It's Jack O Lantern Time!

Here is Julia in her scary mask that she made in her Pre-Picasso art class. She loves going to her classs and Miss Laura is so good at coming up with creative things for them to do!

Julia and I (pardon the pajama pants!) carving our pumpkin.

eeeeeeewwwwwwwww! Pumpkin hands!

The finished product....our winking pumpkin! Julia was very proud of him and we ate dinner by jack o lantern candlelight several nights!

Another family tradition is to roast the pumpkin seeds. We found the best recipe yet this year and they were delicious. A little butter, garlic salt and worshestire.....

Halloween art projects hanging from her chandelier. I know.....so tacky!

The farmer's market still had a few tomatoes last week. Julia eats tomatoes like an apple. I am so proud of her and don't want her to know that most people would never do that!

Running and playing while having her tomato snack

Litle Sol got to the spend the night with us last week. We loved having him and he and Julia were so sweet and had fun playing. I am posting this bathtub shot because it might be the last one. John gave me a hard time and said that they were really getting to be too old for this.

I disagreed.

I took Julia and Sol to the library for fall family night where they could dress up and paint pumpkins. Here's sweet Maggie and Julia being little artists.

Here is my Spiderman artist!

There were two Spidermen at the library and I could not tear Sol away from his long lost twin!

Here's Julia with the frog, Miss Callie, who works at the library. She had to show Julia her face under the mask before Julia would let her pick her up. She still wasn't so sure about it!

We have this concrete Indian outside and Julia spent a lot of time last week "decorating her ice sculpture." I have no idea why she called it that???

Enjoying her first ever taco

Hanging out at the Eldridge Court park. She wanted to play hide and seek with me while we were there.

She is such a little sweetheart and is growing up WAY too fast!

Lovin eating the sugar cookie batter off of the mixer!

An All Pink Weekend!

Julia and I had a great girls weekend that started out in Little Rock where we met up with my co-worker and friend, Amanda and her 7 year old daughter Emily. We met up at the Museum of Discovery and Julia loved it.

Julia and Emily at the entrance of the bug exhibit. As always, Julia keeps a safe distance from anything that even resembles something that could move. Her question to me the entire exhibit was, "It's not real, is it mommy?"

Again, a VERY safe distance!

This was her favorite thing at the museum. These tooth tools made real sounds and she spent a lot of time polishing and drilling these teeth.

Another favorite was the wall of magnets. I think she could have stayed here all day.

Then, we went to the nature center in downtown Little Rock. Julia liked the fish and the gift shop best.

Then, we headed down to the Peabody hotel for the traditional 5pm duck walk. The girl in the pink t-shirt is a 14 year old breast cancer survivor!

Then, we checked into the fabulous Capitol hotel! I can't stop raving about it and I won't stay anywhere else in Little Rock (unless I have to!) ever again. This is a picture of our evening turndown service of bottled water and the best pecan toffee that I have ever had!

Our view from the hotel window

Heading out for the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure. I heard that there were over 40,00o women there this year making it the 3rd largest Komen race in the nation!

At the race. Julia was a little cranky at the end of our walk. She kept saying she wanted to go back to our hotel room. I really couldn't blame her.....

Emily and Julia dressed in pink ready for the race!

Firefighters in pink dancing to some very loud Snoop Dog!

And I am saving the best for last! Our pink weekend ended with Julia and I driving to Arkadelphia to meet our very beautiful and perfect new cousin, Mary Erwin! She is my cousin Leslie and her husband Richard's sweet baby girl and my Aunt Jane's first grandchild!

We wanted to take her home.

A better view of Mary Erwin's face. I love her already!

Parker Pioneer Village

Parker Pioneer Village is becoming a Fall tradition for our family.....all because they have the BEST kettle corn that I have ever eaten. I wish I could freeze it! And because, it's a lot of fun to step back in time and see how people lived in the "olden" days.

Julia's head is turned the other way because she wanted no part of this donkey licking the feed out of her hand. I am afraid that she takes after her mommy and is a little squeamish.

Learning about bees making honey

Singing along to This Little Light of Mine in the chapel

This couple led the music in the chapel. Don't know why, but it brought a tear to my eye to hear them sing. Their voices sounded so beautiful together!

Ringing the bell to let everyone know we had arrived!

Community Helpers

Julia learned about community helpers this week at wee school. The firemen came Tuesday and the policemen came Thursday. She was very impressed by it all, especially the sirens and lights.

This week was CrossRidge's annual breast cancer awareness luncheon. It is a ton of work, but it turned out great this year!

We had a fashion show where local businesses could show off their latest fashions for women. Becca and baby Rose stole the show!

A carnival showed up in town this week and John could not WAIT to take Julia. She cackled and screamed while running from ride to ride. Before Julia, I was pretty sure that I would not be one of those moms who took their daughter to the nasty carnivals. Turns out, it was a lovely family outing for us all ;)

This nice carnival man (who reeked of stale beer) helped her get into this ride. Julia very politely thanked him. When we came home she asked me if the man who helped her at the carnival was a community helper??!!

Fun With Friends

Julia and I spent the weekend in Northwest Arkansas with Mattie and Daniel. I love seeing Julia start to really play and interact with others.

Here we are at the pumpkin patch. Julia was terrified of this scarecrow behind them because the wind blew his arm just as we were walking up to it and it moved! She kept a safe distance and gave us a good laugh!

Chatting it up with the goats

Sliding down the pile of mulch

Julia and her good friend Mattie hanging out on the hayride.

Jumping in the hay!

This cow train was really cute and I bought Julia a ticket to ride thinking that she would love it! I had to trade our ticket in towards our pumpkin instead because she chickened out at the very last minute! She was seated happily and just as the driver was about to take off, Julia looked at me with a terrified look and screamed, "Mommy, get me out of here!"

Julia and Daniel are literally days apart and Julia is a good 4 or 5 inches taller!

With her pumpkin....

These artists were hard at work with scissors, paper, colors, markers, and colored pencils. They were busy cutting out thier versions paper dolls. Julia is happiest with colors and paper. She loves to create things. The only thing she colors is rainbows, unless it is a picture in a coloring book. I think she just likes to see what all the colors in the box look like on paper.

Here we are at the PTA fall festival at the Wynne Intermediate school getting her nails painted for the very first time! She chose blue.

Jumpies are the best inventions ever!

Painting a pumpkin

Kelly got us all organized and we all got to enjoy a kids play (Giggle, Giggle Quack!) at the brand new and very impressive EACC Fine Arts Center in Forrest City. Here is Julia, Maggie, Caroline, Solomon, Kohen, Sam and Parker. Isn't it funny how the girls are all on one side and the boys on the other? We didn't tell them to do it!

Pretty Julia in front of the Fine Arts Center

Standing in line for the show. I posted this picture because even at almost three, Julia still loves her blankie. Glad John looks good in yellow because it is more often than not draped on his shoulder wherever we go!

Getting ready for the show!

Here is Julia at Jee Jee and Paw Paws taking a book break. She cares way more about reading a book than she does about riding in this fancy car!

Maggie Grace came to town from Atlanta a couple of weeks ago and we all got together to visit. I love this picture of Julia's room full of friends! I have always dreamed of having a house full of kids. I love the sound of them and all of the happy memories that they bring! Kids are the BEST and I am so grateful to have one of my very own!