Elena and I spent an hour making her "leaf bath" and "leaf castle". If you were to ask her about it, she would make a point of telling you about her "garden" too, but we didn't make that part!

Leaf "bubbles" are great!

Happy Halloween!

Hobbit Dad took out panther Alia (she made her own tail! :), Pink Bunny Elena, and Darth Maul Tanner out trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. When they got back they all helped give out candy. Elena really liked giving out the candy!! :)

They brought home a wonderful haul of candy...chocolate candy...Yum!

Halloween! We carved pumpkins on Monday night. The orange pumpkin is from the store. The other three (plus three we didn't use and one that already rotted) were from our garden. Check out the green hue on some of these. I wonder if they cross-pollinated with the watermelon or cantaloupe!

Check out the "action" shot at the end. Only Alia was brave enough to do the "ewey, goey cleaning part."

Pre-Halloween fun:
Tanner's lightsaber in action.

A Day or Two in the life of a Two-year old.

First--excitement. A friend came over to play today! We climbed up onto the loom bench and climbed down. My friend didn't need any help, but I used the chair to get up and down!


Second-- achievement! Mom said I should make a castle out of cones and books while she wove. She made a layer or two, and then I added my own. Ta-da!

Third-- an owie. My big sister and I were playing a "cowgirl" (swing your partner!) game and I slipped and hit the floor. My "four big teeth" hurt and my lip bled a bit, but it's doing better now.


That's my day! How was yours? :)

The heading on this page is appropriate...Martin and Alia got into a math discussion at the table after breakfast. It lead to an explanation of square roots.

"Diversions"!

Grandma and Grandpa Madsen sent us some Halloween cookie cutters and icing last week. We made sugar cookies and had these yummy desserts on Monday!










Elena liked the idea of the cookies...but in the end she ate the icing and left the cookies!




















Tanner (who was a bat for Halloween last year) wanted my bat cookie. This was not from a cookie cutter. I took the last few bits of cookie dough --not enough to roll out--and shaped it by hand into a bat. He traded his pumpkin shaped cookie for the bat. :)

We had a visitor in our garden this afternoon! He was about 6 1/2" long and very beautiful. The kids didn't want to get too close to him...until they could find a stick and try and poke him. (Mom did ask them to stop!)
















This is the last of our tomatoes for this year. The sprawling vines are now gone from our front yard (and walk!). Anyone for fried green tomatoes?

Creativity Has Struck! Look at these awesome paint jobs! Mom did the edges, Dad did the walls and the designs! Way to go Dad!