Halloween 2009, Revisted

Emma's preschool doesn't "celebrate" Halloween, but they do hold a "harvest" festival the week before Halloween. The theme was Creepy Crawlers, so Emma pulled out her costume from last year. The black dress from last year is now more of a tunic. Stay tuned for this years' costume.

Summer Flashback: Old Friends, New Friends

When we visited Dave's sister and her family in Wisconsin this summer, we were also able to visit with one of my dearest friends (and former college roommate). It was really fun to meet her son (who was born a week or so before Madeline), and get to know her husband a little better. We visited their apartment and saw the beautiful campus of the University of Wisconsin--Madison and the surrounding lakes.

I love the kids in this picture. Emma is posing, Maddie is hunting for a snack, and Owen is quenching his thirst.

It was so fun to see you, Jen! (Perhaps next year in Germany???)

Arboretum Pumpkin Festival

It's no secret that the Dallas Arboretum is one of my favorite places. This time of year they hold "The Great Pumpkin Festival." We've been several times this month to enjoy all of the festivities. Madeline's favortite by far is the petting zoo:




While Maddie preferred the goats, who were roughly her same size, Emma liked the horse:

We searched for the perfect pumpkins:

And took some fun pictures in the pumpkin patch:




We checked out the pumpkin houses, outside:


...and inside:

They have lots of great activities for kids. Emma did a craft, and got her face painted:


After exploring all of the seasonal offerings, the girls pulled up a patch of grass and settled in for a Kindermusik class in the garden:

Summer Flashback: It's All Relative

Last summer we were able to go visit Dave's sister and her family up in Wisconsin. It is especially fun for the girls to see their cousins. This trip was the first time that Madeline (14 months at the time) and her cousin Rachel (19 months) were cognizant of each other and could actually play together. Though a mere five months separates these two girls, when you count your age in months, it's a relative concept. Rachel thought that Madeline was a "baby" and did her best to take care of her, such as the feeding going on below. Maddie, for her part, played along for a little while before she became indignant. :)

Channeling Fall

It's still pretty much summer here in North Texas (albeit a MUCH more pleasant "summer" than the actual summer), but sometimes, for a few hours in the mornings, we can put on sweaters and pretend that it's actually fall.

Summer Flashback: Heard Wildlife Museum

One of the items on our Summer Fun List was to visit the Heard Wildlife Museum and Sanctuary. So one day in July when it wasn't supposed to be TOO hot (read: less than 100) we ventured up to McKinney. The day started off with story time and an art project:

We checked out the exhibit on Ice Age Animals. Emma is trying really hard not to be terrified:


This huge femur was found in Rockwall:

We did a little digging for fossils:

Checked out the animals:

And did some hiking on one of the many trails:





I especially loved all of the huge TREES! So green and beautiful! We will definitely be back, perhaps on a day that is a little cooler than this one was.

Disney: Day 5

Friday was our last day at Disney. We quickly packed our things in the morning, dropped our luggage off at the front desk, and went to spend our last day in our favorite park: the Magic Kingdom, of course. Though we had to check out of the hotel, we still managed to make it in time for the opening ceremony:

See that lucky family next to Mickey Mouse? Yeah, they get to ride on the train to open the park with all of the characters. I'd really like to know how you get picked for that, because I would so love to do that next time.

Where else to begin but Fantasyland? We had to ride Cinderella's carousel one more time.


Don't you love the way Maddie is scrunching up her nose in that one? She's really having a good time. Dave's boss requested a picture on the teacups:

We rode the teacups, but just for the record we didn't do all of the extra spinning. Yes, we are wimps! Here's a random picture of Madeline. She may weigh less than 20 pounds, but look at those cheeks!

Emma driving her first car. She is being good and paying attention to the road:

We ran into another dance party, and had to get our groove on!




That is a lot of dance pictures, but she had the greatest time. We were there for at least 20 minutes before we tore her away with the promist of more rides. Here's some proof that I was there:

On the Walt Disney World Railroad the circles the park (Emma was hoping to see Mickey, since this was the train he rode in the morning):

After doing all of our favorite rides, we were wandering Main Street in search of something to eat when we ran into these guys:



About 30 seconds after we saw Tigger and Pooh it started to pour, so we decided to have a nice, leisurely, sit down lunch to use up our last meal credit. Around 4 it was time to head back to the hotel so we could catch the bus to the airport for our evening flight.

Now, a quick word about Madeline: for the most part, she did not nap the entire trip, except for Thursday when we went back to the hotel. Rarely she would pass out in a dark ride, but it was 10 minutes or less. Her default position the whole week was sucking on her fingers (which is what she does when she's tired) with her eyes open. Randomly her head would bob and her eyes would close, but she would pop back up within a minute and look around quickly, as if she were afraid she would miss something. But finally, on the bus back to the hotel, she conked out for an hour, and stayed out even as I transfered her off the bus and into the stroller. Like she knew we were going home and it was finally time to sleep:

A fitting end to a wonderful, and wonderfully exhausting, trip.