End of Fall Fun....

In keeping with the spirit of 'fall' and the potential preparation for winter, we have been making sure that we get the girls out and about as much as possible, because before we know it, it's going to be winter and we're not going to have too many of those nice warm days. Our fall, started off pretty warm, and to date, the weather people keep talking about how mild of a fall we have had.

Here are some of our fall outings.....

Our favorite place of all...our backyard features prominently, that and well, the Elementary school up the street from us...it has not one, but 2 play grounds and we go there often...it's nice to have one whole playground entirely to yourself...and the history geek in me LOVES the giant map of the US, I tell the girls all the states, but they don't get it YET...never fear, they'll know them soon enough! :)


Miss Olivia....

 SOMETIMES...we share, it doesn't last long and typically Olivia shares more than Sydney does, BUT we're learning about it...one of these days it will stick! :)

 Miss Sydney...she's such a ham, always smiling for the camera!

One afternoon, during Naptime, our Elmo kitchen went away to the basement...in it's place came the Elmo tool bench, and it's pretty cool....Sydney and Olivia especially love the songs that it sings....in these pictures they were dancing around like nutjobs to the Elmo's Working At the ToolBench song...they love it...and for $12 I do too, only complaint is that there's no volume button on the Sesame Street Toys like there are on Fischer Price toys. :( Boo, well, you can't have it all! :)

My attempt at getting a picture of Olivia and Sydney together....dang it's hard these days to get them to BOTH smile..and cooperate, but oh well! :)

One afternoon, after work, playing in the backyard with our super cool sidewalk chalk, and well, just running around, which is always fun when you have two toddlers! :)

Oh, Mommy....I'm very serious here, coloring with chalk is a VERY serious activity....at least according to Olivia!

 Sydney sure does love to sit on this hill in our backyard...it's so cute!

The infamous playground....

Miss Olivia in action....

COOLEST part of the playground..okay, I may be biased, but it's so fun! Can't wait until the girls can identify the states as they walk over them! :)

Even Sugar gets to go to the park more often these days...fringe benefit to being an only dog. :( Poor baby girl. :(

Miss Sydney playing around on the super awesome, super secret playground!

Hope all is well,

J

September

As you may or may not have noticed, from my previous blog, September of 2010, was a pretty rough month in our household. :( The girls have this book they always want us to read b/c it has a little musical attachment, called My Little Girl...and the whole premise is that without them in our life there would be a hole in our heart. That's quite sadly, what our home has felt like without Cassius this past month or so. :( He's been our constant companion for the past 9 years we've been together and for the almost 2 years prior to that for Matt. So, it's sad. It's quite obvious that the girls miss him too. :( 

So, to 'make up for it', Matt and I have kept ourselves and the girls quite busy on the weekends...here are some fun September pics.....

One Saturday morning, Sept 11th to be exact, Olivia and I went out for girls' breakfast and then went shopping, which is her current obsession...to Costco and Target (all prior to naptime of course), while Daddy and Sydney went off on their own errands...the winter coat below and hat are what we purchased on our shopping trip. NOw, Olivia thinks that whenever we go shopping SHE needs to get something....OH.MY.WORD. :)

Olivia...

 Sydney.....

Playing around AFTER we've tired of our super awesome new winter coats and hats...in the backyard b/c its not quite cold enough for coats yet....thankfully! :)

 Miss Olivia...

 Miss Sydney...

Sunday, September 12th, we went over to my best friend Nancy's house to celebrate her birthday..the girls had so much fun visiting with Stephanie and all her DIFFERENT toys (always fun to play with new stuff)...especially her Clifford the Big Red Dog that her grandma who used to be a kindergarden and first grade teacher gave her!

After Hanging at Aunt Nancy and Uncle Drew's house, we headed home for Naptime before we went to the Metzler family reunion...here are some pics of the girls' playing on the playground at the  park where the reunion is held...

Hope All is well,

J

Apple Picking....

Fall = Pumpkins and Apples...yum. Two of my most favorite things to bake with, and with that in mind, to consume! Dieting in the fall is a hard task! :)  I love, love, love fall. It's my absolutely most favorite time of the year, It's Matt's as well. In fact, we did discuss the fact that had I not been unable to take time off during the fall, we probably would have gotten married in the fall. Boo. Sadly, I digress. Anyways, we both love fall, and we are dedicated, with winter and cold times coming, in getting the girls out and about as much as possible! In that quest, one thing that I always used to do with my mom, was go apple picking in the fall. And if you're from STL, then you know that Eckert's is the place to be. Since we don't live too far from their Millstadt farm, we chose to go there...and man is that place cool....so much neat stuff for kids to do. My brother and his wife joined us and we all had a blast, especially the girls, who now think that apples are the best thing ever AND that it's awesome to pick their own food! I'm pretty much willing to bet that they each ate at least 3 full apples. Craziness....but so so much fun!

Playing around with the pumpkins!

 Tractor's are fun! DId you know that our Grandpa has a tractor? We like to go to his house and see his horses and ride the tractor..well, when our Mommy's not looking that is!

 Waiting in line to go apple picking..these bags sure are cool!

 "HELPING" Uncle Mike 'pick' apples, well, he does the picking and we eat them...that's how this works in our world! :)

 "I feed you"...super cute...at least the girls share well!

 Riding back to purchase our apples...it was super warm that day!

 Miss Olivia....

 PLaying around on the cool equipment they have here....

Olivia and Aunt ZOMI....

 Uncle MIke and Sydney...

 Miss Sydney......

Hope all is well with you, and that you and your family had a wonderful fall too!

Love,

J