Happy Halloween

Pretty Princess!

Alabama Cheerleader! I couldn't get a good picture of Brooklyn because she won't stand still, but here is what I did get!

Tuesday's Project

Tuesday the girls and I made Pumpkin Cupcakes (at least they were supposed to look like pumpkins)! They didn't turn out quite as well as I'd envisioned, but here is a picture anyway!

What happens when baby girls don't nap...

Monkey Tails and Sign Language

When Bella was a year, her "lovie" was a puppy dog and now at two years, her lovie is a monkey! Well, after Brooklyn was born, I started getting her some of the Ty Beanie Babies (the medium sized ones), but I was getting (or trying to) different colors than what Bella had. Bella had the brown monkey, so I got Brooklyn the pink monkey. Well, Brooklyn kept "stealing" Bella's monkey, so I ended up finding another brown one and now they both have a brown monkey for their lovie! Brooklyn also has a little "baby monk" that she likes as well! The funny thing about Brooklyn is that she carries them by their tails! If you hand it to her, she will immediately flip it over and grab by the tail; when she wakes up from her nap or in the morning, she is usually holding a monkey tail in each hand!

Brooklyn is doing quite well with the sign language! She now totally has the concept of more down and she does this one very well! She also uses the sign for "milk" (which she uses when she wants to nurse at times), although I think she uses this more generally for drink, so I am now introducing the drink sign to her as well. She will do eat sometimes, but not consistently yet. We will also teach her the signs for please and thank you! And anymore she might pick up on! Bella has been quite helpful in teaching these signs to Brooklyn!

Could it be?

Could it be that Bella is already outgrowing her daily naps ??? Surely not! However, two days so far this week (Sunday and Tuesday) she did not sleep during naptime! She was either playing quietly or reading a book in her room. The only problem is that by 6 in the evening, she becomes a very cranky little girl because she is tired!

These are a few shots from Tuesday's "non-nap" time! Once she spotted me, she started crawling up and down her bed to "hide" from me.

Today's Project

Today, we made "Dancing Witches" - well, I pretty much made these because there was a lot of cutting and glue-ing involved! But they both sat at the table while I did these - Bella was very fascinated with the googly-eyes!!! These are the colors Bella wanted the witches to be - black, purple (although looks blue in picture) and pink (of course!)...I found the pattern on a website, but it had little bitty (and I mean tiny) parts, so I ended up drawing my own pattern in Word (so if anyone wants it, just email or leave a comment and I'll be glad to email it over!).

Sunday's Project

Yesterday after the girls took their naps (ok, well Brooklyn napped, but Bella just played in her room for the whole time) we made sugar cookie lollipops! We used the premade cookie dough that Mi-Mi brought on her last visit and used cookie cutters to make flowers (and Bella had to have a puppy dog) and sprinkled them with sprinkles BEFORE baking and then put a craft stick (I didn't have any lollipop sticks) and then baked them as you would a "normal" cookie! They turned out pretty cute!

Happy Girl

Brooklyn always has a smile on her face!! After I had dressed her for Church yesterday, it dawned on me that she was looking more and more like a little girl as opposed to a baby. She looked so cute in her dress with tights, shoes and barretts in her hair - that I wanted to get a picture. However, she wouldn't let me because she kept walking towards me, but here is one that I got!

What do little girls do when they don't want to go to bed?

Saturday night, Bella apparently did not want to go to sleep! We put the girls to bed around 8 pm most every night (some depends on what time Brannon gets home from work), but generally 8 is bedtime! After several times of putting her back in her bed, Bella decided she would just play in her room instead of going to sleep! She did this for almost 2 hours before finally "hitting the sack"! These are just a few snapshots I took from her doorway. In addition to reading books, she also had some "midnight" tea (I could hear the dinging of her tea pot when she was "pouring" her tea)!

Cute Pictures

Just a cute picture of each of the girls from Saturday. The weather has been BEAUTIFUL here lately - getting quite cool at night and warming nicely during the day!

Williams Station Day - A History Lesson

Saturday was the Williams Station Day Festival in Atmore, Alabama. Atmore was named Williams Station, after William Larkin Williams prior to being named Atmore. The festival began in 1992 in to promote the community to a regional audience and to enhance Atmore's image.

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The History behind Williams Station, as taken from The Atmore Advance, Wednesday, October 24, 2007 edition, written by Adrienne McKenzie.

Before settlers came to the Atmore area, the Creek Indians were inhabitants of the land. The Indians wre located in villages in the forests that were down the creeks and rivers. After the Civil Ware, during the 1860s, the Mobile and Great Northern railroad expanded south to the Tensaw River. Farmland and timber was abundant in the Atmore area, which drew in the workers who laid the railroad tracks. In 1866, William Larkin Williams created a supply shop in the area for the Moble and Great Northern railroad. He also had a logging and cattle operation 10 miles away from Atmore in McDavid, Florida. As the railroad station advanced south toward Mobile, more settlers moved into the area. Within no time, because of the rich farmlands and virgin pine fields, the area was popular with settlers. THe supply shop became even more of a success and a settlement known as Williams Station, named after founder William Larkin Williams, was born. A sawmill built in 1876 by William Marshall Carney is what generated growth in the area. According to legend, Carney "hitched a mule to a flat bottom boat and set claim to most of the area." Carney contributed much to the growth of Williams Station and because of that, he is known as "the father of Atmore."The W.M. Carney Mill Company generated interest in workers who came from Wilcox and Monroe counties. The social life of Williams Station was focused on early churches in the community. In 1897 the name of Williams Station was changed to Atmore because many prominent residents believed Williams Station was not an appropriate name for a city with two hotels and a couple of stores. Many individuals would have liked for the name of the community to be Carney after William Marshall Carney. However, there was already a settlemetn by the name of Carney in Baldwin County. The name of Atmore came abut after Chalres Pawson Atmore, who was a general passenger agent for the Louisville adn Nashville Raliroad. During 1872-1900 while C.P. Atmore was employed, the L&N trademark was established. Charles Atmore was born in England in 1832. His family came to America and settled in Kentucky when he was 4 years old. He died in 1900 and was buried in Louisville's Cave Hill Cemetary.

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The only train we saw while at the Festival was this train that Bella and I took a ride on (there was a model train show inside the YMCA, but we didn't make it inside to see it)! Bella was very excited to get to ride a "train"; however, the Engineer was a bit of a fast driver and she wanted off within a few minutes, but she did make it through the whole ride (it wasn't but about 5-7 minutes long)..I was even dizzy have riding it!

Outside at Nana and Pop's House

We went to Nana and Pop's house (Dianne and Roger) on Friday night. We still haven't moved the girls' outside toys to our house yet, so the slide and playhouse was there for them to play with! Bella loves to slide! Brooklyn liked playing in the top of the slide and sliding as well! Although, she spent a good bit of her time trying to climb back up the slide! These are just a few pictures from them playing outside!

The Inevitable

When you sit on the back of the couch, it is inevitable that you will fall! I am in the process of going through all the girls' clothes, so there are rubbermaid containers behind the couch - so she fell into one of those (which did have some clothes in it, so her fall was cushioned, at least a little)! When I told Brannon and showed him the picture, his comment was "and you went and got the camera before you helped her out?"! HAHA - of course I got the camera!!!

Brooklyn Walking

Just some footage of Brooklyn walking around outside on Saturday (10.27.2007). She is a master at the walking - it didn't take her long once she finally got brave enough to let go! She hardly ever crawls anymore at all!

You have to click the play button twice (once to activate the video feature and once to actually play the video)! It gets a bit bad at one point because she was headed in the direction of the sun -but it does get back to normal!

Words of a Mother set to the William Tell Overture

This Week's Storytime

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, at Storytime this week they had a Fall Party, of sorts. We had regular Storytime where Ms. Dorothy read two books - The Tortoise and the Hare and The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog. Then after the stories they sang a few songs - the Alphabet song, the Itsy Bitsy Spider, and the Hokey Pokey! Even Brooklyn joined in on the singing and dancing!

After singing the Hokey Pokey, the games began! First, they brought out Hoola Hoops. The object was to form a line (haha - yeah right!) and first you walked through the two Hoola Hoops and then on your second turn (after going to the back of the line (again, haha - yeah right), you were to crawl through!

After everyone walked and crawled through the Hoola Hoops, everyone headed for the larger common area of the library (the entire upstairs is devoted to children's books)! Here they had four other games set up! The fourth game they had set up was a little basketball net; however I did not have the camera ready when she stole the ball and made her slam dunk! So no photos of the basketball shot!

The ever popular ring the soda bottle game! Bella would simply walk up and place the ring around the soda bottle!

Going Fishing! This was very cute - it was a kiddie pool with cut out fish (construction paper) and each fish had staples and paper clips on them and the little fishing poles had magnets at the end of the line!

The Pumpkin Toss! She had actually tossed the little bean bag through the hole and was looking to see where it had gone!

More Hoola Hoop fun! Just "free play" with the Hoola Hoops before making our departure!

After leaving the Library, we went to Pizza Hut for lunch, to see G-Ma Woods (Brannon's Grandmother) and a quick stop by the grocery store!

Sprite Love

A must see for daddy's with little girls! You'll have to click the play button twice and turn up your volume as it does have an accompanying song.

The Back of the Couch

I was letting Bella watch Scooby-Doo today (this is her current favorite - she is always asking "scooby-doo on?") and she was sitting on the back of the couch to watch it! It was cute, so I took a picture (surprise, huh?)....It isn't the best picture - but you get the point!

Into Everything

Brooklyn seems to get into everything (and has for some time now!) My kitchen is very tiny and I have almost no cabinet space (literally), so I put some industrial shelves (the kind like you see in a garage or something) and then put a curtain around it to hide the fact that they were industrial shelves. It works out great and it gives me some extra storage. Well, Brooklyn has been fascinated by these shelves since we've been here. Usually, she just pulls up on them and takes everything off the lower two shelves (for Bella it was the tupperware cabinet that she constantly emptied for me). But today, she decided to actually climb into the bottom shelf.

Today's Project

Tomorrow's Storytime at the Library is a Fall party (I'm not sure exactly what this is since we we've just started going to Storytime). We wanted to take something with us, so today the girls and I made Halloween candy and Peanut Butter cookies with Hershey Kisses. We made the candy using candy chips that you melt and then pour into a mold (this was pretty simple, but not quite as simple as "melt and mold" like the box said (you have to paint the features, let that set, then pour the mold). So these don't necessarily look all that great - but it is the thought and effort that counts, right?!?!? Plus, they should taste fine! Once the candies set, we put them in individual bags, which we decorated with foam Halloween stickers! We also put the peanut butter cookies in individual bags which were already decorated for Halloween!

Brooklyn

Poor Brooklyn doesn't get to partake in all these activities just yet! She did sit at the table with us yesterday while we made and decorated cookies, but the only thing she got to do was to play with a cookie cutter!

Here is just a cute shot of her making her way through the house..She is really walking now - more so than she is crawling!!!

Today's New Experience

Bella had such a good time making cookies and using the cookie cutters that I bought her some Play-Dough today at the store! She did really well with it and didn't try to eat any of it!

Her favorite thing to make today was a snake - mommy snakes, baby snakes, just snakes!! I hope this doesn't mean she is going to like snakes!!!

Here she is using a star (her favorite) cookie cutter to make a star - she did this all by herself. Punch the star, pick the Play-Dough from the cookie cutter and then hold out for Mommie to see!

Bella enjoying the fruits of her labors

Just some shots of Bella enjoying her cookies she made yesterday!

Here she is telling Georgia "No, my cookie"...

Today's Project

Mi-Mi brought Sugar Cookie dough with her and some new cookie cutters as well! So after naptime (which was cut abruptly short due to the train), we made sugar cookies! There are pumpkins, chili peppers, hearts and stars (Bella's favorite)! We then decorated the cookies with icing of many colors and sprinkles! Bella had a great time getting to make the cookies - but the sprinkling was the best part, even though she really only put sprinkles on one cookie (it had a lot of sprinkles on it!) and then she ate the cookie! I think she may be ready for some Play-Dough as she enjoyed getting to use the cookie cutters as well!

Our Zoo Slideshow

Today we went to the Gulf Coast Zoo in Gulf Shores - this is the Little Zoo That Could that was featured on Animal Planet after the three hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast in one year. It is a nice zoo - it is smaller than other zoos I have been too - but was the perfect size for the kids.

When asked what her favorite animal was - Bella responded with "giraffe" - there were no giraffes at this zoo!!! She did enjoy seeing all the "amimals" and I believe her favorite was probably getting to feed the goats!! Brooklyn enjoyed the ride in her stroller as well! Enjoy the show!