God's playground.

Today was just a gorgeous day.  With a temperature of 72 degrees (which is not normal for this time of year), blue sky, a slight breeze, and colourful leaves, God's playground begged for the girls to come out and play.  So they did.

My helpers.

I pull the vacuum out and my girls think, "Fun!"  Remind me to show them these pics when they are older and vacuuming is part of their chores.

Selah thinks riding the vacuum is so fun.  Unfortunately I didn't get a pic of her sitting on the front.

"Here mommy, let me help you get this thing going."
Now that's Selah is all done playing, Sofia can get to work.

In she goes.

Why go through the hassle of pulling the toys out when you can just crawl inside with them?  Here is Selah in the toy room toy box and then she got into the toy basket in the living room.

Trick-or-Treating

This was Sofia's second year going trick-or-treating.  She thinks it is the greatest thing to knock on someone's door and when the person opens it they give her candy.  

Getting ready to knock on the neighbour's door.

Well, we made it down the row of houses.  
And after going to about 6 houses we came back home with a decent amount of candy.

Selah just hung out with mommy.  Sofia scored because each house gave her extra candy for her sister (who of course isn't allowed to eat it).

Between Two Worlds

Between Two Worlds

Posted using ShareThis

Dress up time!

Tonight we went to Kids4Truth at our church as we do every Wednesday night during the school year. Because halloween is just two days away, Pastor Kevin deemed tonight "Dress Up Night".

For the past 11 months Sofia has wanted to be a present. So today I went to task trying to make her a present that was wearable. It came out alright. And thankfully it was very cheap. I just used an old box and wrapping paper and ribbon from last Christmas.

As for Selah, poor thing, well, she doesn't have much say right now so I simply dressed her up in Sofia's toy cooking clothes. She didn't mind and of course, we thought she was pretty cute.

We just love her little round face.

Oh!  Do you want me to cook you something?

Wouldn't you want this face looking at you from under your tree?

Being the present.  She loved people not knowing she was inside.

And the girls with Pastor Kevin, I mean, daddy.   Yes sir!

A basket full of love.

Playtime for the girls is also learning time.  They are learning to use their imaginations, learning how to make certain toys work, learning how to share.  They are also learning about each other.  This morning during playtime I found them like this.:)

Cheesy grin. No grin.

Unless a photographer has an extra half hour on his hands, they won't catch Selah smiling.  She truly takes her time observing and taking things in before she shows her teeth.  Sofia, well, she's a preschooler.  Tell her to smile and if she feels like it you will get this wonderful fake, "cheese".  So needless to say this won't be our Christmas card pic but it will be in the church directory for who knows how long.

Lessons in praying.

Sofia loves prayer time before meals.  She likes to pray first and then for daddy to pray afterwards.

Sofia also believes that everyone should pray before they eat.  We were actually at a restaurant the other day and she noticed the people at the table next to us didn't pray before eating.  She wanted to tell them to pray but then said she was too shy.  (Yeah right!)

Today as she prayed before her lunch we noticed it was going on, and on, and on.  "Dear Lord, thank you for the food.  And Lord, thank you for the flowers.  And thank you for the trees.  And thank you for all the people.  Thank you for all the people in the world you made. "  This wasn't a bad thing.  It was actually very sweet and uplifting to her parents' hearts.

But soon we were enlightened to why the pray was extra long.

Stopping her prayer, she looks at her plate and says, "Noodles, don't be hot any more."  Then bows her head and gets back to praying.  "And Lord thank you for the animals, and Selah, and for everything you do."  Looks at her plate again.  " Amen."

The food was cool enough to eat now so the prayer stopped.    

The moral of the story:  when it's hot, pray!  Hmmmmm....there may be more lessons to this than we realize.:)

Today we celebrate..

Five wonderful years!

Bath Buddies

Bath time is a most favourite time of day.  Selah absolutely loves the bath.  She has her foot up and over the edge of the tub hardly waiting for mommy to undress her.   Sofia loves anything that allows for her imagination to be put to use and the bathtub is a place where she can be a mermaid or as in these pics, a teacher.  No doubt mommy keeps a close watch but it's no worries when you see how much fun they are having AND getting clean!

P.S.  Girls, don't hate us when you're sixteen years old.:)

Colours of Fall

If only.

Sofia's fourth birthday is next month.  I am well aware of this not only because I am her mother but also because of the daily reminders she gives me.  Tonight she began to tell me all the different gifts she wants for her birthday.  Of course she wasn't being too selfish, she did ask me for some toys that Selah would enjoy.

Not wanting her to think or believe that all her requests would be met I let her know that certain gifts (like the ones she named) cost money.  Mommy and daddy would not be able to, nor see the need to buy her anything and everything she wanted.  My smart little girl told me it would be okay.  I could go to the bank and get money for her gifts.  "Oh?"  I said.  "But who puts the money in the bank?"

Without answering the question, Sofia ran off.  A minute later she returned.  Her answer to my question of where she went and what she did.

"I got some money out of the coin jar and put it in your purse.  You have money now, mommy."

Pics from the outing.

Selah enjoying the pumpkin patch.

The fam pic with pumpkins.

Some of the apples that we picked.

A group of us took a tour of the orchards.  

Sofia (on the right) loved playing with her friends Charlotte (peeking around the window) 

and Anna (in front).

Picking the apples.

You couldn't help but bite into one.  They were so delicious.  A frost earlier in the morning helped give them a crisp bite.

Tree to Table

A couple of weeks ago I shared with you about our family outing to Royal Oak Farm.  This past weekend we went back for an outing with our church family.  It was a wonderful day.  And as promised, we picked apples and brought them home to make a pie.

Our peck of apples.  We picked Empire and Liberty apples.

The peeled apples.

We used Gigi's  recipe for the filling (Great Gramma Greenwalt) but the crust is store bought this time around.

The finished product.  

It really did taste quite yummy if I don't say so myself.  I spiced it up with a bit more cinnamon.  And having apples picked right off the tree really do make a difference.  

Friday Fun

These pictures were from last week's Friday family outing.  It was a gorgeous day.  Sunshine with a high temperature of 75 degrees.  Little did we know that it would be one of our last lovely warm days. This week has been cold with temps not getting out of the 50s and dropping to the 40s at night.

This playground is at one of our favourite forest preserves, Independence Grove.  The "bark" on the ground is actually old rubber tires.  Makes for a very soft ground.  This gives mommy a little peace of mind because as you can see, Sofia loves to climb and has no fear of any height.  Selah is becoming more of a climber herself but this day she didn't mind simply swinging, sliding, and running through the grass.