Random Photos from the past few weeks

We had a great time visiting family and being in DC for Thanksgiving weekend. The girls loved staying at Uncle Rob's house-his dog, Scottie, is the one of the highlights of their time there! Post-Thanksgiving we went to the Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian and had a chance to hang out with Laura, Zeb, their little guy Xander and grandmom! The weather was so beautiful that once the girls were tired of the museum, we hung out on the mall and let them burn off some energy before the ride home.


Just before Thanksgiving Alette, Abria and I visited the Herr's Factory and watched pretzels, tostitos and chips get made. It was a really, really long drive out but the factory was fascinating. The girls LOVED their free bag of potato chips!


Whenever one of my girls offers to help bake, there is always an ulterior motive. Can you guess what it is?


We've had a mild fall so I have tried to be diligent about getting the girls outside as often as possible. Our backyard is a mess of weeds-so the front sidewalk has become a reasonable substitute. Alette was actually annoyed with Abria in this picture. She was trying to color a pasture (color all the bricks green) for her deer and was annoyed that Abria was stepping near her work and would scare the (imaginary) deer away. The girls generally get along great and are best of friends, but sometimes they can argue over the most irrational things.

Horses 101

Both girls, especially Alette, are infactuated with horses. So when the opportunity came up for a homeschool class on horses, I jumped at the opportunity. The instructor taught them abit about different body parts, then had the kids groom and help saddle the horses. It was a little disconcerting to see Abria calmly brush an animal she could have easily walked under. However, Miller (the horse), truly had the patience of a saint and hardly moved as the kids brushed him, cleaned his hooves and saddled him up. Abria initially wanted to ride the smaller pony, but once Alette rode Miller, she too wanted to ride him.



It is hard to believe that only a year ago, neither girl would ride the ponies at the zoo. Abria jumped right into brushing Miller and was happy to pat the other horses in the stable while waiting for her turn to ride. Alette too was happy to jump in on the action of grooming and even tried picking Miller's hooves.


A very happy rider! It was great to see that the instructor actually showed the girls how to hold the reins, how to guide the horse and how to mount/dismount. So much more exciting than just getting plopped on a pony at a ride!


The sweet horse, Miller.

School Days

If I am not careful, the girls are going to take over my teaching. Like kids everywhere, they love playing school and Abria has the lingo down pat. This morning she was in her room for a really long time on her own-so I went up to check on her, and found she was sitting in her chair, looking at a book. When I asked her about the book, she responded 'I'm up here reading mommy, but I stuck on this word'.

Trust me, she cannot read.

Spot the Difference

More pictures of this year's Halloween to follow, but I thought it was fun to compare the picture from 2 years ago with the one from this year. Some things haven't changed!

Happy Halloween....

It has become an annual tradition in our house to carve pumpkins with Ganiyah and Nadia-a tradition that started way back when I was still working at Camp Peace and Nadia was a camp kid. I think we took a year or two off when we both had newborns, but otherwise, we have been faithful to our traditions. Ironically, our carving skills have not improved and the pumpkins still have a basic triangle eyes/nose/lopsided mouth look.

The girls had a blast together-squealing over the pumpkin 'guts', laughing at each others' creations, and then finally oohing and aahing over the glowing jack-o-lanterns.

If I manage to finish their costumes, and they agree to wear them, I may actually have photos of trick-or-treating soon.

Great Moments

Some of my favorite moments are unplanned...the times when I 'catch' the girls simply being wonderful together. Both girls have a love for books and stories, and lately they have been pretending to read to each other. In the top photo both girls were browsing through a Tintin book before Alette told Abria to 'stop reading over her shoulder'. Hmmm, wonder where she heard that phrase before? In the other photo, the girls had been looking through their nature books and comparing the different animals. Then I overheard them start to tell each other 'scarey' stories based on the pictures. It was quite funny to hear their imaginations go wild as they tried to outdo each other in the scariness factor.

The Joy of Being 3!

Don't you wish you were 3 again? When it was completely okay to wear a bookmark (handmade by Andy) as a headband, a Canadian lanyard, a dress, and rainboots (unfortunately you cannot see them in the photo)? The models in Vogue have nothing on my girls.