Happy Halloween From Our Three Little Birds!

We are so in love with our Halloween costumes this year that were made by Maddy.  Maddy spent most of September and October designing and making these beautiful bird wings and feather headbands for Grace, Jack and Eve.  The wings are so beautiful and colorful that they could be pieces of art.  Thank you so much Maddy for making these sweet costumes for our three little birds.  You have made Grace, Jack and Eve so happy that they could fly!

I have many, many more individual pictures of Grace, Jack and Eve in their bird costumes that I will be posting later.  Wishing everyone a very happy and fun-filled Halloween.

Happy Halloween!

Pictures of our three little birds coming later today.

Tweet, tweet, tweet.

Clementine Jack-o'-lanterns...

...because the best, most fun food ideas are really simple!

Our favorite Halloween activity this year has been drawing jack-o'-lantern faces on clementines and oranges.  This is such a fun activity...and they are even more fun to eat!

Our Three Pumpkins!

We celebrated Halloween yesterday morning at our Children's Museum Halloween Science Fun party.  Grace, Jack and Eve had such a fun time getting dressed up in their costumes that Maddy made for them (lots and lots of pictures to come - tweet, tweet, tweet!).  After the science party we went to our local farm stand to pick out three pumpkins.  Grace chose a round one, Jack chose a tall one and Eve chose a small one.  Just like last year, Grace designed and carved our jack-o'-lanterns all by herself.  In the picture above, Grace had just finished carving her pumpkin and wrote, "Gracie-o'-lantern" on the back!  We enjoyed lighting our jacks last night.  I'll be sure to take pictures of our jacks when they are lit tonight.      

Eve decided to decorate her small pumpkin with markers and stickers.  When we went to the farm stand Eve was so cute...she knew exactly which pumpkin was the perfect one for her right away!

While the girls worked on their pumpkins, Jack drove our lawn tractor with Daddy to cut the grass.  Jack asked that Grace surprise him with his pumpkin carving and he was so happy to see that Grace carved out the letter J on his!

Grace's Soccer Award Ceremony

Grace had her final soccer game of the season last Saturday.  It was such a great first season for Grace -- lots of goals scored, making new friends and being part of a team were just some of the many highlights!  Shortly after the game there was an awards ceremony where all of the soccer players were recognized for their achievements this season and presented with a trophy.  In the picture above, Grace is proudly holding her first trophy!

Here is Grace on stage accepting her soccer trophy.

Here is Grace on the stage with several of her soccer teammates!    

Pumpkins & Cows at Pineland Farms

After Jack and Eve carved their pumpkins at Pineland Farms, the highlight of our day there was walking to the cow barn to feed the cows a big treat -- the pulp from inside of our carved pumpkins!  The cows were delighted to receive such a sweet treat and Jack and Eve always love spending time with their cow friends.  Here are some pictures from our time there...

Pumpkin Carving at Pineland Farms

 

Planting & Harvesting "Pumpkin" Letters!

Eve loves alphabet letters and sound activities.  I thought it would be fun to mix up our letter learning a bit by bringing it outside!  To do this letter activity an orange pool noodle was cut into twenty-six slices (thank you, Bob!).  I tied a green ribbon around each pool noodle slice so that each one would resemble a pumpkin.  On each of the "pumpkins" I wrote a letter -- uppercase on one side and lowercase on the reverse side.

I asked Jack to "plant" the pumpkins outside in one of our empty garden boxes.  He was so excited to help out with this activity.  Being outside + working with dirt = one very happy boy!!!  The goal of this activity was to have Eve pull the pumpkins out of the ground or "harvest" them and identify the letter name and sound on each of her harvested pumpkins.  Once Eve finished harvesting Jack arranged the pumpkins in alphabetical order onto a garden stake.

Here is one of the "pumpkins" showing the uppercase letter M.  

Jack had such a great time planting the pumpkins!  He also had fun "harvesting" them and helping Eve with the letter sounds.

Here is Eve harvesting her first pumpkin letter!  She was very excited because it was the letter E.  Eve ran over to Jack and said, "E...e...e!  Evie!"

Harvest time!

Once Eve was done with the letter activity, it turned into a great unplanned fine motor activity.  Eve found one of our garden stakes and put all of the letter pumpkins she collected onto the stake.

Once Eve was finished, Jack took all the pumpkins and arranged them on another garden stake in alphabetical order!