Christmas Tree

We finally got around to decorating the Christmas Tree.  Lila is so much fun this year; she gets so excited about Christmas lights.  There are a few houses that have Christmas lights on very early in the day, so every day after I pick her up, we go look at lights, and every day so gets so excited, and says, "oh, no, more lights!".  She has a little Christmas Tree in her room, and the first thing she says in the morning is "lights on".  I didn't know if she would really participate in decorating the tree, but she jumped right in there, and seemed to know just what to do, and of course I grabbed the camera (and was able to get some fairly good shots, thanks to a little photography advice from my Dad.)

 

Thanksgiving

I can't believe Thanksgiving has come and gone.  Where does the time go?  We had a great Thanksgiving.  On Thursday, we went over to Gran and Toby's house for lunch.  As always, Gran's house was already fully decorated for Christmas, and was beautiful, and the food was excellent.

The kiddos always have a great time playing on the swing.

Here is Lila with her Aunt Jana

And of course, no gathering at with this crew is complete without the Nerf guns.

I couldn't pass up getting in a photo of Scout in his Snuggie!

On Friday, we packed up and headed to Ft. Worth, where we had a second Thanksgiving with Oomma and Oompa, Billy, Mary Ellen, Hunter, Anthony and Amanda, and the Reeds.  Here is a pick of all the cousins

On Saturday, we went to Grapevine to ride the North Pole Express, which is a real train.  They put on a little Christmas program with singing and dancing before you board the train.  Lila had a blast.  She loves music, and every time they would stop, she would say "more, more".

Here we all are on the train.

Santa came too.  Lila did not care for Santa, but Aiden was ready.  Here he is showing Santa the jungle bell he brought with him.

When we got home, this guy was in our yard.  What a great way to end the holiday weekend!

November Catch-up

Where did the month go?  It seems like all of a sudden, time is flying by.  We had a busy November.  Here are some of the highlights.

Lila and her Daddy had a pepper plant.  She loved  to go out and check for peppers, and pick them, and then for some reason, she would stuff her pockets with them.

We had a little fair in our neighborhood.  Here we are at the petting zoo

But, what Lila really couldn't wait to do, was get in the Bouncy House.  She loves these things!

Oompa and Oomma came for a visit.  Lila kept Oomma busy with these silly bows.

Trick or Treat

Halloween has come and gone, and we have definetly gotten our wear out of the chicken.  Lila is not sad to see it go, but she was a good sport, and sooooo cute (and isn't that the main thing)

Lila was not really into trick-or-treating.  I am not sure if that had to do with the terrible two's, or if it is because she dislikes the chicken outfit, or if she was tired, or just didn't get it.  We went to a couple houses, and she would stand at the end of the sidewalk and yell "NOOO!". We went over to our friends'/neighbors, and all the other kids would walk right up and get their candy, and she would just cling to my leg, hollering "NOOO Mommy"(which of course made me feel like a failure as a parent.)   Then we went to a house where they had left the candy bowl on the porch, and we actually got her to go look in the bowl, and they had Dum-dums (lollipops), and she apparently knows what they are and likes them, so then she was willing to go up to the door and knock, and do the whole thing.  Then she was able to eat her "soucka" (sucker), and a green laffy taffy, and magically her whole mood changed and she was ready to party, and play with the other kids.  She has definetly had her fair share of sugar over the past few days.

Here are my personal favorite costumes:

This is our neighbor, Marin, as a slice of kiwi...love the creativity

This is our friend Mary with her daughters Kamdyn and Brinkly dressed as cupcakes

***Brinkly is only 2 1/2 weeks old, and Mary made these costumes***

Fall Festival

Last night was the Fall Festival at Lila's daycare.  The Fall Festival is a big event, and I spent the morning making these cute cupcakes for the cake walk.  These cupcakes were nothing special, but as you all know, presentation is everything, and they were some of the first treats to get chosen.  Pretty cute, huh?

...Speaking of pretty cute, what do you think about my chicken?

Here we are doing the cake walk...Lila just wanted to hear the music and dance

and here she is with her first cake walk goodies ever...some brownie bites.  Mommy did not want a whole cake around here.  She could not wait to tear into the bag, so I put them in my purse, and this morning I looked over and she was sitting in her little chair having a brownie bite..sneaky little thing.

Another big hit of the night was the lollipops.  Here is Lila and her friend Charli (Cha Cha) enjoying one.  One of the moms remarked that their child didn't know what to do with a lollipop; not my child!  I never taught her what to do, and I have never really given her candy, but she seems to know what to do with it.  I am pretty sure she got that from me.

Pumpkin pics

We went to Red Barn today to pick out some pumpkins.  There are some pumpkins in the lobby area at the daycare, and Lila likes to stop and touch them and pick one out and say "Dat Lalila's mumpkin".  So, today when I said "We are going to go pick out some pumpkins", she knew exactly what I was talking about, and when we got there she knew just what to do.  There was an area with small pumpkins, and she just walked right up to it, and got herself a pumpkin and loaded it right on the cart.  She actually got two small pumpkins.

These are a couple of my favorite pictures.

Here is Lila and her Dad "working"... monkey see, monkey do!

A few pictures from last week

Lila picked a pocket full of peppers from her pepper plant, and she was pretty proud!

We have not gotten very far with the potty training.  But in the past week or two, Lila has really gotten into Elmo.  We have an Elmo book, and she watches Sesame Street occasionally, but all of a sudden she wants Elmo everything.  So, I bought an Elmo "potty" DVD...I put it in one day, and she went and got her potty and sat in the living room and watched it.

This is just a sneak peak of the Halloween costume...more to come