Taylor's Pumpkin Patch Birthday

Authors note: (haha- author is me - haha)  It just took 42 minutes for blogger to upload these pictures.  I do not feel like organizing them in order.  Captions will be short. Deal wit it...

I call this "Life imitating Scarecrow"

 All the little kiddos at Taylor's 4th birthday party munching on some cake.

When T opened this gift she exclaimed "Oh Quentin! It's just right!"  Quentin would be the little blondie to her left.  Such drama....

The gift of the coveted hula hoop.  

Little pumpkin cakes - ala my mom.  Delish.

"If the scarecrow looks right at mom's camera, then we should look the other available directions. Of course!"

"Hey, I'm almost 3 feet tall finally!"

Cannot open eyes all the way for pictures.  

Candy & Trombones

I know - it's a weird title. It may even attract weird people to this blog.  But those are the only two things Taylor seems to care about when it comes to parades.  We went to the annual Maple Leaf Festival parade last Saturday, and yes, we have plenty of candy now and we even saw some trombones. We rode the carousel, and ate a little fair food.  We even learned that Connor has a 'trick': Put an entire tootsie roll in your mouth - finagle it around in there - and spit out only the paper - still in one piece.  Yep, she's got talent.

All in all, I think everyone was happy.

*Special thanks to Allison for capturing these photos.

Belated Birthday

I promised myself I would post pictures of Connor celebrating her birthday before Taylor's birthday.  But in all fairness, having two kids born in the same month is crazy.  Anyway, for Connor's birthday this year we had two family parties.  The first celebration was a 'Pooh-l' party at my parent's house on Labor Day. Obviously, we wanted to use the pool, and we had a 'Pooh' theme.

 She couldn't wait to get her little hands on her 'Bee-hive' cake.

Pool hair

Taylor is a fish in the pool...but was freezing when we took a break for cake

I just love T's face smiling up at Connor in this one

Oh yeah, she blew out her candle on her own...first try, no spit even!

Opening gifts

Snuggling new clothes

I love that they want to play with everything we opened

Connor is actually a really good present un-wrapper.  I know, that probably does not come as a surprise at all.

Oooh!  A shoe box!

Clothes! Yay, let me take them to the person who gave them to me.

And show you how they fit....

Reading cards

I had to explain what a 'piece of paper' inside of a card meant to Taylor.  She got the concept when I said we could take it and go buy something at the store.

Oh boy - babies!

Taylor & Evan checking out her new Princess books

Another baby! - A Princess Baby even! OH MY!!!  (Taylor was a little jealous, Aunt Steph told her she would take care of it ;)  )

And this is how she spends most of her time with her babies, carrying them around in her little arm.  

The day after Labor Day, we had Andy's side of the family over for dinner.  I did a terrible job with the camera, so there are very few pictures of Andy & Connor opening gifts....

Allison and Connor were having a staring contest, apparently.

Musical cards!!

Trying on her new Elmo baby Jayhawk shirt!

Shop till you Drop

Mid-snack, she finally passed out. At least Target has super sturdy straps to hold her in.

Taylor & Connor...Unplugged

Friday morning I was woken by a hot, sweaty almost-two year old around 5:00am.  I picked her up, and realized that our fans weren't running.  Then flipped around and looked at the clock - to notice it was also black. A nasty storm had started the night before, and apparently knocked out our power.  In an all electric house with a well, you don't get to shower when there's no power.  Daycare called around 7:10 to let us know they were also without power - so we couldn't even let the girls escape our hot house.  So - without power, AND water and all of us at home (because you know Andy shouldn't go to work without showering!) we went to Quick Trip for breakfast and bathroom breaks in the morning.

Donuts & milk from QT

She is the fastest donut eater I've ever met.

Coloring extra boxes...surprisingly entertaining.

Playing dress-up...or dress-down I guess. They thought sticking those sticky jewel things to their stomachs was so much fun.

And once we convinced everyone to put their clothes back on, Connor thought she should model Taylor's shoes.  Shes got a lotta growing to do....

Power finally came back on at noon, but not soon enough for our milk and about everything else in the fridge. That made for a reeeeeally fun afternoon.

Friday Afternoon at Work

I've accomplished all I'm going to get done this week.  I've got a long list to start on for next week, but if I do it all now, what will I do with myself next week?  OH right, go to the 60 hours of meetings scheduled for me.  Well, I'll blog a little picture instead.

This is what happens when you have an almost 2 year-old who is crazy.  Refused to put her clothes back on after getting her diaper changed at the pool.  And decided to try and do a somersault into the pool....crazy.

Scatterbrain

Stay with me on this one.  It's going to be all over the place.

Taylor went to Sanayia's birthday in June (A friend from school)....pool party!  They had a really great time playing.

I have no idea why Taylor is scrunching down so much in this picture.  She looks like a runt in comparison, but really - she and Sanayia about the same size.

Then we hosted Meinen Birthday Fest 2011.  Papa Tom, Grandma Ginny, and Anya's birthdays were all celebrated.

Grandma even made shirts!

Taylor went to another friend's birthday - Norah's Jump 4 Joy party.  It was really hard to get a good picture of them having fun, but this is the big slide they spent most of their time on.  Taylor is the one at the bottom of the slide in the pink tank...Norah is headed up the steps.

We've been swimming a lot. Cause, you know - IT IS HOT.  

Uh - someone's glasses are a little crooked.  And someone seems to be sticking out her belly :)

Last weekend we went to Deanna Rose Children's Farm in OP.  Only $2 a person!  We saw a cow getting milked, and hung out with some goats and took a tour of some teepees.  And then, it was HOT.  We'll definitely go again.