I know this is a day late as Sammy's Birthday was yesterday, but we wanted to wish him a happy birthday! Sammy used to be Nick's buddy as you can tell when we first got married. We were "ToTo and Neck" to Matt and Sammy was always attached to Nick's hip! Sammy turned 6 yesterday and we can't believe he is getting so big, much less that all our nieces and nephews are growing so fast! 
The Saturday after Thanksgiving we were sitting at home getting the girls ready to head out to Walmart when I heard some sirens that sounded like they were right outside our door. We looked out the window and sure enough did see some sirens from the police escorting Santa Claus through our neighborhood. Apparently the City of Grain Valley has this cool bus that has been transformed into a trailer or Santa's sleigh. They go around the whole town throughout the end of November and all of December on Saturdays to have kids come out and sit on Santa's lap...for free!! :) The girls were way excited and we rushed them outside with our camera. They both got on his lap, but Cora didn't last very long as you can tell. Kayley wanted to cry, but we reminded her she needed to tell Santa what she wanted him to bring her, so she stopped her frowny face and told him she wanted a Pocahontas doll. (Thanks ebay!) Then Santa gives each child a toy out of his sack. Cora got a Winnie the Pooh that had Baby's First Christmas written on it. Kayley got a Woodstock from Charlie Brown. She thought Santa was going to give her Pocahontas right then and there, but we had to remind her that if she was good he would bring it to her Christmas morning, then we had to teach her who Woodstock was. Then we were lucky enough to watch Snoopy Come Home on tv the next day...what are the odds of that one! :) The girls loved all of it and kept telling everyone that Santa came to see them and carried their toys around all day like they were trophies! It was a neat experience and great memory for them to have! Thanks Santa! :) Oh and have we mentioned that we like Grain Valley?!?
Well, I know it's about 1 1/2 weeks late, but better late than never! Here are some pics of the girls trick or treating on Halloween night! We had a blast considering the situation...Cora ended up having a fever earlier that day and diarrhea and on top of that, Kayley woke up from her nap with the same things! Nick didn't want to go trick or treating with them being sick, but I told him he could be the one to tell Kayley that. She's been asking almost everyday for the past month and a half when "Halloween day" is? It's actually sunk in what trick or treating means! It didn't take Cora long to figure it out either. She would go up to the door and try to give them candy, then would immediately drop the candy and grab the candy the people gave her. It sure was cute and it was cute to see her dragging her candy bucket when it got too heavy (see pic above!) But, afterwards, she decided that the candy bucket was a stool as you can also see from the pics above. But, we had a fun night and the girls didn't act sick at all when they realized candy was involved! We ended up trick or treating for about an hour! I was impressed! Then the Carles came over to visit and compare loots!! :) We had a great Halloween and hope that everyone else did as well! Oh...and that's one of our sweet neighbors who helped us pose the girls for a pic at one of our first stops. She was cute!
We got to carve pumpkins a week ago with the Carle Family for Family Home Evening and the kids had a blast! Kayley actually got more into carving pumpkins this year than she did last year. Last year she wouldn't even touch the pumpkin at all. This year as you can see from the pictures, she actually did help a bit even though she still was a bit squimish on touching the pumpkin and it's innards!! :) We toasted the pumpkin seeds and everyone enjoyed them until the next morning. Kayley came to me in the middle of the night and told me she needed a drink and that her tummy hurt. She had such a hard time going to sleep earlier because she had so much fun with her cousins that I thought she was pulling my leg and just didn't want to sleep. Well, needless to say the next morning she woke up and had been sleeping in her throw-up. I felt AWFUL! I've learned to start listening to her more as I'm realizing that she is old enough to start understanding her body and what it is telling her. Anyway, luckily that was all the throw-ups we had to deal with that day as we only had the throw-ups about a month ago. Now I know that next year...no pumpkin seeds for Kayley! All in all it was a fun time carving pumpkins and we love that the Carle's live so close to do these kind of things together with them!!
As you can see from these pics above, Kayley and Cora are once again complete opposites as Kayley had to have Daddy hold her the whole time and didn't want much to do with the animals whereas Cora was beside herself and couldn't get enough of them. It sure is fun to see their personalities develop and see them learn and grow in their own way!
They had a whole bunch of tractors that kids could ride on and race each other. The kids loved them!! And there were baby goats and Cora loved them and ran freely in the gated area whereas once again, Kayley had to be held by Daddy again! She sure is cute though!
The kids got to milk a pretend cow and Kayley surprisingly loved this part. I thought for sure she'd be scared of this part too. Then we tried to get some good kid pictures, but found it more stressful to get them to all look at the same time and smiling too...I'm glad we weren't wanting professional pictures yet! :) Overall we had a fun time and recommend this place to anyone else in the area! http://www.opkansas.org/_Vis/Farmstead/index.cfm However sadly it is closed now for the season.
