Right up the nose.

The girls received their flu mists (do you still call them shots if there are no needles?) today.
Lily was relieved not to have a shot, just two little mists up the nose.
Hannah Grace sat still for the first mist, then turned her head
during the second mist...
Mama's sweater got a nice inoculation against this season's flu.
Apparently there is only one mister per person, so Hannah Grace got half a dose and that's all she's going to get this season.

We did not qualify for the ever elusive H1N1 flu shot.
So, we'll be surviving on these seasonal flu mists until the summer.

In other news, I with my straight hair am wondering what to do with this...

It seems to get bigger and bigger throughout the day and there is no way a comb would pass
through these tumbles without causing a lot of tears.

We girls will be home tomorrow. Lily has a half day of school
and since she only goes for 2 hours they decided that her AM kindergarten class
does not have to attend. I have a slight sore throat and have decided that best cure for that would be a day at home!

Who is that in my bed?

My day started off with finding Super Girl in Lily's bed when I went in to wake them up. I put Lily to bed last night in her pajamas and at some point in the night the Super Girl appeared!

So, we had a little photo shoot at 7.30 in the morning!

Then little sister wanted to get into the shoot.

And, all of a sudden began giving me different poses to take pictures of...all the while saying "Picture of me, picture of me, Mama!"

I left both girls fully dressed in "regular" girl clothes, but came home from school to find that Super Girl had made another appearance at our house!


Hannah Grace has excitedly begun to explore her new little potty.

We still have some steps to learn....

But, she's excited about it!

We ended the day walking out to the front porch to this lovely display.

It's too bad white pumpkins don't come with a warning sign letting us know that squirrels may find them irresistibly delicious.
When Hannah Grace came outside to see the pumpkin she said, "Oh, man!" This has become her new favorite phrase whenever things don't go right.

And, so we ended our Tuesday.

Who's the Tiger?

This weekend, Greg, Roger, and Doug got to drive out to Ohio to watch the Bears play the Ohio something-or-others...it is 8:15 our time and I don't know who won the game although I believe it should be over by now, so hopefully they are on their way home now. You'll have to wait to hear about the game, but, I thought I'd let y'all know what the J-girls did this weekend.

We had a busy weekend which included 3 trips to Target. Yes, 2 to many. The first trip was to get some...I can't even remember, the second to get Lily's Halloween costume, and the third to pick up toilet paper and laundry detergent. Don't ask me why I couldn't get all of those things in one trip...I'm blaming it on old age...it's not easy being 29!

But, we ended our weekend with a fun afternoon. Our friend Ali reminded me that this afternoon was the Fall Fest at Hinsdale Covenant, so I packed the girls up and off we went to ride ponies and pet goats!

Little sisters Sophia and Hannah Grace patiently waiting while big sisters rode the ponies. Hannah Grace wanted to ride the pony so badly, she stood in line twice, but as soon as we got to the point of actually sitting on the pony she quickly changed her mind. While I'm mostly a willing mom, I was not willing to climb up on one of these ponies and hold her while we walked in a circle. Remember 29 is a tough age and not one where climbing onto miniature horses is encouraged.

Lily and Elsa having fun in the petting zoo.

And, Elsa and Lily after hot dogs, Cheetos, popcorn and face painting!

The last picture is cute and I know it's sideways...technical difficulties people, and my own personal tech guy is not back in town yet! So, it will stay this way until I get my guy back...just lean your head to your left shoulder and you'll see the J-girls having fun!

Love to you all!

Apple Picking

We went apple picking last weekend in Indiana, meeting up with Denise, Gus, and baby Roland! It was cold, raining, and really windy...but we did pick out some good apples!

Making Lily dispose of some of the 15 pounds of apples she had already picked. We enjoy a good apple here, but I wasn't sure we'd be able to go through all of them...She is my girl on a mission!

After being out in the cold rain picking apples, we went into the barn for some apple cider and cinnamon donuts!

After the quick warm up and Lily scarfed down 2 1/2 donuts we headed outside to petting zoo.
This is my 6-year old who has never fed an animal in her life...

and was so excited she was finally "brave" enough to give it a try!

Hannah Grace was obsessed with this little bird things, something called Silkies or some such thing.

It was an adventure getting to the Apple Orchard, a long boring story that involves our car's security system shutting down the car and then involved my directions getting us very lost. Indiana has a lot of long windy country roads that all begin with "County" that somehow don't lead to the Orchard. Long story short, we made it there! And, got to see baby Rollie!

Stormy Lake

So, I have finished about 3 loads of laundry and have about 3 more to do...but I decided to put up a post about our trip to Stormy in celebration of Columbus. We actually don't celebrate him up at Stormy, but we certainly enjoy the extra day off of school we receive because he found these great lands of ours...although I guess he just found the one great land...

We left Friday afternoon and drove up with Uncle Doug--boys in front, girls in the back seat! We arrived sometime after midnight and quickly put the girls in their beds only to awake to this...snow at Stormy Lake in October! After Lily's excitement wore down and I reflected on the beauty of it all a little song ran through my head. It's one you might remember from West Side Story...the one where Maria enjoys being a girl. On any given day I can list many many reasons why I enjoy being a girl, but on this particular morning there was really only one reason I was enjoying my girlishness...girls (at least at this point in time) don't have to take the boats, dock, and boat landings out of Stormy Lake during an early Fall snowfall!

Lily contemplating where she should throw that snowball.

Hannah Grace doing her most favorite activity at Stormy-
throwing rocks into the Lake.
Wearing the required pretty purse, which I believe was holding a hair bow!

Lily beginning to freeze.

As boats were brought out of the lake and docks were set up on the shore I noticed Greg had taken Lily down to the shore and they were taking down and folding the American flag. I raced down with the camera, but missed a shot of them folding the flag together. I took a couple of them as they carried the flag back up the stairs.

As I got nearer, I heard Greg teaching Lily about the respectful behavior we have toward the American Flag, not letting it touch the ground and what we do when a Flag is old and needs to be replaced. At this point I interrupted Greg and asked them to stop and pose for a picture...
As soon as this picture was taken, Lily turned over her shoulder and said; "You were saying, Dad?" And, Greg continued explaining how we treat our flag.

This little one below turned 2 and from the look on her face we are only assured of some good times to come! Lily and I made cupcakes and Hannah Grace opened her presents and blew her candles out all by herself right at the end of Happy Birthday! Somehow I took no pictures of this event on my camera! But, rest assured we had a good party! She has also found and enjoys her pockets!

Sunday was sunny with no snow, but cold so lots of arts and crafts and indoor playing with Uncle Doug.
And then Monday it was time to go back home and we left Stormy, shut up for the winter, at noon looking like this....

And now, I'll leave you with some pictures of our ride home

Who says 8 hour car trips through snow with a 2 and 6-year-old can't be fun?!

I forget that when I write a post and start at the beginning, the beginning ends up at the bottom of the blog! So, I've got three new posts that i just put on..you can read from the top down and just know it's going backwards, or you can scroll way down to the first post of tonight October 9th...I think it's called Technical Difficulties...resolved. Enjoy!

And now our last week!

Now, in the last week we have celebrated Greg's birthday and spent our days getting up and going to school!I know it looks like I'm about to steal Greg's thunder and blow out his candles, but I think I'm just loudly singing Happy Birthday! I made Greg's favorite Chocolate Pumpkin cake. The frosting is supposed to be a pretty fallish orange, but again I am still out of red food coloring. Every time I took a bite of the cake I felt like I had made a chocolate pumpkin cake and then frosted it with Cheez Wiz...fortunately it didn't taste that way!

Every night after her bath I ask Hannah Grace if she's ready for "Quack, quack with Daddy?" She wraps her towel around herself and walks around looking for Greg. When she finds him she says "Quack, quack" then gives him kisses and hugs before bed.


And, then we get up in the morning and start everything all over again!It may look like Lily is in really big trouble, but really she's just waking up slowly...you can see the little one in the background has no problems waking up and hopping into big sister's bed!

Well, I hope you've enjoyed a little recap of our last few weeks...I'll try to get something up on Tuesday night about our last Stormy trip for this year!

love to you all!