Once upon a time......

Overheard earlier on my kitchen floor:

Analese: Mariele, listen to me. I want to tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a princess named Princess Analese. She lived in the TALLEST castle. And there was a man named Noah who built a big giant ark.........

Phone Photo Friday

Pajama day at The Little gym:



The beginning of grocery shopping. This lasted through the first produce section when I looked down and Mariele was halfway out of the car and Analese was holding on to her and trying to pull her back in. Hmmmm.......Mariele got out of that seatbelt.

More Punkin' pics and some randomness...

I thought the Fairy Tale pumpkins at HEB were so pretty and unique that I decided to buy one to bring home. I tried to get some pics of my girls with the pumpkin today, since they were both dressed a little "pumpkiny." This is the best I could get, considering they did not seem to be in the picture taking mood:





Yesterday was pajama day at The little gym. Here are the girls looking all cute in their PJs:



A couple of weeks ago it was swimsuit day at The little gym. Yng Yng took this picture of Anita and Analese and emailed it to me. So cute how they are holding hands!



After only a couple of weeks of crawling, Mariele's new thing is to stand up! She pulls up on EVERYTHING! CONSTANTLY! Oh, and yesterday at The little gym, she was crawling over to other babies and pulling their pacis out of their mouths! I have to watch her like a hawk LOL! Here is one of her favorite things to pull up on (Analese's desk):




She is so proud of her new skill. It just excites her and opens up a whole new world to her.

Semi-Wordless Wednesday - The pumpkin pics!

I got together with my friend from the neighborhood who is an aspiring photographer. Currently she only has a point and shoot camera. She really wants an SLR, so I let her "test-drive" mine. We went to a grocery store that has an especially nice display of a variety of pumpkins outside the store. She artfully arranged the pumpkins, and we took pics of our kiddos. Here are the ones of my kiddos (and her kiddos are in some of them too):

Wordless Wednesday - The New Skill!

Costume Carnival!

Yesterday was the costume carnival at The little gym. Earlier in the day I put Mariele in the duck costume just to try it on her. She was indifferent at best:



She did not wear the costume to the party because she was not feeling well anyway (teething), and we were going to the party for the 3+ age group. I did not RSVP to the 0-3 party, because I knew 2 hours would be a bit too much party for all of us.

Analese got to wear her fairy costume. She chose this at the Disney Store because she liked the dress. I did not realize that Disney now has a whole lineup of fairy characters besides Tinkerbell. This costume is for a fairy named Rosetta. Apparently she is in the Tinkerbell movie that we have not seen yet.



Here are a few pics of Analese having a great time at the party:






Here is a rare shot of Mariele's teeth. You can see her two new uppers! The camera was on the wrong setting, so the pic looks a little weird and yellowy, but you can see those teeth!



Funny Analese story: They gave her a treat bag to take home from the party. Silly me, I just let her take it to her room, assuming she would not get into the candy. She had been in her room yesterday evening (after bath and teeth brushing) and she came downstairs were Lee and I were and said, "I need to brush my teeth." That is when I realized that she got into the candy! But I was actually pretty proud of her for realizing that she needed to re-brush her teeth before bedtime. I have instilled good OCD dental hygiene habits into my 3.5 year old! YAY!

New Rug!

We got a new area rug for the den/family room this weekend! And it feels really good on bare feet. Be back later (probably tomorrow) to post pics of the kids costumes and the costume carnival.

Loving fall

Today was a nice crisp and cool fall morning that warmed into a beautiful Indian summer day. We decided to explore a state park that we had not been to yet. We hiked around by a big, pretty lake and just had some relaxing family time. Here are the photos I took.

Phone Photo Friday

My 9 month old!

Mariele is 9 months old today! She wakes up in the morning and hits the floor crawling. And she has a fetish for electrical cords. No matter where I place her in a room, she will stake out the electrical cords and crawl right to them. I have to watch her constantly. I really don't remember Analese getting in as much trouble as Mariele does. Mariele looks so cute in the headbands and bows. BUT....she refuses to wear them. I'm lucky if I can get her to wear them long enough to get her picture. She immediately rips it out. Unlike Analese who has quite willingly worn a hairbow every day of her life since she turned about 8 months old. Mariele is pretty talkative. She says mama and dada all the time. When she wants to nurse, she says nana. Maybe nana is her word for that. Analese's word for nursing was bulk. She loves to trill. She makes this joyful and happy trill noise very often. She can twist her tongue corkscrew style. Not sure where she will use that talent, but she definitely has that talent. Sometimes she makes this low pitched growling noise and she sounds like some alien. She seems to enjoy experimenting with different vocalizations. Mariele hardly eats any solids at all. I try, but she is not the least bit interested. Hopefully she will get more interested as she gets through her teething episodes. She has both of her bottom teeth and is currently working on both of her top teeth. Mariele is so sweet and her smile lights up the room. She loves to flash these BIG gummy, soon to be toothy, grins. She has a great sense of humor and loves to laugh and giggle, especially at big sissy. She is extremely observant. She notices every little thing around her. Nothing gets by her. She is such a joy to our family and we are so glad to be celebrating her 9 month birthday today.








And here is a pic of both of my girls dressed in fall clothes on Sunday because it was a cool fall day!