It's funny how fast these kids lose interest in things.

Claire moves

She crawls. Well, she moves. She doesn't get up on her hands and knees but somehow she rolls or pulls herself forward for the things that she wants. Today she found the electronics. O joy! I was really enjoying the siting and playing with toys in one spot phase.

Halloween Party

Siena and Ben really wanted to have a Halloween party with their friends this year. We decided to do it one day after school when they had early release so it wouldn't be too late in the day. Ben and I made some fun decorations while Siena was at school and we were ready to have some fun.
My kids were a total disaster!!!!!!! I don't know what happened. Siena cried for half of the party because she wasn't getting the things that she wanted and Ben just seemed mean. I don't know if it was such a good idea to have the party at the end of the school day.
We had a witch ring toss, a jack o lantern bean bag toss and decorated cupcakes. I am sure the sugar high didn't help with my kids attitudes. I have since sworn off candy for the next month. I let the kids run off their energy outside afterwards. Then they watched a Halloween show Bubble Guppies. My kids say they had a good time and I hope their friends did too even though my kids were grouchy the whole time. Sarah, Cristopher, Siena, Kennedy and Ben.

intently decorating cupcakes. I eventually had to take the toppings away from the table.

Kindergarten

Siena loves Kindergarten. There hasn't been a day where she is sad to go so it makes me very happy. Honestly, I miss her. It is a long day. We start school really late and it is good because we are not morning people. She goes from 9- 3:45. So we get home about 4. It's not like she has homework or anything but it seems like it is the end of the day when she gets home. It is a good thing we start so late because there has been many times we wake up at 8:30 and still make it to school on time. We haven't been late yet. It's just a good thing we don't take the bus. It's been nice Ben and Claire will take a nap before we pick her up so we can play at school afterwards. It's nice for me to have a little quiet time before school gets out. Sometimes we stay after school and play with her friends. It's fun to see her actual interaction with her friends. So far all the girls seem fun. They have these fun homework bags that they get to bring home on occasion. Yesterday Siena got to bring one home and it was the book Hop on Pop and the stuffed character Pop. It was so cute she loved getting to snuggle with pop all night. Almost every day she bring home a picture she has colored for me or Dave. They are learning a lot of letters and patterns. She says she is learning how to read but right now it seems like she is just memorizing the words. Maybe that is how they teach her. Just this week she has told me that they don't take naps anymore. I think she was actually taking a little nap because she wouldn't fall asleep till 11 every night. Lately she has been really grumpy right around dinner time so I think she still needs her nap. It's a long day. I am really proud of her and glad that she is having so much fun.

Claire 7 months

Claire is 7 months now. She has started eating a lot. I have decided I don't really like this stage of introducing new foods because it is a big mess. She seems to like everything we have given her. She just started puff cereal this week and loves siting at the table with us eating 'real' food. I think it has helped her be happier between feedings. She is a happy girl. She hasn't started crawling yet. I think I am mostly to blame for that. I don't really want her to move all around and baby proof my house. She doesn't have a lot of tummy time. When she does have time down on the floor she gets around by rolling to where she wants to be. She loves to sit and play with the kids or with a toy. I like this stage where she can't move. She squeals all day long. It is very loud and funny. I think I can feel one of her upper teeth trying to poke through. It is crazy to me how fast she has gotten teeth. It's fun she gets excited when we come and pick her up like she recognizes us.

Homestead Farm

We went out to Maryland to a farm to pick pumpkins and apples. We love taking the hay ride out to the pumpkin patch. I think that may be the highlight of the trip. It has been crazy rainy here so the pumpkin patch was completely rotted. It was very hard to find good pumpkins. We thought we found two but when we got them in the car to come home Siena poked a whole in hers. They are all pretty soggy. O well, we convinced her that that is where we will carve his eye. We hope that works. It was fun to go explore the patch. Then we quickly went over to pick some apples. I think we were too late in the season or just too late on a Saturday afternoon because they were all picked off the trees. There still were some good ones on the ground but we didn't get the satisfaction of picking them off the trees. Next year I guess we will just have to go earlier in the year. It still was a fun trip out to the farm and it was a beautiful fall day. This is one of our favorite things to do.

Fire station open house

stop drop and roll

so serious about spraying the hose.

We started out the day playing at the fire station. This is so much fun. fun food, fun trucks to play on and you get to pretend you are a fireman. total bliss.

Happy Birthday!

Claire enjoying what she can get.

lots of present. slippers, rain boots and a shopping spree at Target

a lot of candles.

I had a fabulous birthday and got to spend it with family all weekend. We did our annual pumpkin patch/apple picking and fire station open house on my birthday. It was a busy day. It was beautiful fall weather and the kids were extra nice to me. Claire didn't get the memo to be nice to me that day. She was kind of fussy and wanted to be held most of the day. I guess she just wanted to spend extra time with me. We really need to get that baby more adapted to a schedule. I love how excited the kids get to celebrate anyones birthday. It made the day great!

cuz I can play dress up with her still...

right before the meltdown. she finally realized she had a hat on.
don't worry she didn't eat any.

now she has a matching ballerina outfit with Siena

new cousin

Claire looks so big next to her. I can't believe she was actually that size not too long ago.

We are so excited that we have a new girl cousin on the Meilstrup side. We have a lot more boys than girls. Including Claire there has been 3 girls just this year. We got to meet cute Elise and are glad they live so close that the girls can have fun together when they get a little older. We are getting together this weekend with all the three little girls and we get to spend a week at a beach house next summer with all of them. By then they will all be little terrors.

going to the zoo

the new elephant house area. He was more interested in all these t.v's than the actual real elephants.
playing in the tunnels.

Claire was there too.

I feel like I don't do as many fun things with Ben that I did with Siena. I am trying to fix that and plan fun outings. The weather has been beautiful around here so we decided to go to the zoo. I was excited and hoped he would like it with just me and him and Claire I guess. I hoped he wouldn't be bored without Siena. We had a good time and I think he liked being in charge of where we went and what we did without Siena. We found some friends there and Ben turned in to a little terror. You know whenever you go out with kids you always see some poor mom trying to wrangle her screaming kid around and you are thankful that it isn't you. Yeah, that was us this time. This was supposed to be fun, and he was having a meltdown at every turn. It was so sad and made me not want to go out on fun trips with him anymore.

Hidden pond nature center

Ben takes a nature quest class every Monday at Hidden Pond Nature Center. He loves it so much. He thinks he is so big now that he can take classes without Siena. It is such a fun class. It's mostly 3 year old boys exploring outside. At the begining of class we sit inside and learn about what we are going to do and what animals we are going to see and we usually get to pet those animals first. Ben has got to touch a snake, a frog and see lots of insects close up. There has been classes about bugs and insects and rocks and minerals. Usually it involves going out to the pond and having nets in the water or digging through dead logs to find bugs. Perfect for little boys. I am surprised at how many little girls there are. I always think Siena would never do this. There was one class where we caught 3 frogs. It's very fun. The first class we were hunting for insects and Ben didn't find any so we stayed after class till we found some. It took a long time but he really wanted to find a bug.

Another class we went to we had nets down by the pond. Imagine 15 little 3 year olds hanging off a pier dipping nets into the water trying to catch something. I about had a heart attack, but luckilly no one fell in. So this last class was our favorite. It was about rocks and minerals. We got to see lava rocks and some crystals. We made a pet rock and then went outside to make a volcano. Ben was so excited about this, I don't really think he knew what was going to happen. He is always talking about explosions and volcanos. Months ago I had to hide a book about volcanos that we have because it is way too long and he wanted to read it a thousand times a day. It was too frustrating for me. We may have to get the book back out.

Here is Ben after he formed his volcano out of mud.

Its starting to explode. He was totally caught off guard and didn't know what was going to happen.

loving the explosion. We did the explosion 3 times he loved it so much. He was sad that we had to leave the mess there. I was happy we didn't get to bring home the volcano.

Random picture of Siena. My little punky Brewster. I figure, she is still in Kindergarten she can still look a little crazy.