Christmas 2012

This year Christmas will be spent in the corporate apartment here in Maryland. Since we'll be moving into our new home next month and bringing things in and out of this apartment is kind of difficult this years Christmas will be simple. I did all of the shopping in 2 fairly quick shopping trips and one short evening of wrapping. I like simple. Now I'm free to enjoy the rest of the holiday month.

Election Day 2012

Election day is such an exciting day to me. I've logged many hours watching Fox News and CNN during the campaign. I went out to vote for Mitt Romney early today, and I've got some hearty chicken soup cooking in the crock pot so that I can spend most of the night watching the election coverage. The girls will be participating being Romney cheerleaders and coloring pictures of the US flag.

Happy Halloween!

The girls were all ready to go trick-or-treating about 30 minutes before it got dark. We decided to go with our warmer costumes since it was a little chilly today. Vaishali is a bunny and it reminds me of the bunny costume in the movie Christmas Story. Anjali is Tigger and she was so cute at every house we went to when the door was open she said "Trick or treat" with a big smile on her face, and then she would thank them before leaving. She has watched so many Halloween cartoons she knew what she was doing and she was in to it. Vaishali is a little unsure of new people so she would hand me her bucket every time we approached a house and then as soon as we turned to walk away she would ask for it back. Jacob went with us too and Bubby went with his girlfriend Holly in the neighborhood. After trick-or-treating we all went to Golden Coral and we decided Halloween is the best night ever to go there because it's not busy at all.  

October Collage

Birthday & Fall Party

On Saturday we went to Grandma Linker's Halloween party which she enjoys doing every year. Bubby was a coal miner.

Jacob said he was a Jester. I'm not sure I know what that is but I think he looked more like the joker from the Batman movie. We have a huge bag of costumes at home which the boys have collected just over the past few years, but they decided to just paint their faces. Oh well, I guess it was more comfortable for them to play football, horseshoes and such.

The girls had four costumes to pick from that I had bought at the tot-trade sale back in August. Vaishali chose Red Riding Hood and Anjali the Ladybug. A couple days before this we were watching a cartoon on the disney chanel and the Little Vampire movie come on. It wasn't really something for their age and I turned it off after maybe 10 minutes, but in that amount of time Vaishali understood what a vampire was. So, while her costume actually is Little Red Riding Hood, she wanted to be a vampire. She kept running around twirling her cape and growling saying "I'm a vampire".  

 

From Halloween party to Birthday party...

 

The girls birthday isn't actually for another week, and I plan to have another little celebration with my sister and nieces next weekend, but Daddy will be in Maryland most likely. So, we decided to have a party with just the six of us today. It's been a fun day so far. We got the girls a big train table and Daddy and Bubby put it together last night while the girls were in the bed. This morning they woke up and were excited to see it and played with it for hours! After lunch we had cake. Anjali wanted a blue cake, her favorite color, and Vaishali wanted a pink cake. I made them two separate strawberry cakes one with pink icing and one with blue icing and sprinkles. It was yummy and fun. We managed to take a video but no pictures. I'll be sure to do that next weekend.  

 This picture is from last night when we got home they wanted to play with the leaves. It's so hard to get pictures of them together, they just don't seem to want to pose.

 

And one picture from this morning. They enjoy loving on Twinkle but I'm not so sure she likes it, lol.

 

 

Pumpkin Patch

I hurried to get a few pictures of them in together before we left the house. Vaishali is trying to put her arm around sissy, but Anjali thinks she's just trying to tickle her.

I remember the boys always wanting the biggest pumpkin they could find, but the girls both said they wanted a little pumpkin. I thought it was cute Anjali saying "I want a wittle punkin mommy".

Anjali is so in her element here sitting down to pet the pigs, and Vaishali says "it's stinky mommy".

A little late but I still wanted to post this picture of Jacob's first day of 7th grade at C.C. Griffin Middle School. He was so nervous and worried he wouldn't remember where to go as this was his first year of changing classes. And, sure enough in the second week of school he found out he spent the first week in many of the wrong classes;-)

 

 

Children's Museum

Some time back we visited an awesome children's museum that was just perfect for the girls age. The girls love fire trucks and here Anjali is putting on the fireman's hat before she goes into drive the fire truck.

Jacob went with us too, and although he probably wouldn't admit it, he had fun too.

Collecting eggs in the farm area...

...and milking cows.

Jacob in motion on the balance beam.

And just because they want to be like their big brother Jacob, they had to try it too:-)

 

My favorite area was the kitchen cooking area. I think it was Vaishali's too. While daddy and me sat at a booth the girls cooked up stuff and brought it to us. So cute.

I wonder what they're cooking? Whatever it is I'm sure it most certainly has something to do with chocolate.

Anjali making music and Vaishali and me in the background playing with moon dough.

 

A little on stage time.

 

Vaishali teaching Jacob how to drive a race car.

The biggest train table ever was lots of fun!

Just look at her face, is she having fun or what?

Last picture, we were playing in an attic space that was decorated with an african theme. Vaishali dressed up in some of the dress up clothes but she was not having that hat; it was a tad too hot up there. There is a lot more there but we were busy playing. I hope we get to go there again on a weekday when it's not so busy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guess what...

We're expecting baby number 5!

*Image from freeimagesget.com

Visit to Latta Plantation

One weekend earlier in the summer we visited the historic Latta Plantation and this made for some sweet pictures. A cozy little cabin, said to have been used for the servants on the plantation.

Blacksmith

A sweet lady, dressed in period clothing, knitting. Someday I'm gonna learn to do that myself when I have lots of free time,

The girls always enjoy seeing animals of any kind.

Latta Plantation circa 1800 cotton plantation

Doesn't this look like a peaceful place to spend an afternoon?

 

 

And just for fun, an adorable pic of Vaishali coming to show me the shoes she found in my closet.

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Post #2

Vaishali LOVES to color, write, and paint. Daily I get many requests from her saying "Mommy, I need to color". Not want but need to color, lol I just love that. Here she is one morning, still in her night shirt (brothers old football t-shirt), creating her work of art.

Very serious.

Anjali with teacup in hand, wanting a tea party I'm sure.

Playing in the water table with an idea I found on pinterest. Pirate ships made from frozen blocks of ice with a straw sticking up and a piece of colored tape as the flag. This was great on a really hot day. I also froze little toys standing up on the ships with glitter inside as pirate gold. The girls love anything to do with the idea of pirates. Once the "pirate ships" melted there was pretty gold glitter glimmering in the water.

And later playing with Bubby. He spends most of his time working and helping different relatives, so the girls are always excited when they get to play with him. Jacob of course spends his days playing hanging out with his friends, riding bikes, playing video games and such. He's getting ready to turn 13 and reminds me often that he no longer plays, but rather "hangs out" with his friends. Ugh, he's barreling towards those dreadful teenage years.

Thankfully, he does still enjoy playing with his little sisters.