Picking Pears

During our first week of school we were looking for an apple tree. We never found one. The Saturday of that week we were coming home and saw a tree with fruit! Dustin went and asked the people who owned the land if we could pick some of the apples off their tree. The guy told him they were actually pears but to take as many as we wanted. The next evening we took a walk to the pear tree. Dustin went to let the people know we were there to pick the pears. He talked to a lady this time who told him that is was an apple tree!

After finding some we decided they were really pears.

On the way back home the girls enjoyed their pears!

Pictures of Olivia

I thought I would post a few pictures of Olivia.

Olivia loves to play on the floor. And Grace loves to cover her in toys, blankets, and loveys.

This was a dress I wore when I was a baby (well, I think 1 year old). Grace wore it when she was 5 months, and here is Olivia at 6 months in it.

Olivia is a grabber! If she sees something she wants she reaches for it. She loves reaching for our food so one morning we shared our muffins with her.

She loved it!!

Here she is sitting in Grace's squeaky chair with a baby doll Grace gave her. Grace loves to share her things with her sister. She even shares her little lamb which has been her favorite lovey since we bought it while in New Zealand!

Over Labor day weekend we went to OKC to check out the new outlets and go to Babies R Us. Olivia rode in the cart for the first time!

Week 1 of Homeschool

We decided to start a little preschool program for Grace this year. She is almost 3 and knows her letters, numbers, colors, shapes, etc. so we thought a little structured learning would be good for her. And we were completely right. She loves doing her schoolwork! We started right after Labor day and plan to go until Memorial day.

We started by learning about the letter "A." She practiced writing, cutting, gluing, matching, counting, read about Johnny Appleseed, and learned how apples grow. We wanted to pick apples at the end of the week but couldn't find a tree that produced fruit this year (the buds got hit with a freeze) so we improvised. My Mom hot glued apples to her tree in the front yard!

As soon as Grace could see the tree she was excited! She immediately started picking the apples when we got out of the car. Later we found a pear tree so last night we took a walk and picked a bunch of pears. Grace and Olivia both enjoyed eating pears on our walk home (I will try to get those pictures up later this week... or probably more like next!)

This first week of school was pretty busy for us. We try to take a walk around the neighborhood at 8. When we make it home it is almost time for Olivia's morning nap and that is when Grace starts school. On the first day she told me she wanted to go to school in her pajamas. I didn't let her that day (I wanted some cute pictures but she ran from the camera) but later during the week she got to wear pajamas to school. We are also going to the library on Wednesday mornings (after naptime) for their story time. We listen to a story and then do a craft. Afterwards I pick out books for the following week of school.

And probably the biggest accomplishment of the week was Grace learning her memory verse. She had it memorized word for word by day 3!

"All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God. Romans 3:23"

6 Months!

On Thursday Olivia turned 6 months. Half a year has gone by since she was born. Now less than half a year left until she turns 1.

I love taking her picture each month with these blocks that our friends Chelsea and Elly got us.
She is growing so fast! I pulled out both of the girls' baby books and last month Olivia was already taller than Grace was at this age. I am not sure how big she is now but I know she is taller than she was a month ago. I just had to move her jumperoo and excersaucer to the second height position.

She loves to hold onto things. She grabs at everything! And, of course, if she can get her hands on it she puts it in her mouth. She isn't too crazy about baby food though. We have given her some here and there and she normally just spits it out. Tonight we gave her a sweet potato fry and she loved it. I think she likes to be able to hold her food and chew it.

She was kicking the block in this picture!

And she always gives us BIG smiles.
She is just the happiest baby ever!

Wordless Wednesday

Watermelon Festival

This past Saturday was the Rush Springs Watermelon Festival. Rush Springs is a small town just about 30 min from us. We decided to check it out. Even though I grew up in this area I cannot remember ever going. There was a display of watermelons.
This is the Largest Watermelon category.

The winner was 114 pounds!

There were also several rides there. It was like a little carnival! Grace tried out her first roller coaster. She was not a fan though.

She preferred the "merry-go-round" much better!

There were also several little tents set up with things for sell. We walked through most of them but didn't buy anything. They had a lot of cute outfits and bows for girls.

We stopped and bought a watermelon from someone selling them out of the back of their pick up truck. Then we headed to a roadside vegetable stand that we had visited a couple of months ago. There we got a cantaloupe and a couple of peaches!

Grace wanted to eat the cantaloupe!

And Olivia got to try a little taste of watermelon!

I don't know if you can tell or not but the girls are wearing their matching watermelon pj's. Grace has really been into them wearing matching pj's every night (and every naptime!). They each had a fleece sleeper that matched. Olivia outgrew hers (0-3 months) a while back but Grace kept pulling it out and finding hers and wanting to match. I took the girls shopping at Children's Place last week and we bought matching sleepers in every design they had both their sizes in!

Sidewalk Paint

I have been finding a lot of fun things on Pinterest lately.
One of our favorites this week was the sidewalk paint recipe.

It was a bit cooler (only around 100 - we finally got some rain!) and there was a slight chance for more rain (perfect for washing our sidewalk after we were finished) so it was a great chance for us to try it out.

The recipe is simple: 1/4 cup cornstarch, 1/4 cup water mixed together with some food coloring.
I am putting food coloring and cornstarch on our shopping list for next week because we have been finding lots of fun activities that call for both of them.

Grace had a great time painting our sidewalk (she even painted the house a little!).
And we got more rain (and even cooler weather today - we spent some time outside and Grace said it was COLD!) so the cleanup was super easy :-)

We will definitely have to do this again!