Ever so Clever:

A 2-year old's View

We're using our old clunky camera again so I thought I'd let the girls have a chance taking photos with it.

I mean, why not? The camera survived an 8-foot drop onto a concrete floor- I'm sure it can survive two little girls.

Here's the surprise- it was Ava- the 2-year old that was interested in playing with the camera- not Annika! Annika has been asking to get a camera as a gift...and she wasn't the one who wanted to take photos! Oh well...

Here's life through Ava's eyes:

Part of Annika

Most of her photos were of the floor and in particular- this rug.

A plant.

Here's the best one out of the bunch! A curled up Kitty Cat.

There seems to be a trend here...she wouldn't take photos of anything taller than herself!

Play time on a sunny Saturday

The girls did a great job in music class today so they got to share a frozen custard from Culver's. They picked chocolate...like father, like daughters! (and so much for lunch...sometimes it's okay to just to eat dessert first)

We had lots of fun at home before Quiet Time.

We had Jumping on the Trampoline Time.

We had Making Tents from Chairs and Old Towels Time.

Then there was Roll The Ball Time.

There was also Fingerpainting Time and (most importantly to this mommy) Clean Up Time.

In honor of Cousin Lily's 7th Birthday we'll be watching the original Star Wars movies tonight! Happy Birthday Lily! We're really sad we couldn't come to your party but we hope you had lots of fun!

Autumn turned our leaves to Gold!

Autumn is here in full force.
She's turned all the leaves into gold!
(wow, do I ever wish it was real gold!!!)

Autumn also seems to bring out all the BUGS! My spine is still shivering from all the ladybugs that were crawling all over me while we were outside. The box elderbugs are creeping all over the house. Wasps are flying all over the place! Ack! The safest place to be on this gorgeous day is inside!!!!

After breakfast we ventured outside to pick a few pretty leaves for a quick art project. We were still in our jammies! Brrrr! It's cold! Hmmm...I wonder if this was such a good idea after all.

We saw a cute leaf craft project at FamilyFun so we got to work making our own leafy friends.

Annika's Foliage Friends include a bird, fish, turtle with 6 legs and a butterfly. She wrote on there "Get Better" for her friend who got sick yesterday at school. She asked me how to spell it and just refused to believe me when I told her it was gEt not gIt. Annika, I promise I wouldn't lie to you about that!Ava's Fall Foliage Friends- Ava was only interested in gluing down the leaves.
Then it was off to our Saturday morning Music Together class!

Finished Magnetic Memo Board

Do you remember the magnetic board I was trying to pretty up for Annika? Click here if you need a reminder.

It's FINISHED!

I'm sure I'll want to add to it but for now it's done and I'm going to hang it up in her room. The butterfly magnets were from the dollar bins at Target a few years back. The flower magnets are just wooden cutouts I bought either at Hobby Lobby or Michael's and just painted with acrylic paint and stuck magnetic backing to.

I hope this board will serve several functions over the next few years- as a chore chart, book reading chart, favorite artwork-of-the-day display and just generally to have fun with (I hoping to put magnetic backing on some puzzles so that she can do puzzles on her own). We'll see how it really gets used!

What do you think?

Oh...and my final pint count on applesauce this year is .....drum roll....

Sixteen! (okay, so it's not THAT much but it's better than nothing! That was all from half a bushel of apples...and I nearly burned half of my applesauce...there was some swearing going on- fortunately my 2yr old wasn't close by to learn new & colorful words! Thankfully I managed to save it and you can hardly tell that it's different from the rest of the batch)

Speculations and daily questions

This morning (as well as most mornings of late) Ava will ask me if I'm girl. Yes, I'm a girl. Then she'll ask if Daddy is a boy. Yes, he's a boy. Then she'll go through and list all of our names and state whether we're boys or girls.

Then Ava and Annika reminded me that Auntie Margaret was going to have a baby soon- that means ANOTHER COUSIN! Boy, they're excited! I asked them what they'd name Aunt Margaret's baby-boy-yet-to-make-an-appearance. Ava said she'd name him Baby Cousin while Annika said she likes the name Thomas.

Here are some drawings Annika did yesterday at school. They're doing the letter M this week. I'm impressed that Miss Muffet had time to change her dress! Or maybe she had to change her dress after seeing the Spider (you know...as in"changing your shorts").

Boo-to-You

Annika drew this yesterday (I found it this morning)....

I need to ask who the people are in her drawing. I just love that she wrote out "boo to you" all by herself...Daddy corrected her because she initially had written yuo. :)

Autumn Play Dough Cookies!

Do you remember these cookies we made a few months ago? I thought we could perhaps make them again but using fall colors. At first I suggested orange and black (for Halloween) but Annika requested red, yellow and orange. Great idea! I also added green for the fourth color.

Ava and I made the dough while Annika was at school. I have to admit the yellow was more mustard colored than I wanted and the red was more of a dark pink (even though I added a lot of the gel food coloring).

My GREEN little monster all ready for Halloween!