Animal! Animal!

I loved watching the muppet show as a kid. We would get to stay up to watch it which was a lot of fun for us. My favorite muppet is Animal. We found this video on YouTube and I absolutely cracked up when Animal came on. Not so much because he himself was funny. I already know his schtick. But because he reminded me so much of Katherine, our own little Animal. Cute and adorable and very much her own wild person.

Today Katherine did something that strengthened my opinion that she and Animal are kindred spirits. She’d been standing at the top of the stairs calling to Alan to come pick her up because for some reason she just didn’t want to go down the stairs all on her own that time. He was ignoring her because his hands were full doing something else. She called out “daddy, daddy, uppy” a few times and then, being ignored, she called out with a much growlier and louder voice, not unlike Animal’s, “DADDY!! DADDY!! UPPY!!”

It cracked me up! I love that girl!

Anyway, enjoy the video. You may see some of Katherine in it.

What song is that?

Yesterday Gabby was playing on the piano the “Happy Birthday” song she’d just learned to play by ear. Alan and Katherine were also in the room.

Alan: “Katherine, do you know what song that is?”

Katherine: “Cake!!”

Yep, she knows what song that is. :)

Family Photos

We recently had our family photos taken. We missed them last year and so really needed to get them done this year! I have always loved the outdoor pictures and so we took our family outside for a photo shoot. Thanks to our friend Stefanie of SweetJoy Photography we got some great pictures!

Here are some of the ones I liked the best: (I really love the brick wall here. It was really awesome that that was there!)

Even Joseph is looking at the camera! And you will see Katherine’s dynamite personality all through these!

 

And Joseph is saying “hey, wha’s up man…”

I’m not sure which finish (filter?) I like the best:

 

This one captures Samantha’s personality as always the observer:

And below, Katherine’s as the little explorer/climber/run amoker. I just really love this picture because it shows Katherine’s dynamite, wants to do her own thing personality.

And this is just so funny! You think Katherine’s has had enough of the sitting still?

I like this one of us except Alan’s eye look closed and my glasses are crooked (I’m getting contacts before the next time!)

This is a good one too:

We had a lot of fun and will likely do this again!

I will be making prints of some of these. If any of our family wants copies please let me know which ones and what size.  These I think are the best ones but there are some others to look at too so let me know if you want to see the others.

What do you see here?

 

Do you see her? Samantha was just so cute with her stuffed animals piled on top of her that I had to grab the camera!

Beautiful Banister

Part of our project to paint the hall was also to remove and paint the banister and handrail since they were really grungy looking with the white paint wearing off. I love the look of wrought iron and black looks really good against my newly painted almond walls so I painted them black. Alan just put them back up this evening and I had to take a picture because they look so good! And to think I hated that banister so much before. Now I love it!

The stairs will hopefully be getting painted tonight. I’ll post another picture once it’s all done.

Halloween Parades

Both Gabby and Samantha had the privilege this year to show off their cool costumes at their schools’ Halloween parades.

Samantha had hers at preschool on Thursday. The kids marched into the room full of parents and grandparents and sang us songs, recited poetry and marched around the room to show us their cool costumes!

Samantha is a blue fairy. Her dress lights up which is really cool!

 

 

 

 

 

Katherine is Snow White which at the moment, thanks to a cheap non-Disney remake of Snow White, is Katherine’s favorite princess. I will have to show her the real Disney Snow White movie!

 

Katherine wanted to get in on the fun  and managed to escape in the middle of a song. I wasn’t about to run in front of the group and grab her while all the parents were trying to take pictures. But it was okay. Samantha didn’t seem to mind.

 

 

The kids were really cute even though you could barely hear them on the video you can tell they worked hard on their parts.

This is the 5 Little pumpkins poem. Gabby learned it in kindergarten and I thought it was so cute that I made little foam cutouts of pumpkins and put this poem on them and every year we hang them outside as Halloween decorations.

Here is the poem:

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate;

The first one said, "Oh my it's getting late."

The second one said, "There are witches in the air."

The third one said, "But I don't care."

The fourth one said, "I'm ready for some fun!"

The fifth one said, "Let's run and run and run."

"Wooooooo" went the wind,

And out went the lights.

And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Gabby’s parade was on Friday. Her school had a major deal for their Halloween parade. I can remember at that age my school’s parade just being in the school and marching around the different class rooms. I don’t remember doing anything special for the parents or the community. That could just be poor memory on my part. But Gabby’s school had the high school marching band lead the way

 

and the Dare car that carried their enthusiastic principal. I’d be pretty enthusiastic riding in that too!

 

 

 

 

 

They had a lot of fun! There is a retirement home at the end of the road so the whole school marched down the road so that the residents there can see the great costumes! The 5th graders went inside and paraded for those who couldn’t come out. What a great idea and fun thing to do for the community!

Gabby dressed as a southern Belle. She wanted to be something pretty for Halloween and really enjoyed the fact that I let her wear some make-up with her costume!  

Her red lips and rosy cheeks!

We’re waiting for the parade to start. Samantha is doing her scary Halloween hands.

 

 

 

Alan and Katherine waiting for the parade.