Precious Peacocks

Recently, the girls had their first fall festival experience and costume experience!

They were a little nervous as to what to expect, but the mention of candy helped them push through those nervous feelings!

They chose their costume, and this mama did her best (with some help from their Chicka) to pull it off!

C chose the standard Asian peacock.  FL chose an obscure brown peacock with little purple dots that is in a little exhibit at our zoo.  Her costume is a bit of a stretch from that, but she's three.  ; )

Sam was there to help with the carnival, which worked out great because he was in the candy and game area!  He got to experience this first with us!

A king size snicker bar!!!  Flora Lin is thinking, "God Bless America!"  No looking back at her old life for this one!

The carnival had a bounce house...  C and FL tried one of these before and it was a wide-eyed, totally freaked out disaster.   What a difference a few months and some physical therapy makes!

As long as they were the only ones in it, they were happy!

They gleefully face-planted so many times!   It was hilarious!

At one point, another child got in and FL got out.  C decided to be brave and stay in.  The other child pulled on the bounce house a little too much and it. began. to. collapse.  Mama was not ok!  I couldn't hold it up and get to C!   The other child was strong enough to get out and pushed C to the side as it was collapsing...  Mama was not ok!  All I could do was hold it up and reach in to hold her hand to reassure her.  She wasn't visibly upset, but then again I couldn't see her!  No one was really doing much of anything and I was beginning to really, really not be ok when....

Suddenly Sam appeared!  He always rescues us silly girls just when we need it!

Needless to say, we closed it down!

The girls really brought down the house that night! ; )

Later, we went to the Little Pumpkin Playhouse (just for little kids) and then on a hayride to the campfire to roast marshmallows.  I let the girls stop and have a snack when we first got to the campfire.  They were so excited to eat some candy from their buckets!  It's only once a year, right?, ; )

Two pretty and precious peacocks!

The fire was very, very hot and the roasting sticks very, very short, so rather than attempting to make a gooey, messy, hot s'more (and possibly two fried peacocks and a fried mama) I just gave them a marshmallow, two graham crackers and ate the chocolate myself! ; )

They didn't even notice! 

They were too busy eating graham crackers and such.

After an adventurous journey back to the main part of camp, we had dinner and then joined Sam for the last few activities and then clean up.

C was excited to help.  FL wasn't that into helping...   But she really liked pushing buttons!

It was a fun night, despite a couple of hiccups!  Very successful for our girls' first time!

As FL says, we rocked it!  

It was so much fun to see them happy and enjoying new experiences!

Three Little Musketeers

These three...

Close in age...

That share a similar history...

And a love of princesses, all things girly and enjoy the dirt and mud...

Who laugh and learn from each other,

Pray for each other,

Are silly with each other..

And just altogether precious 

And dearly loved.

Heaven knows how thankful we are that they are part of our families 

And friends for each other.

Pancakes with Papa

I was feeling under the weather this evening and Flora Lin was having one of THOSE days (which I later found out was because she felt just like I did), so Sam came to my rescue after a weekend of work and made breakfast for dinner.

He had a precious little assistant this time. : ). (Look at that sweet smile on her face!)

Charlotte was so excited to help! "All by self, peeease!"

She loves to help, and her Papa loved having her help!

It won't be long, she'll be perfecting her technique!

Our little girls make even the mundane (feeling sick, need to get dinner on the table, etc.) special!

Flora Lin wanted her picture taken, too.  : ). The two of us sickies snuggled on the couch together and edited pictures on my computer.

FL and I definitely have something, and C isn't feeling too sharp, now.  Hopefully, the yummy pancakes and a good nights' rest will have us feeling better for the busy week ahead.  Either way, the days are bright because of these two girls. 

Silly. Singing. Sisters.

"I loooooove my sister" is what we are hearing a lot of these days...

And then they snatch, bump, push, disagree, etc. etc. the very next second.  : )

   I guess that just goes to show that they truly are sisters!

One thing they do agree on almost always is singing, thought it rarely is the same song...

And laughing - they both love to laugh and laugh together often.  : )

It's one thing I never tire of hearing.

They really do love each other.

We can't imagine and wouldn't have it any other way. : )

Fire Safety Week

Fire safety week started with a fire of our own!

Our pool and pool deck was in such bad shape, there was only one economic thing to do.

Burn!  Under careful watch, though (don't worry, the girls were napping while it took place).

So, two little firefighters in training came to inspect.  And be cute.

We also started learning about fire, matches, lighters, extinguishers and how to call for help.

I drew a "9 1 1" and the girls cut and colored the majority of the numbers.  Then they glued them onto the paper in the proper order.

C and FL also practiced dialing 9-1-1 on my I pad, phone and a big pretend phone.

I know they are a little young to understand, but I don't think it's too early to begin and plant those seeds.  Plus, they were excited about touching my I pad and phone!

We also looked for things that helped keep us safe in our home, like fire extinguishers and smoke detectors.  They like to look in everyone's home for them, too!  Let us know if you need detector detectors!

Ella helped make it more fun.

Sam and the girls tested and updated each detector (which is a lot of smoke detectors due to our home study requirements!).

They were nice and loud!  We practiced what to do when a detector goes off.

We picked a fire drill family gathering tree to make sure we were all ok.

The girls also pretended they were fire fighters.  Here they are at the "station" waiting for a call to come in for fire help.

DING DING DING DING!!!   C and FL sprang to action and quickly donned their gear and hopped on their fire trucks.

GO GO GO!

We drew some fires that they put out.

They also found some other "fires" along the way.

They liked riding their scooters to the scene!

The old fire dog stayed at the "station" happy to play along with this resting role!

Later in the week we did more fire/emergency art.

This was painters tape painted over in fire colors.  Their favorite part was removing the tape and playing with in afterwards!

We also painted fire using forks!

I liked how this turned out and how the yellow and red blended to make orange.  We will do this again sometime.

I think they learned a little bit and their art turned out well.  Charlotte's is on the left and Flora Lin's is on the right.

We still plan on visiting a fire station, but we will have to fit that in at another time.

It was a fun and safe week! : )