Early Bday/Frankenstorm Dinner!

So, since we'll be in the air flying towards the happiest place on Earth on Chad's birthday, we had an early birthday dinner for him tonight.  Also, Hurricane Sandy is expected within the next couple of days, and will probably bring high winds, 6+ inches of rain, and power outages.  They are calling it "Frankenstorm"  :) We figured we'd better get our happy bday singing and cake eating out of the way early!

Now off to batten down the hatches!!

Carving the Pumpkin

Time to carve the jack-o-lantern!  The girls were really excited for this annual tradition.  It is so neat that they are finally at an age where they can remember our holiday traditions and look forward to certain things.  I was surprised this year, because Hannah actually got her hands dirty!  Last year, she wore gloves so she wouldn't get the pumpkin goop on her hands.  She was all about it this time!

Here is Daddy preparing to cut the top off, while the girls watching intently....

I'm ready for pumpkin dissection!

I'm soooo excited, Dad!!

It's the goopey-goop!!

Action shots...

They worked hard to clean out the goop and then Hannah carved most of the pumpkin herself.  I gave Sadie a chance, but given the latest incident with scissors (see new hair do'), she stressed me out with the carving utensil. 

The finished product...all lit up :)

Vegetable Soup

On Friday, our girl scout troop took a cooking class at a local farm.  The girls got to harvest their own veggies, chop them up, and make their own vegetable soup.  Though Hannah wouldn't dare put a veggie in her mouth, she was perfectly happy to chop food, and cook her own meal.  She really enjoyed this!
Here she is with her friends harvesting beans...she found a curly one.

All the girls with their homegrown loot...

Sweet girl :)

Chop, Chop, Chop...

Yum!

Then we made peanut butter & jelly sandwiches (with home made peanut butter, of course), and sat down to enjoy the fruit of our labor!

Pumpkins

This past weekend, we ventured out to Meadows Farms (a local nursery) and picked a large pumpkin for carving, and a couple of smaller pumpkins for painting.  This was a fairly easy task, seeing as there were not many pumpkins at this particular location to choose from!  I have the worst luck trying to capture cute Fall pictures of the girls.  It's either too windy, or too sunny, or too something!  I think this photo had it all going on....too windy, too bright, too heavy...

Look, I found one Mom!

Here's mine!

And later that afternoon, we painted pumpkins outside.  The weather was gorgeous!

Roll over, Beethoven

For our latest girl scout meeting, I planned for a guest speaker from the local animal shelter to come teach the girls how to care for animals.  She brought their 4-legged "mascot", Max, a huge St. Bernard dog.  The girls loved him!  One of the girls noticed that he looked like the pup from the movie, 'Beethoven'.  :)

Daddy's Helpers

Helping Daddy plant some grass seed....

Whatever you do, DON'T step in the grass seed!

Oops, I think I stepped in it...

Hannah's First Race!

Last weekend, there was a fun local Kids Race and we signed Hannah up!  She's been asking to run with me  for the past several months, so we got her some good running shoes and signed her up.  She loved  it, and she is FAST!!  She was a bit worried about going by herself, so I decided to run the .36 mile course with her.  When the race director shouted "GO!", Hannah shot out and took off!  I couldn't even keep up with her.  I think she just wanted to make sure that she beat her ol' Mom.
Pre-race photo :)

Limbering up!

Here she comes!

Heading for the finish! (you can see me far away in the distance-lol)

Post Race Pic ...with her ribbon, tropical smoothie & water!

Proud of our runner!

Sadie was cheering for Hannah, and two other friends running the race, Makayla & Conner.  The signs were so lovingly made by MomMom!

Preschool

Sadie and I started preschool 3 weeks ago, and things are going pretty well!  Sadie is going M-F and I'm working in a classroom on M, W, and F.  Sadie seems to have made several new buddies this year, and is off to a great start with talking to her teachers and contributing during circle time.  I can't believe she'll be in Kindergarten this same time, next year.

Here we are on our first school morning!

Back to School

This week, Hannah started 1st grade!  We had a much different "first day" experience that last year, thankfully!!!  Hannah was super excited to go back to school this year.  She was up, fed , and dressed by 6:30AM in anticipation of the bus.

The transition from half-day Kindergarten to full-day will take some time to get used to!  I think she's going to have a great year, though.  We're so lucky that both our girls love school, and I pray that it is always that way!
Hannah is not the only one going back to school this week!  I recently accepted an assistant teaching position at Sadie's preschool, so I'll be working Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  So, I'm in training this week and Sadie is in "staff care" with the rest of the teachers' kids.  She is LOVING it!  Her (and mine) first day of school is Sept. 10th.  Wish us luck!
This one makes me laugh....Sadie's eyes are just so sensitive to light.

Last Trip of the Summer!

Last week was full of excitement for us!  I took the girls down to Virginia Beach for one last trip before school starts, and Erin had her baby while we were in town!  The girls were ecstatic to meet their new cousin.

Charlotte Lillian was born on August 16th at 7:52 PM.  She was 8lbs 12oz!!  She is precious, and looks like Amelia's twin!  She's going to be another tall, gorgeous Lettis girl :)    I'm so happy for Erin and Matt, and I think it's awesome that our family consists of ALL girls!
They LOVE babies...

We had plenty of other adventures on our vacation, the water park being a fave of both girls.  On Thursday while Erin was in labor, Grandpa took us to Ocean Breeze.  I wish I'd taken pictures, because it was a blast!  There was a new "lazy river" for both adults and kids to float around, so all 4 of us did it.   We didn't know about the 3 huge waterfalls that drench you if you drift too far to either side.  Dad's tube floated right underneath a water fall and he got soaked!  It was the most hilarious thing I've seen in a long time!...Where's a water-proof camera when I need it?!
This is the only picture I took at the water park.  Took it with my phone while I was waiting to hear if Charlotte had arrived yet.  Sadie floated around the kiddie lazy river 5 times while Grandpa and Hannah did one more slide before the park closed.

We also visited the Virginia Aquarium, which the girls always enjoy.  I can remember coming here almost every single year in school for field trips!

 
Can't go to the aquarium without getting a shark mouth picture!

After that, we went to Chicks Beach with Liz & Jackson.  I like that area because it's never crowded, and the waves are pretty much non-existent.  We had a great time!

"Look Mom, no feet!"

We had more fun with Jackson later in the week.  Hannah had a blast playing Twister at his house on Friday.  It has taken a looooong time for them to play nicely together.  They have completely opposite dispositions and personalities, so many visits have ended in tears or frustration.  But they are finally at the age where they can have fun together...it was really nice for Liz and I to watch.  We've been best friends for 16 years, shouldn't our mini-me's get along? :)

It was a great week!  I loved getting to see my new niece and spend time with family and friends.  Perfect way to end our summer!
One more shot from Mt. Trashmore.  I hadn't been there since I was a kid...we used to go fly kites on top of the mountain (which is a huge landfill that was turned into a grassy mountain and park).  The girls and I decided to climb to the top.

Kitties and Froyo

This morning, we met G-G-Ma, Gage & Mikayla at the animal shelter to hand over the proceeds we made from our yardsale/lemonade stand last weekend.  Afterwards, we visited with the cats and dogs..and I could hardly pull the girls away from the kittens.  An entire room FULL of kittens.  I didn't want to leave, either!

Tonight we went to the Frozen Yogurt place for dessert after Chad got home.  The girls had fun relaxing in the large chairs out front of the store.  I had to snap a picture :)

Lemonade Stand

Today was Grandma's second annual "Yard Sale for the Animal Shelter"  We raised $187 to donate to the local animal shelter, and about $15 of that was from the kids' lemonade stand!  They always have so much fun doing it, and love spending time with Gage & Mikayla.

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Water Balloon Toss with Daddy

Focused!

The balloon keeper..

What we do from 6-7PM. :)

Yesterday after dinner, we went out on the front porch to blow some bubbles.  We usually do this when the weather is nice while we wait for Daddy to get home from his loooong drive home from work.

The girls wanted to take turns being the photographer and we got a little silly....Sadie liked taking a more scenic photo....

..While Hannah went for the close-ups.  (I happen to LOVE this picture of Sadie-she's the cutest little butternut squash)

Sadie took this one...a self portrait.

And here's the 3 of us acting like fruit loops...