Carousel and Fountains

There's a brand new outdoor mall in town that has fancy shops and a great carousel and play fountains. We went to check it out yesterday and the girls had a fabulous time! All the other moms steered clear of us playing in the fountains and we got lots of chuckles and a few funny looks. I guess that's because it's the middle of November, but don't worry--it was 75 degrees outside and sunny! At first, I kept trying to get them to not get their clothes wet and to go to the car, but they were just having too much fun. I let them play until they told me they were too soaking wet and ready to go.

Paige's Third Birthday

Yesterday was Paige's third birthday! She's getting to be such a big girl!

Ashley got a little present, too.

Preschool Thanksgiving Feasts

Today, the girls had their Thanksgiving feasts at preschool and they both got to dress up like Indians. Ashley took her role very seriously--when she saw me, she just said "how!" When their teachers asked what they were thankful for, Paige said, "the baby in Mommy's belly" and Ashley said, "soft kitties, presents from Santa, books, and balloons from parties." Here are our little Indians:

Paige's Haircut!

We went ahead and cut Paige's hair! She has been thrilled that she doesn't have to get piggytails in the mornings before school and I have been thrilled that she hasn't been crying and fussing about her hair. Here she is:

Before:

After:

Halloween

Since we had to move on Halloween, it was pretty stressful for James and me, but I don't think the girls noticed. I was very happy with their costumes--Old Navy, 50% off, the weekend before Halloween, especially since Ashley has been saying all year that she wanted to be a werewolf. Last year, she watched the Backyardigans Halloween special that featured Uniqua dressed up like a sweet werewolf with pink spots and ever since then, that's what she's wanted to be. She had almost convinced Paige that she needed to be a vampire (also featured in the special) when I took them to the Halloween store to check out other costumes. They then decided Ashley would be a pink kitty and Paige a puppy (phew!), but we wanted to make sure to get the best costumes. When we saw these costumes, they decided to be matching pink poodles. I'm so glad. I'm not sure how I would have explained to their preschool teachers why my 2 and 4 year olds even know about vampires and werewolves.

Halloween night, we went over to one of James' friend's houses and went trick-or-treating around their neighborhood and had a really fun time. The girls were funny-every time they'd go up to a house, they'd say, "I like your Halloween decorations" or "are those real spiders" or any number of other questions/compliments. They wanted to have conversations with everyone instead of just getting their candy and running.

Here they are:

We liked the little tails on the costumes :)

First Day of Preschool!

The girls both started preschool this week and are loving it (and so am I!) The first day happened to be their class Halloween parties, so they got to go in costume. The school does tote bags instead of book bags, so the girls and I puffy painted all over them so they'd be unique. As you can see, Paige is not big on having her hair done at 8:30 in the morning--I'm dying to give her a bob with bangs, but James is against it. We'll see what happens.
It's a church-run preschool so they celebrate the holidays and Ashley is so excited about that. Her class gets to dress up like Indians for the Thanksgiving feast and they have started practicing for the Christmas program. She came home Friday singing the "gloria" part of Angels we Have Heard on High and then another song that apparently goes, "Jesus, Jesus, was a lovely child." I think she might be making that one up--we'll see. Paige's teacher said she happily played by herself during free play time (not surprising--she's just like James was, I'm told) and she was very excited that there was a matching baby doll to her special baby in the classroom that she played with. We're all very happy with preschool!