Who's that we're coming up to? It's....

Oscar! Or something that sounds more like "Soccer" is what Luke says.

The kids had no idea who Gumby was. As we were coming up to him Luke says "Count?" (probably since we had just been to Oscar) I said, "No, it's not Count." We get closer and he says "Owl?" Gumby told him he wasn't the first one who thought he was an owl. More like the 4th or 5th.

The kids listened to a little bit of Hans Mayer, had some popcorn and kool-aid and explored the new Myrick Hixon EcoPark.

Lefty

Luke seems to favor his left hand when he draws and colors. At this age, Emily went back and forth alot, but as of now, Luke seems predominantly left handed. Maybe he'll take after his cool Uncle Nathan!

fun fall recipe...

Almost done!

I've been wanting to try this forever (well, at least for 2 falls!) and finally did it tonight. We got a few pie pumpkins last weekend at the pumpkin patch. I tried to find one of the biggest ones, but I'm not sure of the weight exactly. I used 2 lbs ground beef and it filled it right to the top. The kids loved it, although Emily isn't a squash lover, so I couldn't sell her on the pumpkin. But they like this in regular hotdish form. I cooked it for about 1 hr. 40 min, maybe a few minutes more. The pumpkin skin sort of bubbled on one side and you could basically peel it all off and cut sections off to serve the hotdish in little 'pumpkin' bowls. Made enough for leftovers! This is from our ECFE cookbook.

Dirty Money

I guess it pays walking the alley to get Emily from school!

Oh, the horror!

Emily had her first swim lesson at WSU last night. If you click on the picture, you can see her 2 worst fears when it comes to swim lessons- being in a small class and dum, dum, dum....the dreaded boy instructor. Needless to say, she wasn't too interested in taking swim lessons anymore. Fortunately, she was in the first time slot and there was a spot open in her level for the next time. With 3 other lesson takers and an instructor named Mallory. A lovely college girl.

Back to Toddler Tuesdays!

After the library yesterday, Luke and I went over to the http://www.minnesotamarineart.org/ for Toddler Tuesday. It's been a while! I don't think we went once all summer, granted it's only once a month. It's strange going with just Luke, he isn't really interested in doing the crafts, just wants to play with the toys! He has alot of fun there and loves talking to the people. As he said when we were walking into Walmart this morning...."I love buses.....I love people!" Where on earth did he come from...

Reading

I'm so glad my kids enjoy books. Reading, being read to, and just plain old paging through them.




If I can't find Luke, he's usually downstairs sitting on his Tow Mater chair looking at books in the toyroom. I love peeking in and watching him when he doesn't know I'm there.

Luke is really enjoying the TAG reader now too. He was doing a Dora book the other day and somehow got it to play the ABC's. Emily says "Hey, how'd you do that?" and he showed her. It was pretty cute to see them interact that way. So Deeda, if you're looking for Christmas/Birthday ideas for Luke, I bet he'd love some boy TAG books....I know I've seen a Cars one out there!

Almost every day, Emily comes home with one of these little reading booklets in her 'reading' bag. They are simple, one sentence per page books. She's so proud when she reads them to me. Every morning she gets to color pumpkins on her chart. She has an October pumpkin chart where she colors a pumpkin for every 5-10 minutes she reads, or I read to her. She could probably color in all the pumpkins in a matter of a few days, but she just colors 3 a day :)