Halloween

Amelia has enjoyed "playing" haunted house lately. Since it's been getting dark earlier and earlier, she likes to turn off all the lights in the house and then walk around (creep around) with a flashlight. It's not all fun and games, though. I pretended to be a sock-eating monster the other night and took her socks off. She started to cry. Yes, I felt bad.

Halloween was fun. I am dealing with a car in the shop, so I was a little distracted during the day and not quite in the spirit of it all. But Amelia was ready to get dressed ... as a cat! Yep, we bought her a tiger costume, but after wearing it for Acro and then deciding to be a pumpkin for dance, she decided she was ready to be a cat for Halloween. Hmmmm. So next year we won't get a costume until the last minute, I think! This is year three as a cat!!! I did get her to wear the tiger gloves over her Dora gloves so her hands would be warm and yet cat-like. (And she has two shirts on under that black turtleneck!)

After putting together her outfit and drawing whiskers anda nose, we went to Nana's and then to church for Trunk or Treat. She scooped up some candy and then we headed inside for hots dogs and soup. Amelia liked the potato soup so much she asked me for mine - not some of mine, ALL of mine! She cracks me up.

We then headed to our neighborhood and we were only going to go to a handful of houses. Our plans changed when her friend, Josephina, spotted us (Ameee-liaaaaa!!!!!) and the two of them had SO much fun hitting the rest of the houses down the street. I told her mom we need to just plan for them to trick-or-treat together next year!

Pumpkin Time!

Amelia and I had fun decorating the house last week with pumpkin lights, ghost lights, pumpkin & cat cut-out garland and some pictures of pumpkins. But until yesterday we had no pumpkin. We tried getting one at the fruit stand Saturday afternoon, but they had none left. Then, at church, they were giving away the pumpkins used for decoration! So we scored a jack-0-lantern sized one and one that I'll use for pies and pumpkin pancakes. I love her method of carrying the pumpkin!

Later in the evening we carved the jack-o-lantern. It was actually an optional homework assignment to design and carve a jack-o-lantern, and we were really cutting it close, no pun intended! Amelia enjoyed drawing its face. I love her look of intensity here! And I was impressed with her creative mouth design. She really rocked when it came to digging out the seeds. I should have known that my very tactile child would love that, but I didn't suspect that she would be so thorough. She did a great job getting out all the seeds - there were none for me to go back and pull out. While we roasted the seeds, I cut out her design and we put in a real candle. No bad, huh?

[pictured dated 10/30/11]

Katerina

Katerina is our newest WUWL (wandered up and wouldn't leave) cat. She is adorable and the same size as Tallulah, maybe a shade larger, and she is all gray just like Tallulah is all black. We first met her in mid-September and she wasn't shy about coming straight into the house and making herself at home. But we always let her back out and figured she went home because we saw her intermittently. We thought she might belong to someone who only let her out a few days at a time. However, last weekend when the weather turned cold and Katerina had NO interest in going back outside, we let her spend the night. And she didn't want out the next day either. We also decided there was a good chance she had worms.

Aunt Meg, the family vet, determined they were the type caused by fleas. She came by last week and made "friends" with Katerina by shoving two worm pills down her throat and then giving her a rabies shot between the shoulder blades. The best part of the visit was that she brought Kirby, her large poodle, because Amelia had a blast showing Kirby around the house and then tethering her to a Pooh chair in her room while she wrote stories. And then Kirby wouldn't let me into Amelia's room - I didn't know poodles were so protective!

Since Katerina had worms and she loved to lay on the couch, I showed Amelia how they looked like rice. Amelia likes to lay on the couch first thing in the morning sometimes (at o'dark thirty, so I am still in bed myself) and I didn't want her laying on worms. Amelia found some on Katerina's circular cat scratch/ball toy that she spends a lot of time on, too, but I told her that was okay since Katerina was the only one who ever sat there. This morning, Amelia says (at o'dark thirty while I am still in bed), "Mommy! There are worms in my kitty book!" Thinking that the worms should be gone by now but not wanting her touching or spreading the worms around the house, I jump up out of bed. On a Saturday morning. I thought maybe Amelia had left the book open on the ottoman last night and Katerina had been sleeping on it. No, this was a kitty book she got at her school library yesterday that had a chapter on vaccinations, worms and the like. So while there indeed were worms in her book, the "worms" were a topic! She cracks me up. Now that chapter will have so much more meaning for her!

Katerina is very patient with Amelia, so we may have finally found a cat for her, since our other cats have always run from her! I love this picture where she chose to sit on the pillow after Amelia was already working on the floor on her kitty calendar. Katerina is a sweet kitty and purrs easily. She doesn't seem to care about the other two cats who glare at her, so it might go well this winter. We'll see!

In unrelated news, this morning Amelia asked me to help her with a word in her Otis book. She said it looks like "chick-a-go" and it didn't make sense. I looked and it was the city Chicago. I laughed because she is right!

[pictures dated 10/24 & 10/27, respectively]

Acro

Amelia takes Acro (short for acrobatics, gymnastics really) every Tuesday evening. This past week the parents were invited in for a performance for the last 15 minutes and the children were to dress in their costumes as long as they could tumble in them. We amended Amelia's tiger costume by drawing ears on her forehead instead of using her hat that has the ears. This is her being fierce! (Are you scared?)

The next night for dance she decided she wanted to be a pumpkin instead. I indulged her but I am not sure she looked like one. She wanted an orange shirt, green pants and triangles fo her eyes and nose. I added an orange bow in her hair and hoped her pumpkin shirt gave a clue, too. The important thing is that she was happy because we did exactly what she wanted. When it doesn't matter in the big picture, I think it's important for young children to feel like they can make decisions since so many other choices are out of their control - like going to school when they're having so much fun playing in the morning! (That's a big struggle right now.)

Amelia and the other girls danced a cute routine to the Ghostbusters theme, but I forgot to bring in the camera. Oh well - we have the memories!

[picture dated 10/25/11]

Frog Jam

We went to the county fair earlier this month where Amelia got a crazy balloon hat and we also bought some frog jam while we were there. Amelia, who can read, is convinced that there are frogs in it, along with some raspberries and such. She hasn't looked closely at the ingredient list (yet). When she does I am fully prepared to tell her that there are frogs in it because there are two pictures of frogs on either side of the ingredient list so they didn't feel it was necessary to list them in the ingredients. I have had so much fun with this - even telling her that it was kinda "gummy" because of the frogs. I overheard her asking Hannah how many frogs had to die to make her jam! She insists on eating it on her peanut butter sandwiches and I've come to find out she's told her teacher about it, too! I was volunteering this morning and Ms. Melanie says, "So Amelia says she has frog jam? Really? What's in it?" I know what to get Amelia and her teacher for Christmas!

In the afternoon we saw Daddy play in the alumni band and Amelia and I took turns taking pictures of each other - her new favorite thing! Here's the one I took of her.

Then we went to a used bookstore with Aunt Jeannine & her kids. I love how much of bookworm Amelia is and, since I had the camera, I just had to take a picture!




[photos dated 10/8/11]

Cheap Fun

Amelia noticed that I was saving empty toilet paper rolls for her art teacher. This weekend she asked why? So I decided to show her and we had the most fun. I explained that you can wrap them with construction paper to make all sorts of things like pilgrims, animals, even cats. She of course chose a cat, and a black one at that. She quickly caught on and had the BEST fun making a kitty, complete with ears, four feet and a great tail. Just some glue, construction paper, scissors and a toilet paper roll. We also used felt for the nose since we had pink felt but no pink paper. Who needs all those fancy electronics?

Yesterday it was digging in the backyard. (Oops) But she and her friend Josephina (who informed us that pansies were edible as she nibbled one) did have a ton of fun. They were supposed to be planting pansies into our two pots because the petunias had died. We enjoy the color on the front and back porch, and Amelia loves picking them out (all purple and all yellow) and then creating her own pattern in the pots with them. Grandma sent her kid-sized gardening gloves and tools at Easter and we’ve had a lot of fun with them!

The real fun yesterday was the discovery of propellers. She was sent home with three sets of cheap plastic propellers that you assemble by putting the propeller on the end of a plastic stick. Seriously, these probably came in 10 packs for $1. The girls played with them for a LONG time and after Josephina left, Amelia continued to play with them. We had to “put them to bed” last night complete with a blanket and a kiss good-night so Amelia could “stop thinking about them” while she tried to fall asleep.

[pictured dated 10/4/11]

The Drop-Off

We went to Pet Harmony and dropped off the cat food and toys that Amelia collected at her party in lieu of (or in addition to) gifts. We wound up with over 28 lbs. of food and lots of great cat toys for needy felines!


Of course, the real reward was getting to play with kitties!

[pictures dated 10/1/11]