In Love.

I love my girls!

We've been having so much fun enjoying the gorgeous (well, except for yesterday morning) weather, pumpkin recipes and well, all things fall!

We're cleaning like crazy, getting ready for visitors for Anna's baptism, and in the process we're switching out a lot of Anna's toys, giving her "big girl" playthings. Adele is especially excited about the transition! Anna's favorite "plaything" continues to be her sister, giving her belly laughs on a daily basis (well, except today-she was pretty crabby for some reason...probably teething, but I can't be sure).


Miss Anna is now rolling from her tummy to her back (although today she wouldn't...too fussy, I guess) and she rolls from her back to her side (especially when I lay her in the crib) and she usually won't stay on her tummy for long before rolling! She loves her exersaucer, and will occasionally still stay happy in the swing. She can sit for long periods of time unassisted, but prefers for me to be right behind her (even if I'm not touching her at all) it seems that the second I leave her sitting alone in a room she topples over (I don't do this often...mostly just to see what will happen). She is working hard at teething but so far no teeth to speak of. I was just sure one was poking through on Sunday, but I guess I was wrong because she's still all gums. She now has tried rice cereal, squash, green beans, sweet potatoes and pumpkin. She enjoys her solid food but I think she still prefers nursing (especially in the middle of the night lately...and I've been too tired to try the whole cry it out thing again...it's a pretty vicious cycle!) She is my little snuggle bug and I am trying to soak her all up because she's already getting too big too fast!

Also growing too fast (because "God made me grow", as she told me the other day), Adele has completed her first sticker chart for good behavior and earned a trip to the dollar store with $2.00 to spend. I'm a sucker and gave her a third dollar because I couldn't resist buying her some pumpkin socks! It's actually somewhat surprising that she has earned this reward because since initiating the sticker chart (she had to earn 20, at a max of 2 stickers per day) we've had to take just about everything out of her room. During nap and bedtime she started CLIMBING her furniture and could reach what we thought were "high" shelves. So, everything came off of the shelves. Next she started climbing her bookshelf, actually knocking a shelf (and all the books on it!) out. So, the books from that shelf went away. The next day she had all of the rest of the books off the shelf and was tearing the covers off of her chapter books (this time I was actually upset with her...the other times we were able to laugh at her once we got back downstairs). I was at a complete loss about what to do after the book incident, especially because I knew that it was at least partially my fault for having chapter books in her room where she could access them! After all, she is only two!

I could hardly believe my eyes last night when she had taken ALL of her clothes out of her dressers. But I left the mess and told her that she'd be cleaning that mess up by herself today before doing our intended project of decorating our pumpkin cookies.

She cleaned. We decorated.






We ate.
We ate WAY too many pumpkin cookies.
Now we have to make more before our company comes!

And finally, after a fantastic day, we completed the sticker chart!
So, we shopped!
She picked out red fairy wings and matching "slippers"
And smiled the whole way home.



(And then, while I was writing this she took her books BACK off of the bookshelf. I know this because while they're back ON the bookshelf, they're a little bit...sideways. I love that naughty little girl!)