Leaf Pile!

Saturday morning we loaded up and went to the donut shop. I was actually allowed to go on this special day because it was Daddy's Birthday Eve and we were celebrating. When we got home, we made a big pile of leaves in the front yard to play in. Olive had a BLAST! At first she only wanted to jump in if I held her hand, but by the end, she was running from across the yard and jumping in! We were so lucky to have a warm day so she could play outside and in short sleeves! I have to warn you, this is a super long post with tons of pictures, but they are some of the favorite pics I have ever captured of her "in action"! When she woke up from her nap, she immediately asked to go back to play in the pile. Here is hoping for more warm days so we can leaf jump!
(Side note about the butterfly shirt, in case anyone has noticed that every post from a Saturday she is wearing it. She wore this butterfly shirt ONE time to the donut shop and it has since become her "donut shop uniform". She refuses to wear anything but this shirt on Saturday mornings. Silly girl!)

Window Seat

Before Olive was born, we commissioned my Dad to create a window seat/toy box for Olive's room. Up until today, it had just been a used storage chest, Christmas tree holder and laundry folding spot. This morning, it got quiet, so I went looking for Olive and this is what I found...Happily utilizing the window seat and watching a little Dragon Tales.

Sweet piggies...

I see many days of sitting on the window seat to come!

Do You Know The Muffin Ma'am?

I have a little baker on my hands! Which is funny because if you know me well, you know that I am not exactly Susie Homemaker, especially when it comes to cooking. But, I have been trying a lot more lately and Olive insists on helping when I do. She had asked to make brownies the other day and I told her we would bake this week. I decided today was the day and since there was a can of pumpkin in the pantry SCREAMING to be used, we made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. Now, my Mom makes the BEST pumpkin bread in the whole entire world (best chocolate chip cookies, too) but she was at work so I couldn't ask her for the recipe. And I tore my kitchen apart looking for it with no luck. So, what did I do? Turned to pinterest, of course! I found this recipe at http://www.oopseydaisyblog.com/2011/09/delicious-pumpkin-chocolate-chip-muffins.html. They are good, not as good as Mom's, but very tasty. Olive wanted to do everything herself which made this a very interesting and messy day. And all of these pics were taken on my phone because I only had one hand!

First you add the flour.
Olive tip: "Shake the measuring cup to get it all out"

Then a couple of steps later, you add the cinnamon.
Olive tip: I am not sure why my Mommy says cinnamon, it is more fun to say "cimma-meeeen"

And then you violently shake the pumpkin can to try to get it out.

Olive tip: If this doesn't work, have your Mom help you scrape it outThen it was time to add the chocolate chips.

Olive tip: When your Mommy goes to open the bag a little more, sneak a few chocolate chips. Olive tip: And then get some out of the bag! I promise, it is good stuff! Then it was time to mix it all together. I tried to give Olive a spoon, but she preferred to use the tsp. it was more her size.Next you add the mix to the muffin tins.

Olive tip: Don't sling it around, your Mommy won't like having pumpkin goo all over the cabinets.

I let her fill most of them by herself. She could not have been more proud of herself. Happy little baker!

They turned out delicious!

Trick or Treat!

We decided to have a special treat before trick or treating...Smores! This may be because we want to start a fun tradition and it may also have something to do with Mommy loving smores so much. Not really sure which is more important! Daddy got the fire going and everything ready for us. Olive worked hard to make sure her marshmallow was on just right.

Then Daddy showed her how to warm it up. and blow it out!

I am sure there is someone out there who is just dying to know...did she wear her Buddy costume? No...but in one last ditch effort, we did turn on Elf before getting ready just to help put the thought in her mind. It didn't work. I tried to snap a few pictures on the porch, but she wasn't having it because she saw her friends Knox and Elly across the street. "I go see them?!!"

Sweet Knox giving Olive her first piece of candy of the night!

We went to several houses with Knox and Elly and then they decided to call it quits, so we went down the rest of the street just the 3 of us! Olive didn't quite understand to say "trick or treat" usually when we say "what do you say?" the response is "thank you" so that was her phrase! They would open the door and she would hold out her bucket and say "thank you!" It was sweet to say the least. "Come on Daddy, stop chatting with the neighbors, there is more candy to get!"Our next stop was Pop's house. We went inside to relax for a minute. Then she was ready to keep going!

Our last stop was our sweet neighbors Bob and Dean's house. Their yard is where Olive collects acorns, so convincing her to leave the acorns alone and go to the door was a little bit of a challenge! We had a great night trick or treating. And the Buddy costume is hanging nicely in the closet, ready for next year! (I HOPE!)

Pre-Halloween Festivities

We had a lot of fun activities leading up to Halloween. And God gave me the biggest lesson of motherhood so far, how to let go...and I am still not learning this lesson very gracefully. I had the idea for Olive to be Buddy the Elf and I spent so much time making her costume. I bought my first ever pattern and sewed a jacket from felt and then decorated it to look like Buddy. I was so excited about it and couldn't wait to see her in it. We introduced her to the movie and she loved Buddy, so I knew she would love her costume...WRONG! She wouldn't even put it on. Pure heartbreak.
We went to our church Fall Fest and I fully expected her to wear it. After her laying in the parking lot SCREAMING "I no like it. No Buddy jacket" and me pinning her to the ground trying to force it onto her, I realized my Halloween dreams were about to be shattered. Luckily, we had thrown Ming Ming in the back of the car and Stephen got it out and she put it on no problem. And she looked adorable.

But because of my unwillingness to "let go" instead of admiring how precious she looked, I was just down right bitter that she didn't wear the "right" costume. Silly me, wasting valuable minutes worrying about something so stupid, but I still worried about it. She had a blast at the festival. The first people we ran into were her favorite friends Evan and Emma! She couldn't have been happier to see them!Then we went inside to play some fun games...

and did a little trunk or treating...She didn't understand the concept of candy going into her bucket. She would grab it out and try to eat it. She enjoyed her first Nerds (well technically this was one of the few "foods" i could eat when I was pregnant with her because everything else made me sick, but it was the first time she actually physically ate them herself.)

And she enjoyed her first sucker!

She had a great time and the proof was all over her mouth at the end of the night!

The next pre-Halloween event was her school party on Friday! We took special treats to her teachers and bat brownies for her class.
I was excited to get to see her interact with her friends. They wore their costumes to school that morning and did a parade around to all of the other classrooms. She wore her Ming Ming tights under her costume (which are a bit small and hang down really low in the middle) I sent a jean skirt for them to put on over the tights when she took her costume off. When I got there, bless her heart she was in her t-shirt and only her tights...let me tell you she looked special! Her jean skirt had gotten lost in the shuffle of the morning and stuck in her cubbie. :) She didn't care one single bit!

She had a lot of fun with her friends! Saturday afternoon, we decided it was time to carve our Jack-o-lantern. Daddy showing her the inside of the pumpkin. Eeew!

Starting to cut...Concentrating

The final product! We had so many fun things leading up to Halloween, we couldn't wait for the big day to finally arrive! (And Mommy was hoping that by some small chance she would wear her Buddy costume to trick or treat!)