Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from our mermaid and our workout girl! We've had a few Halloween celebrations already - at our church harvest party and the Halloween library story time earlier today. We will trick-or-treat around our neighborhood tonight and hope that everyone goes to sleep okay after that!

Playing At The Library

Yesterday after nap time we went to the library to look for some books to check out and to play. I love the library and we have a great library system in Springfield. We have several branches and all of them have story times and activities for kids, ages infant up to teenagers. We've gone to several story times the past few years and both girls really enjoy it. The libraries also have play areas for toddlers that both girls like to play at. They are good, "teaching" play areas - great for mom and kids!

My Cute Kids

I have some really cute kiddos, if I do say so myself!

Silly Me...

Each day Lucy goes to preschool she brings home a folder that has her "work" in it and a behavior chart showing if she earned a green, yellow, or red sticker for the day. She's been at preschool for a little over two months now and has come home with a green sticker each day. We are so proud of her.

One day her teachers sent home a note in her folder. I started to read it and saw the "we just want you to know..." and didn't go any farther because I got sidetracked. After reading those few words, though, I got really excited and proud thinking the rest of it would say something like "...we love having Lucy in class. She is such a joy and so full of life and energy. We just love her."

When I got back to reading the note I quickly realized that was not the case, as you can see from the note below. Instead of gushing with love for Lucy, the teachers were telling me they were having a hard time with Lucy not wanting to do her crafts because she didn't want to get messy...like messy with glue on her fingers. I had so many emotions at one time!

• Embarrassment for thinking they would send home a note saying how much they loved Lucy.
• Disappointment because it was not a note like that. 
• Fear because Lucy got a note saying she wasn't doing something right. 
• Frustration in trying to figure out how to help Lucy understand it's okay to get messy or dirty. (She is definitely not our "let's get dirty child. She can pick out a tiny spec of dirt on her finger and demand it be cleaned up.) 
• Sadness because Lucy got a "disciplinary" so-to-say note home.............

I had a good laugh at myself after a few minutes and realized that I need to chill out about this, especially considering she's in her first semester of preschool and has a long, long, long "school life" ahead of her!

An Extra Child

I guess I don't really know what else to say other than I love having little girls!

Shopping With Molly

Molly is 19 1/2 months old. This is a very fun age in terms of her learning new things and just her silly little antics, but it is also a very challenging age, especially when it comes to shopping. I feel like I'm saving us money because I hardly ever go shopping anymore because it's just hard with Molly in tow. And if I do go shopping, I am in and out of the store as fast as possible so not to run into any problems with Molly.

She's not much for sitting in the seat part of a shopping cart, but does like to sit/stand in the big part of the cart. While in the cart she gets into anything she can. One of her favorite things to do is get my wallet out of the bag and pull out every single thing that is in my wallet and play with it. She also likes to get into some of the food that's in our cart.

She will last maybe 5-10 minutes in the cart and then starts asking to get out. When she does get out, she wants to help push the cart or run around all over the store. Sometimes she doesn't want to do anything by lay down on the floor in the middle of an aisle. Such is life with a young toddler!

Baby Toys

We had our friends, John and Pam, over for dinner one weekend, along with their little 4 1/2-month-old baby Elisabeth. Our girls were excited to see the baby, especially Molly! It was really cute to watch Molly try and talk to and play with Elisabeth. Elisabeth used our bouncy seat for the evening and Molly had a great time bringing her toys to play with. It was so cute!

Little Red Riding Hood Costume

My friend asked me to make a Little Red Riding Hood Halloween costume for her two-year-old daughter. She sent me a link to a "pattern" for it and I said yes, thinking it didn't look too hard to make. I'm glad I said yes because it really wasn't hard to make at all. It took me two days to make, just because of limited time due to my kids, but had I probably could have completed it in about 1 1/2 hours had I worked on it all at once.

It was fairly simple. I just cut a big half circle and hemmed the edges for the cape. The hood was a bit tricky, trying to figure out the correct size and how to sew it on and have it look right, but I did it! And I found the toggle clasp at Hobby Lobby and hand sewed that on. I was quite pleased with how it turned out! And wasn't Lucy such a wonderful, willing model for me?! :)

Baby Needs Breakfast, Too

Last Friday morning I sat Molly down at the table with some yogurt to eat breakfast. She had been carrying her baby doll around and wanted baby to eat breakfast with her. I didn't care, so put baby on the table next to her breakfast. It's a good thing I did, too. Baby must have told Molly she was hungry because Molly fed some yogurt to her baby. :)