pumpkin palace

Evie and I got to chaperone the girls' field trip to the pumpkin palace in Orting, WA.
The big girls were so good, and stayed with their buddies the whole time. Evie was teething, and cried pretty much the whole time.

Kara is almost 4 pumpkins tall.



The kids were excited about lunch.

Mrs. Wright tried to get the kids lost in the corn maze, but Kara's sense of direction was right on, and being one of the stronger personalities, she kept getting them to the end, and Mrs. Wright would lead them back into the maze.

The kids love playing on this giant woodchip pile. Even Evie cheered up a little.

They had a few running races before we left. I though Kara would be exhasted for soccer practice that evening, but she was energized as ever.

9/30/11

One day this week, I decided to make the girls' snack into a spider I had seen somewhere online. My grapes were huge, though, so the legs looked weird, and I did the face differently, but the girls really got a kick out of it.

Kara is still having soccer practice 2 nights a week. Some of the other younger teams have changed to only practicing one night a week. I secretly hoped that our team would do the same. But the kids are getting better at each practice.

Kiersten and Evie love playing on the playground during practice. Evie had so much fun this day. It was the last day before she started getting sick, so it's nice to see smiling pictures of her. All I've seen the last few days, is a sad, miserable face.

As we were about to leave for practice, I noticed Kiersten was in dress up clothes. I didn't have time to make her change, as we were already a bit late. So I let her wear her outfit to the practice. There happened to be another little sister on the playground wearing a tutu and fairy wings. They decided to play together right away, and spent the entire hour together.


They usually spend a lot of their time at practice fighting over snacks.

On wednesday, the girls wanted to do a project after school. So I let them make paper pumpkins. They both were so proud to get to use the paper cutter, and the stapeler.

Here they are with the finished pumpkins. Now Kara really wants to get out all the halloween decorations. I told her we'd probably do it this weekend.

Since Evie was too sick/too little to help, I made her a smaller pumpkin so she wouldn't feel left out. It was enough for her to get to touch the supplies and tools, and she ended up almost as happy about her pumpkin as the other 2.

I think they turned out really cute for such an easy project.

We ended up hanging them from the fans in their bedrooms.

Yesterday was Kiersten's first class helper day. She woke me up in the morning, all excited, and wanted to get her hair curled. Because she got dressed and ate breakfast so quickly, I had time to do the curls for her. She was so proud, i really should do it more often. She decided to take her baby zhu zhu pet for show and tell.

After school, she kept telling me that she was so special, and telling me excitedly about her day. When i tried to get her to tell Ben around bed time, she didn't really have much to say. I guess she was tired of talking about it.


Kara was class helper today. She ended up taking Kiersten's Ariel and Eric barbies. Ben tried to talk her out of it, but Kiersten was okay with it, so that's what she took. I'm sure Kiersten will want to bring prince Eric for show and tell herself, so the kids will just get to see him twice. Today was also their first field trip of the year. they got to ride a ferry boat. they both had lots of fun. I was glad I didn't volunteer to chaperone, because i ended up taking Evie to the doctor today, and she has a double ear infection. So I'm glad i didn't have her out and about, and crying the whole time.
After I took their picture together, Kiersten said, "mommy, you need to take a very special picture of just me on my best field trip day ever".

long weekend

Ben took a few days off this past week to spend at home with us. Mostly we just spent family time at home, but on friday, we decided to go to the NW Trek. We haven't been there since this spring, so we thought the girls would like to go. It was a nice, cool day, but not rainy, so that was ideal. tall trees

There are huge banana slugs all over at this time of year. We accidentally squashed this one with the stroller, but didn't tell Kara it was dying as she admired it.

Family picture, though you can't really see Evie.The girls were so excited that the otters and beavers were out swimming around, and not just sleeping in their dens.

The wolverines are always running around and hyper.

Kiersten enjoyed gathering leaves as we walked around.

Evie woke up toward the end of the day, while we were in the discovery center.

I was getting the girls ready this morning, and when I was fixing their breakfast, Kara said she would "babysit" Evie. So I put her in the swing to make it easier for Kara to watch her. (and to protect her). She is a very sweet girl, and always wants to help. Lately she is really into "chore lists". and asks me to write her a list nearly every day. Then she checks off all the chores as she gets them done. occasionally, Kiersten will ask for a chore list too, but she loses interest in actually doing the chores pretty quickly.

Kara's preschool class has a field trip to the mall today to ride elevators and escalators, in honor of it being "E" week. She is pretty excited, and we had to get a picture of her in the field trip uniform. Her teacher had asked me if she needed a bigger shirt, but her shirt from last year is still a little too big on her. I hope they have fun. She's pretty excited that they will be riding the city bus to get to the mall. I would have volunteered to chaperone, but i don't think they need me with my double stroller and 2 extra kids slowing them down.

Field trip to city hall

Kara doesn't usually have school on thursdays, but her teacher was having trouble getting parent volunteers for a field trip to city hall to meet the mayor of Tacoma. So I asked if she would like me to come along and help out. Kara was thrilled, since she missed the library field trip in January, and was going to miss this one too. Here she is holding hands with her buddy for the day. She really wanted her buddy to be one of the other girls, but these two did pretty well together. Kiersten came along too. She didn't behave perfectly, but did pretty well for her age. Her biggest issue was that she wanted a buddy like the other kids had. I just wasn't a good enough buddy, I guess.

The kids waiting for the bus. Their teacher really has them in line. It was impressive. If someone started acting up, all it took was her saying their name and they were back to good behavior.

the kids all piled into the bus. I think that was their favorite part of the entire field trip.

Marilyn Strickland, the mayor of Tacoma. She was just elected in November, and seemed pretty excited to have the kids there. She said this was her first group of pre-schoolers to come for the tour. She let them play on the terrace outside her office, and gave them all temporary tattoos and pins to take home. She took us down to see the council chambers and held a little mock meeting with the kids.

All the kids got to say their name into the microphone and ask a question if they wanted. Unfortunately Kara's teacher got in the way just as I took this picture. The mayor had asked the kids if anyone wanted to be a mayor when they grew up. Of course they all said they did. When Kara got up, her question was, "Is it okay if I can be the president instead of the mayor?" we all laughed, and Mayor Strickland told Kara that would be a very good thing to aspire to. Then Kara leaned in again and said, "or maybe I will be a cake maker." Then she just went and sat back down. She got a lot of laughs.

The kids loved sitting in these chairs for the "meeting". They didn't want any of us adults sitting with them.

The class posing with the mayor. The man on the left is the other parent that helped chaperone. All the kids loved having Kiersten along. Kara got a little protective, and kept reminding everyone that Kiersten is HER sister.

It was a fun little outing, and I'm glad I went. I didn't really want to, but I knew Kara did, and I didn't want the trip to get canceled for all the kids because there weren't enough parents to go. Mayor Strickland was so nice and happy to have us there. I think that made it really fun for all of the kids. All of her staff was really cheerful and nice as well, so those kids felt like special guests. We did cause a few people to take the stairs once they got a look inside the elevator full of children. That was pretty funny to see the surprised looks we got from people.

pumpkin farm

I went with Kara's class on a field trip to a pumpkin farm yesterday. It was supposed to be monday, but it got postponed for rain. Some of the parents who had volunteered to drive, could no longer go with the day change, so I said I would drive. Here is their cute class arriving at the pumpkin farm. They each had a buddy to hold hands with every time we walked from place to place. Kara and her buddy just happened to be the two slowest walkers. The other kids would hustle along, and these two would lag behind, talking to each other and admiring everything they saw. I didn't mind, because I was usually back there with Kiersten anyway.
Kiersten wandering. She was trying to touch every pumpkin at first, but had to give up eventually.

Kiersten admiring a really big turkey. She was really cute with all the animals. She would wave and say "hi" while giggling, and for some of the animals, she would make their animal sound.

Kara and her buddy posing in the snow white exhibit. They had lots of little scenes set up with the pumpkins, especially lots of fairy tales and nursery rhyme themesAfter lunch, they all played on this big pile of wood chips. They were really soft from the rain. Here is Kara riding down the hill on a little car. Some of the kids were flipping over, and crashing, but no one cried or got seriously hurt. It was upsetting at first, then I realized they were not going to be injured.

Here is the class in the corn maze. It was themed with the story of the ginger bread man. The storyline was supposed to give you hints about the correct way to go, but the kids didn't really get that. We were lost in there FOREVER. It seemed like it to me because Kiersten was afraid and crying most of the time. We saw some of the displays in there 6 or 7 times, but eventually made it out.

Kiersten was my buddy for the day. She wouldn't wear her gloves at first, so I let another little girl wear them. When her hands started getting cold, another mom had these socks for her to use.

One of the kids pulling Kiersten in a wagon. This is the little girl that got to ride with us in our car.

I got stuck setting up the bowling pins over and over for all the kids to have a turn. Then they all started wanting another turn. I was stuck there for quite a while, before I could convince two of the boys that they could set up the pins on their own.

It was a fun day, and both of the girls got to buy a pumpkin. Kara got the biggest of her class. They each had to bring $2, and Kara spent $1.20 of hers. None of the other kids went over a dollar. They had to be able and willing to carry the pumpkins, so most of them went pretty small. Kiersten's only cost $0.65, so we used what was left of Kara's money. I'll post some pictures when we get them carved.