Cousins

Yesterday we went to visit Papa John at the farm, and Emma also got to see her cousins! They had a lot of fun playing together. Eolis showed her how to play Beyblade, where you spin tops in the battle ring.


Then we put on our boots and went for a walk out in the pastures. Meethos and Emma both fashioned a purple hooded sweatshirt!

Lestat made these two bow and arrow sets! He's pretty good at shooting them too. Emma tried it, but also liked carrying a bow with her.

The kids taking archery practice.

I wanted to try and duplicate a picture of the cousins from June 2008. It wasn't easy. Always a silly face in the group :)

Cheeseburger!

Emma had a great time, and she was totally wiped out when we got home. Today we're just lying low and nursing some colds!

.

Painted pumpkin

Emma painted one of her pumpkins today. I painted another, and we'll save the third one for carving in a couple of days.

She kept asking how to paint very specific things on the pumpkin. Lightning McQueen? Uh... I also looked online for some easy stencils but she decided to just paint it very colorful, with all of the colors. I think that was more fun in the end anyway!

.

Unique uniform

Today Emma dressed up to play firefighter. While that's not so new around here, her choice of uniform was! She got her snow pants and jacket on. It was in the 30's this morning, so she will get to wear them outside soon enough (hopefully)!


Her breathing apparatus is her water hydration pack!
.

More farm fun

Emma received some fun money in the mail especially to go ride a pony at one of the nearby farms. So, yesterday we got to have some more fun at a pumpkin patch with different attractions!

The one thing she loved most of all was the giant bounce pillow! (Last year it was deflated when we went.) Boy she really wore herself out jumping on this thing a few times. It is the biggest plain old bounce thing I've ever seen! The hair action was fun to watch when she jumped high.

She got her number 1 pick of ponies - Sophie!

She loves the big slide, but doesn't want to go all by herself. We would ride in the lane next to her, and she wanted to hold hands all the way down!

We all went on the water barrel train. Oh my word. Some of us are TOO big for these things! I couldn't fit both legs inside and have a nice bruise to show how badly I tried to cram in there. It was actually a smooth ride once we got off onto the corn path!


That's one tall pumpkin!

A couple of cute chicks :)

Neigh/moooo!

A big thank you to Papa and Grammy for their support of pony rides everywhere!

.

No cavities!

Not that I expected Emma to have any cavities, but she did get her name put in the "No Cavity Club" jar today, and she's entered into a drawing for this month at her dentist's office!

.

She had her first set of mouth x-rays today. Piece of cake. Her permanent teeth looked pretty good up in her gums, but you don't know for sure exactly how they will come in, etc. until it starts to happen in a couple of years!

After her appointment, she played with her parachute monkey that was a prize. He's the blurry white thing at the bottom!

It was an amazingly beautiful fall day today, so we went to the park afterwards. I mean it was 70 degrees out! I thought I'd try to get a picture of Emma peeking out behind a tree.  It went a little something like this:

Me: Emma, can you stand behind that tree and peek around for a picture?

Emma: No.

Me: Can you lean against the side of the tree here?
Emma: No.
Me: Can you cross your arms and smile?
Emma: (Folding arms) No.
Me: Say cheese (quickly snap picture)!

My next bright idea was to get a picture of her swinging, because on this clear day you could see Mt. Hood in the background, between the chains on the swing. As I reviewed the pictures at home, I see that it's darn near impossible to see the mountain in the pictures! But it's really there, see!!

That about sums up why I'm a mom blogger and not a professional photog :)

.

Portrait of a four year old

Also a fifteen year old! Last weekend we had some pictures taken of Emma and Miranda. They turned out well - lots of smiles!

Emma had the idea to wear her Minnie Mouse dress and have Miranda wear her Minnie ears. That explains that!

.

Emma the Worker

Emma loves to work. She says she is going to work at her office, and calls herself "Emma the Worker"! From what we can gather, her work involves writing her name on notepads, tearing off the pages and taping them all over the house! Sometimes she has us write "Daddy the Worker" and "Mommy the Worker" on post-its as well. Oh and she also loves to cut up paper and make "tickets" to hand out.

She also wears Daddy's ID badges around the house when she's working. We thought perhaps she needed her own badges so his didn't get lost.

Yesterday we went into our local stationery store to look for some badge holders. She showed us two different types and we got both. Then, the next step was to create ID badges with Emma's name and picture!

She wanted "Emma the Worker" and "Emma the Veterinarian," so we took two pictures:


Then I fiddled around designing cards to print and put in her badges. She loves them! She even wore one to Bible study today and happily showed them to her teachers.

This is what her work looks like!

.

.

Pumpkin patch

Today we went to a local farm/pumpkin patch. It was an incredible day out! It got very close to 70 degrees outside. Emma didn't get a chance to wear her new rubber boots even - there was no mud!

She's harder to see in this picture but look at the beautiful sky!


The first activity that we did was pumpkin bowling. 3 rolls for a buck! Emma has been wanting to go bowling recently, so this was good practice!


Two thumbs up at the end!


After taking a tractor hay ride out to the field, Daddy and Emma set out to find the perfect pumpkin. Found one!


Emma ended up choosing three pumpkins - one for each of us!


Then she helped Papa pull the pumpkin trailer.

Next we went through the maze. Say "corn"!

Emma and Miranda behaved like animals!

Um, pardon me Mr. Scarecrow, I'm pretty sure that Emma is taller than 2 1/2 feet!!


A big ol' tractor to climb on - cool!!

..

Aw nuts!

This morning we went to a large park to collect some acorns. For one, Emma wants to feed the squirrels in our yard, and two, we can use the acorn "hats" for crafts!
.

She had a lot of fun filling up her baggie. Most of the acorns were still green, but there were a ton of them on the ground already. We discovered why when Mr. Squirrel was rummaging through the tree above us and they were dropping like crazy! We joked that we should be wearing hard hats!

.

We took a break from collecting to play at the park for a while :)

.

Emma wanted to collect a few more before we left, and we noticed this squirrel trying to come down the tree to bury his treasure. Zoe, however, had other ideas!

.

We may have to go back to get some brown acorns soon!

.