It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Ada meets Leo

Leo is my present from Mommy & Daddy!

Aunt Ginny bought me all the nice dog stuff:

bowls, dog bed, chew toys, collar, leash etc.

Thanks Aunt Ginny!

How Old Are You?

Happy Birthday Song

Meet Leo: Smartie Part II

This is Leo, my birthday present. They delivered him from the shelter this morning.

He is a wonderful easy going dog!

He warmed up to me right away and let me hug and pet him!

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I was so happy petting Leo, that I did not look up at the camera!

When I took my nap today, I told Leo, "Night-night, love you!"

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Birthday "Smartie" Part 1: More to Follow!

When I came in I was so excited to see streamers everywhere and lots of balloons!

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And I absolutely loved these "pupcakes" that Mommy made!

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These are a simplified version of the picture in the magazine,

Mommy worked on them for a long time and finally decided that they were good enough!

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Here I am, the birthday girl,

inviting people to come and eat!

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We had all of my favorite foods...

mini pizzas, little smokies, bananas, kiwi, fruit, etc.

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I thought the food was really yummy!

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And I enjoyed eating the toppings off of my cupcake!

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And I really liked the red punch!

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Aunt Allene, Uncle Carey, and Patrick gave me a big girl purse with lots of goodies inside it!

I got my own chapstick!

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And look at these cool sunglasses!

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And I got other nice gifts too!

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Like this cool Mr. Potato Head from Grammie and Gramps!

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It was a great birthday smartie!

I especially enjoyed singing and blowing out the candles!

Thanks to everyone who came & made it special!

Sweater Weather is Finally Here!

After several months of absolutely lovely weather, I now have to consent to put on a sweater or jacket before I go outside. I'll tell you what I think about this, ba-humbug! But at least I look cute in my sweater? :)

Pictures From Daddy's Phone

So, last month we had a wonderful time with Aunt Rachel, Uncle Michael, and Alise!

I'm sorry the pictures are so late. Daddy took them on his phone, and it's hard to get the phone away from him & download the pictures!

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Alise and I had such fun at the zoo! She is old enough to really enjoy it now,

and I just loved being with her!

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Two little monkeys watching gorillas!

Don't we look serious!

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I love my cousin Alise! Isn't she cute?

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Um, I'm not sure why this is on Daddy's phone!

We had some gingerbread cookies left over from the other night, and Mommy put sprinkles on them to make the extra special!

I love to lick of the sprinkles, and so does my Daddy!

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Last year after New Year's Mommy & I made so many dozens of cookies for our friends and neighbors, that we were both completely exhausted! They were yummy though!

Daddy might even have said that

it was the best holiday baking ever!

Mommy might have said that

she never wanted to see another cookie again,

but we won't hold her to it!

This year we may not make quite as many, but we will definitely have fun making & decorating some! I promise to post pictures of our baking adventures!

Catching up on Family Fun Nights (FFN)

Mommy has gotten rather behind on FFN recently.

Don't be too hard on her,

it is mid-semester crunch

and she hasn't been feeling great lately.

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But we did manage to have a FFN a few weeks ago that

included grilled steak, vegetable saute, and garlic bread.

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And for fun we made blue berry pie!

We had a big bag of blueberries in the freezer

that we picked from our back yard last summer.

And Mommy discovered that I love to roll out pie crust!

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Sorry, Mommy didn't get any pictures of the pie after it came out of the oven.

That's because we ate it! ;)

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This past Saturday we invited Grammie, Gramps, and Ompa

over for FFN!

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Mommy made chili and cornbread muffins.

I enjoyed eating it (off of Gramps' plate!)

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Then we played a short game of

Balderdash!

It was my job to decorate the slips of paper!

I took my job very seriously and left no slip of paper unturned!

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Then we cut out gingerbread cookies!

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I thought Gramps needed some help!

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So, I gave him a hand!

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It was really fun to make a mess with the flour!

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I especially liked making the "Cookie Babies!" (i.e. gingerbread men) and the "Stars!"

We also made pumpkins, turkeys, bells and snowmen.

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I liked to put the babies in my glass of milk and make them swim

and encourage them to "Kick, kick, kick!"

Melissa & Doug

Hey everybody there is a cool contest going on at Melissa & Doug for a giveaway of a free toy kitchen! Go check it out!

http://blog.melissaanddoug.com/2009/10/28/melissa-doug-play-kitchen-giveaway/#comment-2160

Trick or Treat

I very much enjoyed seeing all the trick or treaters this year!

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Here I am entreeting Daddy to open a piece of candy for me! Please!

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Ah, success! Don't tell Mommy that I got some more candy ok? ;)

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Everyone came over to enjoy some of Mommy's pumpkin pie

while we passed out candy to the neighborhood kids.

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Doesn't Grammie look comfortable here?

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Gramps still has facepaint from the Fall Festival!

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Daddy and I carved pumpkins too!

This was extremely fun - lots of pumpkin goop to play with!

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I think Daddy did a pretty good job.

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I was one happy little ladybug!

A Day of Fall Fun

I just love fall, don't you?

So many fun things to do: leaves to play in, parties to go to, costumes to wear, and candy to eat!

Yesterday evening we went to the Fall Festival at Church!

It was really fun! They had a bbq cookout and different booths with games and stuff!

Gramps was a good sport and let the girls in the face painting booth put a pumpkin on the top of his head!

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And at each booth, you got to take some candy!

I quickly picked up on this and made the most of my charming smile!

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There was a "fishing" booth where I caught a bag of candy, a "pin the stem on the pumpkin" booth, a dive for prizes in the duck pond booth, and that big pile of straw there in the middle where you could dig for toys like coloring books and play dough!

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And then, there was wonderful food too! I ate a hot dog, but there were also corn dogs, hamburgers, and pulled chicken bbq sandwiches. And then there were all kinds of sides and a huge table of desserts. Church ladies make good desserts!

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And Daddy even took me on the hay ride with the big kids!

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All the little kids had great costumes, but I was fascinated by this robot.

He let me push all his buttons! :)

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Unfortunately, this is a blurry picture, but it's the only one we got of the three of us at the Fall Festival!

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And in the morning we went to the Pumpkin Patch to pick a pumpkin with Grammie and Gramps!

They also had lots of fun stuff for kids to do - and things to climb!

Here I'm giving Mommy a kiss from the sleigh!

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What a pair of lovely flowers?

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Oops! I think I'm going the wrong way!

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Isn't Daddy the perfect scarecrow?!

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My favorite part was the animal petting zoo. They had the cutest bunnies and pigs, chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, and cows. I loved making all the animal sounds and saying each of their names. But I called the miniature ponies "goats" which made everyone laugh! haha!

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And, of course, we got to pick our pumpkin. We got one little one for me (because I insisted on carrying my own) and a big one for daddy to carve!

Pumpkins are great fun, and Mommy even made some pumpkin pies which were yummy too!

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