Happy Halloween!

- from our little "scarecrow," and the rest of the Moses family.

More Pictures

Here are a bunch of miscellaneous pictures from this fall ...

V crawling down the dock during a stop on a fall drive.

Coloring. She LOVES coloring and drawing and writing! I'd also like to point out the ice cubes in her sippy cup. She often requests "ice water" ... thanks to watching Mommy and Daddy put ice cubes in our water too.

One day they were studying mice at day care, and they all made these mouse ears. She kept calling them "Mickey Mouse head" -- hee hee!

Even a month later, she loves wearing these.

And finally, Toria romping through the leaves in one of my favorite outfits. With a half-eaten apple in hand, of course.

Pumpkin Carving

Last week while grocery shopping, V spotted a "pupkin." While my ideal would have been to have a fun outing at a pumpkin patch, I realized our schedule wasn't going to allow that, so we picked up a pumpkin from the grocery store.

Last night, I brought it inside for carving. Victoria has been talking about it every time we walk past it outside, so she was very excited to see it on the kitchen table.

"Look, Dada, a pupkin!"

We started scooping out seeds.

She started playing with "my seeds" and eventually got in trouble for throwing them "down there" (on the floor).

When we took the seeds away, thankfully there was a pen nearby to save us from a total meltdown. I used it to draw a face, then she grabbed it and just started drawing on the pumpkin.

On a side note, I love having a hubby who is a photographer and can take such awesome pictures of these daily moments.

She had fun identifying the eyes, nose, mouth, and teeth, and was mesmerized by the candle inside!

Wordless Wednesday: Crazy Hair Day

The Best Big Sister

Over the past couple of months, I've been explaining to V about the baby in Mommy's tummy. Some of her responses have been so precious.

A few nights ago after reading bedtime stories, she said "baby tummy?" and patted my belly. I said, "yes, there is a baby in Mommy's tummy." She leaned down, said "night night baby!" and gave my belly a kiss.

Last night, she was being her normal rowdy self. For some reason, she often gets really hyper at bedtime, and instead of calmly cuddling with us, is constantly moving up, down, around, talking and playing and flinging arms and legs every which way. During this process, she kicked my belly, and I said, "Toria, no kicking Mommy." She stopped, looked at where she had just kicked, and said, "Sorry, baby!"

These little ones can understand so much more than you think they can.

I hope she loves this baby this much even after it is born :).

Boo at the Zoo

The Lake Superior Zoo does this event every year. It is a chance for kids to walk around the zoo to trick or treat, see the animals, take a hayride, etc. We couldn't resist taking V. She is our cute little scarecrow this year ... although having to put a fleece jacket on did detract from the costume a little bit ...

Right away when we got there, she was ready to take off in search of candy. Mom could barely keep up when she grabbed Daddy's hand and headed down the path.

She caught on to the candy gig right away. I never did get her to say "trick or treat," but at least she was good about saying thank you to everyone.

At first, it was cool just to collect candy in the bag. Eventually, though, the demands to actually EAT the candy started. Daddy was the first one to help her dig out some of the loot.

Here is Daddy showing her the kangaroos...

And Mommy showing her a big black swan ...

This moose wasn't real, but she really thought it was, and was very hesitant to go up to it.

 

She also sat remarkably still to get this pumpkin painted on her face. Check out the blue lips and chin from that sucker, too!

We will definitely do this again, and as she gets older--and more patient in lines--we will even have to check out that hayride.

family photos at Gooseberry

We went to Gooseberry back in September for a family photo session. Despite an uncooperative little girl who only wanted to crawl around and play, we managed to get some pretty awesome photos ... even if we had to let V set the agenda. She enjoyed being silly with her sunglasses, exploring puddles, walking on the rocks, and finding special "chairs" like a bridge and log to sit on. Thanks to our wonderful photographer and friend, Kerri, for these precious memories.

Impromptu Photo Session

About a week ago we were out in the studio to take another monthly maternity photo (coming soon), when V ran out in front of the camera and started saying "cheese!" Of course, Daddy can't resist snapping photos.

Yes, the photo below is an actual pose. She laid down and said cheese. Silly Toria!

Same with this one. She turned her back to us and said cheese again.

She thinks she's pretty funny.

Telling Mommy to get the other stool ...

She is really into "tunnels" lately -- everything is a tunnel! -- so naturally a couple back-to-back stools made for great crawling.

Thanks for the awesome entertainment, our funny girl!