Halloween post 2

Wow, Halloween blew by and I still have not posted the pictures.

Sam had a great time giving papa gifts and helping him open them.

Here are the girls on Halloween.  Sam found this princess dress and wanted Zoey to wear one as well.  Luckily the Goodwill around here had a huge selection of costumes, even a lot of new, and we found a princess dress for Zoey.  I got a tiara and went as the queen :)

Zoey's first Halloween.  The pumpkin outfit Sam wore definitely would not have worked in the heat of a Florida Halloween.

Zoey is now almost exclusively in 9 month clothes.  I am guessing she is bigger than Sam at 9 months, but we will see.  Zoey is also beginning to communicate.  She signed "milk" recently, although it has come to mean feed me milk, I want mama, and I am tired and want to nurse and go to sleep.  She also does a funny wave.

We had a playdate at our house recently for cookie monster's birthday.  Zoey got to wear a Sesame Street onesie.  She had a great time.

And here is the aquarium.  I set it up to be Sam's dream aquarium.  A pink fake coral and a castle.  I did want to be sure the fish had lots of hiding places, gotta think about their welfare :)

A close up of our Serpae tetras.  We have 5 currently.  We will add more fish soon. I think a few more serpaes, a molly, and some bottom feeders.

Happy Halloween part 1

Today is my Dad's birthday!  Sam is also a bit under the weather, so she stayed home from school.  I hope we can still go trick or treating.  Bad timing on her part since today was her leader day at school, which includes leading the line, prayer and show and tell.

We have been celebrating Fall and Halloween a lot.  I posted about the corn maize, well here is more.


Sam's class had a pumpkin day.  And since mom could watch Zoey, I was able to volunteer.  Sam ended up a little upset since she had to leave me, but she was fine after I was gone.

They had pumpkin seeds and pumpkin pudding as a snack.

Orange playdoh.  Parents make all the dough, with new dough every month with a new color.

I was in charge of helping one of Sam's teachers, Mrs. Davis, with pumpkin investigation.  The kids picked on to weigh and then compared it to a toy.  They also measured how fat one was.

All of the pumpkins to weigh and measure.

I love that she gets these hands on experiences, but I do feel her curriculum is lacking.  I know a bit more why from going in.  A lot of the kids are not very verbal and not great at following directions.  So many are not ready to focus on true learning.  We are investigating other options and hope for a magnet or charter school lottery win.  Please wish us luck on this as it stresses me out a lot.

We also had a trunk or treat event for my moms club.  We volunteered at one at the YMCA to get use of their space for our Christmas party, but it was so crazy that I did not even try to take pictures.

But here is our moms club one.

Zoey has some friends to play with, or crawl away from.

Face painting.

A hay stack to find treats in.

Nick making fun of the tiny bubbles Sam found.

Zoey.  You can really see 4 of her teeth.

 Zoey would not look at the camera.  But Mama, there is a pumpkin to play with!

Pumpkin bowling.

 Fishing for treats.

Our trunk.  I was lame, but I went with Pumpkin Safari.  No prizes for me.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

8 months and 3.75!

Zoey is now 8 months.  Time sure flies even faster with the second!  Zoey continues to do well.  She crawls super fast and is a pro at pulling up and is cruising well.  She does not much like the assisted walking, she prefers to get down and crawl.  Sam loved you to help her walk.  Zoey started crawling at 6.5 months, Sam at 7.5.  Sam walked at 10 months, so 2.5 months of crawling.  The average is 3 months.  We will see when Zoey puts walking together.  Zoey is also way ahead of Sam on teeth.  She has the top 2 and bottom 2 and at least a third bottom is coming in.  More are on the sides right below the gums.

Here is the official 8 month panda shot.

Sam at 8 months.  Related much?

I do see a lot of differences, but both look alike and a lot like me.

Zoey was doing great on food.  Anything I would spoon in she would eat.  However, I ruined it all by introducing finger foods.  She does not like most purees now.  She is fine with yogurt, cottage cheese and some fruits, but rejects others.  She loves anything she can do herself, which means a lot ends up in her lap.  But Sam took a long time to feed herself and was such a battle that even this is so much better.  It is a bit sad since my freezer is full of purees, mostly organic too.

I try and maximize nutrition.  One thing I do is roll her finger foods in flax seed.  It is a mess!

Sam is now 3.75 years.  Wow!  She is doing well.  She likes school alright, but not the after care on Mondays.  Not sure if it is because of the nap, the different teacher, or the kids.  She is learning to write a lot of letters and is reading some sight words.  She never ceases to amaze me.  She picked up a stick yesterday noticing that it looked like a Y.  Her logic is great.  At my moms she woke up wanting a surprise and my mom said she did not know about today.  Sam said, "Nana, you told me I could have a surprise every now and then and it is now."  She got her surprise :)  Although her logic and curiosity sometimes lead to difficult questions.  For now, we keep it short, sweet and avoid lying.  But that makes topics like death, eating animals, and such difficult.

Other than Animal Kingdom, we have had a lot of fun fall events.

We went to Dino World with Sam's best friend in preschool, Lilah.  We got an amazing deal and although it was a bit odd, the girls had a blast.

Mom, Sam and I also went to a local corn maize.  Zoey napped at home.


Sam took her spider man and fought her way out.  A born leader!

They had corn to play in.  Sam loved that.

A little train to ride in.

Hay ride.

After the maize.

And jumping on the giant pillow.  She loved it although she kept falling.

Also, for the moms club we are in, we have themes for playdates.  Currently one theme is Around the
World, so I took on China.  It involves info about the country (How you say hello, meaning of the flag, some other facts), a snack and a craft.

I made fried rice and bought some fortune cookies.

For the craft, I looked up how to write the kids names in Chinese.  Sam drew around hers.

Sam and her friend with the giant panda.

Roar!

Wow, it has been a while.  Life gets so out of hand sometimes.  I will do a few posts.  First up is Sam's (and Zoey's) first Disney experience.  Good friends from Atlanta came down to do a few days at Disney and a cruise.  We tagged along on their wild adventure.  I had not been to animal kingdom in years, before everest even, and Nick had never been.  Their kids were getting over stuff, so we got to the park a bit before they did.  We took advantage of the FL resident 3-day passes that do not expire for 180 days.  We will do Magic Kingdom and Epcot soon.  I think Magic Kingdom between Thanksgiving and Christmas when it is decorated but not too crowded.

First up was getting her first visit button!

Then a rush back to the safari ride to see the animals when they are first out.  There was a baby elephant!

A friendly giraffe.

 Neat hippo shot.

And since I had the baby, Nick ran the camera.  A rare shot of me.

Then we met up with our friends and their friends and the moms rode Everest while the guys took the kids to the dino area.  Sam did not ride the kiddie with the others, so she, Zoey and I rode when we met up.

Then we saw the Finding Nemo show, which was a musical version of the movie with people and puppets.  Sam loved it, Nick and Zoey had to leave so she could nap in peace.  We brought out lunch, which was a great move and I was able to give out snacks while the dads were buying lunch.  We did some touring of animal areas and then saw the Lion King show, which was amazing.  It was Lion King meets Cirque du Soleil.  Nick and Zoey missed it as well for nap time.  Sam and Izzy played some in the dino area, but they did not look at the camera.

Here are just some cute shots!

Say roar!

They walked around holding hands.

We saw the parade.  This time Nick saw it and I stayed in the shade with Zoey.

High 5 from Chip.

After that we went through more animal areas and rode the safari again.  We hit the gift shop and then waited a long time to eat at Rainforest Cafe at AK to avoid the logistics of getting anywhere else.  Poor Sam fell backwards in her chair when the waiter moved, not sure what happened, maybe he leaned on her chair.  But she was fine and he gave her a witch figurine, which really made her feel better.  It was a super fin and super packed day.  Both kids fell asleep when we started driving and Sam was so tired that when I out her down to take off my shoes, she laid on the tile and went back to sleep.  Thanks Sally for including us!