Halloween Parade

Kate had a Halloween parade at school today. She was dressed up as a lion. As soon as she put on her costume, she yelled, "ROAR"!

The kids all gathered in the room before the parade:
Then, they did the parade. It was very short, but cute.
And, then there was a party in the classroom. The teacher asked me to help out, which was great! The kids had fruit, juice and a cookie, and each got their own little gift bag.

Happy 4th Birthday, Molly!

Molly is 4 today. Kate & I went out over the weekend and got her treats and a special Happy Birthday biscuit, which we will give to her tonight. When Kate and I bought the treats, Molly was in the car with us. I told Kate, you can't tell Molly what her present is, it's a Surprise. So, we get in the car and she looks at Molly and says, "Molly, we bought you a present, but it's a surprise." :)

PHILLIES PHEVER!!!!

We have the Phillies fever! We are so excited they are in the World Series and even more excited that they beat the Yankees in the first game!! Let's go Phillies!!! PS- Kate will tell you, her favorite Phillies is the Philly Phantic.

I wanted to post the finished product of the pumpkin painting from my post yesterday:

Ta da- we have a little artist on our hands- she gets it from Rich :)

And, here is another pumpkin the Kate decorated at preschool. It has feathers for hair and eyes :)

More Fall Fun!

We took Kate to another pumpkin patch on Sunday. We figure, it's fall, she loves it, let's take her. So, we went in all the mud. We had a blast though.

Kate played in a little hay pit. She loved kicking it around and throwing it in the air.

Then she posed as a bumblebee.

We picked a white pumpkin right out of the pumpkin patch!

Then she got to paint it. They had little tables set up where you could paint your pumpkin and even had little smocks so you didn't get the paint on your clothes.

Concentrating

We went on a hayride, which Kate loved. We got a little snuggling in on the hayride too :)

And finally we did a hay maze. We did follow the leader and let Kate lead us out- she really did a great job!

Carving Pumpkins- 2009

We finally carved our pumpkins this weekend. I can remember carving ours when we were little in the garage. I can remember it was so cold but we loved watching our Dad carve it. We'd take the seeds inside and my mom would roast them. I love that we can make these same memories for Kate :)

We carved 3- 1 for each of us- and since Kate is a little too young to carve, Rich had a great idea to let her draw a face on the pumpkin and we would cut it out for her.

We also let her scoop out the pumpkin:

And touch it too, even though she was not thrilled with that part (she is definitely like me):

I love this face she's making:

Rich was showing her how gooey the insides were- look at how she is concentrating

Then, Rich & I got to work on ours and Kate helped scoop ours out, and was also flinging the seeds in the kitchen. We saved some seeds and roasted them too.

Drum roll for the finished products:

Rich's- GO PHILLIES!!!!!

Julie's- I used a guide and it's a ghost in case you couldn't tell:

Kate's- remember, she drew the face, we carved it out


All 3 in a row:

Congratulations to the "C" family

This post is a week overdue, but very special congratulations to our good friends, the Cs. They welcomed a beautiful baby boy last week and we couldn't be more excited for them. We haven't had a chance to meet him yet (I was waiting to post to post a pic because we were supposed to see him last Friday) because Kate has had a lingering cough and we didn't want to bring her around a new baby.
Congrats to the C family! Can't wait to watch the little man grow :)

Cute Story and GO PHILLIES!!!!!!!!!!

Well, the Phillies are off to the World Series again! SO EXCITING!! Kate will be so excited to see her favorite Phillie, the phanatic, at the World Series again. Yes, that's her favorite Phillie. I bought her a book last year when they won the World Series, all about the Phillies. She loves to have Rich read it to her, and he tells her who our favorites are. When he asked who her's was, she said the Phillie phanatic.

On another note, I had to share this story. We had dinner with our dear friend Joanna and Bridget on Monday night. Bridget has been more than generous with the hand me downs for Kate and we couldn't appreciate them more. After dinner, Joanna gave me a few big bags of shoes, which I had to literally pry off of Kate, jackets, which she's worn everyday, and a Halloween costume of Tinkerbell. I thought Kate would LOVE the wings, but she didn't want to put them on and I couldn't understand why. Bridget put them on to show her, and Kate had a worried look on her face. Well, we got home and I was putting her to bed, and she said, "Mommy, I don't want to wear those wings. I don't want to fly away. I want to stay here with you." MELT. MY. HEART. I Love this little girl and the way her sweet, innocent mind works.

Just thought I'd write that story out so I don't ever forget it, which I know I won't.

Cut out cookies

So, over our girls' weekend, Kate and I woke up Saturday morning to a Nor Easter. Great. So, we ventured out and got cookie dough and made cut out cookies. It was a lot of fun. I had never made these before so it was an adventure for both of us. Kate loved it, and Molly did too, especially with everything dropping on the floor. I decided on the last batch that I'd let Kate take a try at decorating. You'll see what happened.

First we rolled out the dough- we cheated and used an already made dough :)

Then we made sure it was all flat. Kate LOVED seeing her little finger prints in the dough.

We pushed the cookie cutter into the dough to create our Halloween shapes. Kate is pushing REALLY hard :)

I let Kate decorate a batch. I think she really LOVES sprinkles.

Showing off the finished product

Up close of the finished product. In case you were wondering, the shapes are pumpkins, scarecrows, ghosts and witches- couldn't you tell?


Can't bake cookies without a taste test- they got an A+ from us and Daddy!!!

It was so much fun making cookies with Kate. My mother in law said I was making beautiful memories for her, which I really hope I was. I know I'll never forget it. Either will Molly- she ate a lot decorations that day :)

While Rich is away....

Kate & Julie got to play :) Kate and I had an all girls weekend with Molly this past weekend. We had a lot of fun. On Friday, we had dinner with our friends M & B. Kate and B are good friends and have known each other since birth. They have gone to daycare together and now go to preschool together. It's so cute to listen to them talk to each other and just be so sweet to one another.

After dinner, Kate and I came home and I let her watch some shows in our bed. We laid in bed together and snuggled. In the middle of the show, I said, "do you want to watch the commercials at the end?" and she said yes. So, the show was over and she said, "Mommy, can I watch the corrections, please?" It took me a minute to realize what she was asking for. I just thought that was cute and had to share :)

Pics from the weekend will be posted tomorrow.

Columbus Day

Yes, i'm a little late with my posting, but I wanted to share what we did on our day off. Having an extra day off with Kate is so much fun.

We decided to make some pumpkin cookies for Daddy for when he got home from work. It was also learning about the letter P at school so the kids had to bring in something with a pumpkin, or wear orange. Kate brought in these pumpkin cookies that we made for Daddy.

Kate trying to sneak in a taste of the cookie dough

We decided to do another project. Since I LOVE to decorate for the holidays, and so does Kate, we thought we'd make these cute little ghosts. We stuffed them with some leaves (Kate got the leaves and stuffed) and tied them.

Silly faces are welcome!

And, then we hung them!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Rich hasn't been feeling well. He has a sinus infection, which is normal for us for this time of year. He told Kate he was going to the Dr. and she thought he meant her doctor and said, "Dr. G will make you feel better and then we can play!"

Anyway, we've been keeping Kate away from him, just in case it was something else. It's so hard to stay away from her and not hug her, but it's better for her. So, we told her that Daddy wasn't feeling well. Last night after bath, Kate looked at me and put her little lip out and said, "Mommy, I'm not feeling well." It took EVERYTHING she had in her not to smile. I realized it was because Rich had just said it- she's perfectly fine. Monkey see, Monkey do.

Decorations

I LOVE to decorate our house for holidays. I've decorated all of my life- probably an influence from my grandmother who did the same. And, now I have a little helper and it's even more fun! Kate was SO EXCITED to decorate with me on Friday. It took us a lot longer than normal, but it was all worth it!

Daddy's Little Girl

I ABSOLUTELY love love love this picture of Rich and Kate that our good friend Bri took. She captured it this weekend and did a little editing, and here is the finished product. I am just in love with this picture!!

Fall Fun!

I have always been a fan of the summer, but since we've had Kate, i love the fall. Pumpkin patches, hayrides and fall decorations are some of my favorite things now- not to mention the cooler weather, which our (mine and Kate's) hair works well with :)

This weekend was a lot of fun. My mom and dad came back from their European vacation and asked Rich and me to go out so they could babysit Kate. So, Rich and I went to dinner and a movie and Kate hung out with Namma and Pop Pop.

On Saturday, we went with our friends to Linvilla Orchards. Kate and AF had a blast on the hayride and running around with their pumpkins. We had dinner with Grammie and Michael later that night and then Rich and I went to our friends house while Namma and Pop Pop came back and played with Kate.

AF & Kate loving each other and the hayride

What's a little hay in your hair?

Marching

Cutest pumpkin in the patchThe moms having a little fun
AF and Kate looking for ducks. Our family :)

On Sunday, Rich had a bocce ball tournament. No, he's not an old man. Just something he's been doing for a while, so Kate and I went with our friend Katie to the Harvest Moon Festival. It was really fun and we got to see live farm animals up close.

Kate doing the hay maze and finishing!

Kate and Katie checking out the farm animals- this was the BIGGEST pig I've ever seen.

Kate checking out the cow