My 3 little crayons!

We had a super fun time, as always, at our church's MASSIVE fall festival tonight! This year, I was so excited because a number of families that we have been getting to know at the library and at the park came. Anna Kate was very intent upon inviting everyone we know! Luke is still up at the church entering in registration information so that each family represented by the 1800+ people who came will receive a personal phone call inviting them to join us for worship on Sunday. I get to call all the Spanish-speaking families...hopefully it will come back to me pretty quickly!

Here are my little crayons all dressed and ready to go!

And...while I did have Luke's mom with me to help me corral the girls (THANK YOU!), we still didn't get a whole lot of pictures at the actual event. But here are a couple!

The bouncy houses are always a hit with AK!

And both girls LOVED the baby donkey!

At home checking out the candy!

AK wanted me to be sure to post a picture of her pretty purple ponytail. Caroline wasn't too thrilled about the opportunity to have her hair spray painted, so she passed.

And here's the best one we got of all THREE of my little crayons (Caroline was putting as much candy into her mouth as she could before bedtime)!

Pumpkin Patch!

Last Saturday (after a wonderful day at the zoo and birthday party on Friday), we loaded up and headed out to McLeod Farms to pick our pumpkins! I know lots of people love summertime, and there are parts about it that I love too, but I am ALWAYS ready for the crisp, cool air of October. In fact, Luke gets onto me when I try to put my scarecrows out on the porch too early! But, October truly is here now, so a trip to the pumpkin patch was definitely in order. Luke's parents and brother were still in town from the birthday party, so they came along too, and we all had a great time! The girls' only rule was that the pumpkins they picked couldn't be too big for them to carry themselves!

Making our selections

Anna Kate found the perfect one!

And Caroline fell in love with one too. And to be fair, she was able to pick it up, but it was a little too big for her to carry and walk at the same time, so Daddy gave in and said he would carry it, but that she could get it anyway =) This doesn't bode well for future interactions with our daughters, does it?

 

One of the best parts of the trip was the hayride to and from the patch. The girls thought it was fantastic and Caroline kept grinning from ear to ear saying, "Really fun! Really fun!"

Oh, and in case you would like to see how the girls have grown over the last few years, here you go!

2010

Anna Kate (8 months)

2011

Anna Kate (1.5 years), Caroline (1.5 weeks!)

2012

Anna Kate (2.5 years), Caroline (1)

2013

(Anna Kate, 3.5 years), Caroline (2)

 

Happy Fall, everyone! 

Birthday zoo trip!

Last Friday we took the girls to the zoo to celebrate Caroline's birthday morning. Now, before you think we're too great of parents, the main reason was to keep the girls out of the house for the day so that they wouldn't mess up all the cleaning/decorating I had done the previous day to get ready for Caroline's party that night. I find that the house stays much cleaner if we don't live in it =) And since I had a midwife appointment that morning anyway (5 minutes from the zoo), we combined the trips and made a day of it! Mimi, Papa, and Uncle Jonathan also met us there on their way from Greenwood to Camden for Caroline's party!  Here are some pictures of our morning.

Our big lion

And the baby lion cub!

Caroline wanted the first stop to be the Brown Bear!

Checking out the gorillas

 

Not so sure about feeding the giraffe

 

But AK was!

 

Feeding the goats went a little better!

 

A birthday carousel ride

(Don't let the picture fool you, she LOVED every minute and kept saying, "REALLY fun! REALLY fun!" But she was NOT interested in sitting on an animal by herself. She only wanted the peacock sleigh with Mommy. I understand, Caroline, safety first!)

 

AK picked the cheetah!

 

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Caroline is turning TWO, yippee!

We had an absolutely fabulous time celebrating Caroline's second birthday with so many of our family, church family, and friends.

I thought I would share some of the party details first, and then pictures of all the actual fun that we had!

The invitation (without the personal info, of course)

 

Entryway poster

 

 

Coloring station (Luke helped me make little Brown Bear coloring books for each child. So fun!

 

 "I see a Birthday Girl looking at me!"

The party room! I almost asked Luke to paint the dining room for the party like I did last year, but I thought it might be asking too much ;)

 

 

  

One food for each color (except for blue because you can't find blueberries this late in October)!

Oh, and we had hot dogs too, but they're not pictured.

 

 

  

 

 

  

 

Party favor snack mix

(Brown Bear teddy grahams, goldfish, and M&M's)

The outside tables.

The weather turned out to be perfect for the evening!

 

 Sweet birthday girl awaiting her guests

  

Silly girls!

 

And then the fun began!

Playroom

 

Sandbox

 

Time to eat!

 

 

 

Let's color!

 

Happy Birthday, Caroline!