Getting the Christmas Tree!

Each year we get our Christmas tree from White's Tree Farm. It's a family run business, and we've been going there for at least seven years! This year it was extremely warm, which felt unseasonable, but was nice for tree gathering! This year we also brought Wyatt with us for the first time ever. He seemed to have a good time, although he had to walk quite a bit!

The farm where we get the tree has a beautiful view of Mt. Mansfield.

We found the one we like!
It's shocking that Connor is sticking out his tongue...



Siobhan really has that pose down!




Connor helped cut it down; although it was pretty challenging.
Aisling tried to help:

Connor helped carry it to the car.

We brought the trailer this year; there was no snow so that was an easy choice!
Wyatt got in on the posing action:




Getting the right tree calls for cartwheels:


And somersaults:


Joyful running:


And celebratory dancing!

Feel the love!

My dear friend Shel has given me a blog award! Shel and I met in graduate school. And while we lost touch for far too long a time, she is back in my life and I am thrilled! We have only reconnected via Facebook thus far, but I so look forward to the day when we can reconnect in person and I can meet her darling baby girls! Her blog is One Sweet World.

She selected me to receive a:

The Liebster Blog Award started (sometime in the recent past) in Germany to encourage traffic to hidden gems of blogs with 300 followers or less. So it is an award you receive, but also an award you give (share the love kinda thing). If you receive a Liebster Blog Award you are asked to choose 3-5 other bloggers and link back to the blogger that gave you the award. Thank you, Shel for viewing my blog as a hidden gem!

Unfortunately, given the fact that I rarely have enough time to write in my blog, I most definitely don't have time to read other blogs! (Except for Shel's that is!) So, I have no one to pass this award along to. But, thank you so much Shel, for thinking of me!

American Girl!

Today I was lucky enough to have some special time with just Aisling. We participated in an American Girl tea party at the library. There were some crafts to do, games to play, and food to eat. It was a blast! The theme of the day was from Molly's era (1944) and Addy's era (1864). With both of these there was a patriotic theme. From the Molly era we played "Statues" (freeze dance) and red light green light. From Addy's era we played Bean Bag bucket brigade. the girls made patriotic painted teapots, and they sewed their own pillows for their dolls. We then had a yummy tea party with other era based snacks. There was Shirley Temple punch (Molly) and Lemonade (Addy). There was Jelly roll ups, Pigs in a blanket, and patriotic cupcakes, all from Molly's era. There was also gingerbread, Applesauce cookies, shortbread cookies,and corn muffins, all from Addy's era. We had such a good time.

When we got there they took pictures of the girls with their dolls. They then turned these into favors by gluing the pictures onto the schedule of events!

Painting her teapot:

(Thankfully the library provided art shirts!)

Sewing her pillow:

(This was hard work.
Aisling was able to thread the needle a few times!)

She worked on a word search between activities:
Red light green light:

Then we had our tea party.
Great menu!

Someone had lent the library nice, proper tea cups and saucers!
There were even tea cups for the dolls:
Yummy food!

Aisling and I had such a good time. I tried convincing her to do something like this for her next birthday party; I think that would be a wonderful time! I love spending time with the kids like this, and definitely don't get to do it nearly enough.

Halloween!

We had a great Halloween this year. Full of excited sugary children who stayed up far too late and ate much much too much candy!

We carved pumpkins on Sunday...

Aisling chose her own design, stenciled it and carved it nearly all by herself!

Siobhan obviously needed a little more help.
She chose a stencil of a cat; about which she was very excited!
Connor also carved his own pumpkin, with his own design....

As you can see, it was very, uh.... creative:

The kids headed out for trick or treating:
We had a princess:

She wore these shoes halfway around the neighborhood!
I swear she's better at walking in heels than I am!And a "hippie peace sign girl"

we also had a ninja, but you may not be able to see him...
Ready for some trick or treating!
Next it was time for stuffing their faces full of candy!
And also scary vampire teeth:

All in all they had fun. Full of the typical exhaustion and squabbles that go along with that.Eventually they decided to sell their candy to the orthodontist. They scored four dollars for their candy!