Costumes

We've been costumed for a neighborhood parade, a preschool parade, a pumpkin hollow, the night of the living farm, story hour, and the grand finale last night.

I mentioned Kenzie chose to be a dragon - which was a great costume. But, it has been SO warm. So, after exhausting the princess attire....



& wearing the dragon twice....



I whipped up a witchy number as our final costume:



It was a great season of spooky festivities...that I am...thankful to see wrap to a close! Halloween starts to seem like the holiday which will NEVER end.

Did we scare you?

This photo is of a pumpkin inside our home that Kenzie insists on plugging in herself (supervised) each morning. It's more important than breakfast. :)

& aren't Nana's great? My mom created this treat and mailed it to Kenzie along with her Halloween goodies.



Happy Halloween!!
(costume photos coming soon!)

Hike

Last weekend was perfect for a long hike at the arboretum. I don't think we've been on a true hike since hiking in the San Diegito Park Trails which were practically in our backyard in San Diego. Sadly, today, I'll bet that beautiful land is lost.

Well, at least we didn't have to worry about mountain lions at the arboretum.





We caught frogs and saw an itsy-bitsy teeny little snake, which were fascinating.



..and we collected a sackful of nature to bring back and create snakes of our own.



These seed pods make the best painted snakes. I just toss a handful of the stuff on her craft table (which I recently painted the top of in chalkboard paint) and it's fun to check in and see what she's done to it. It appears that she made some pod snakes, some colored acorns, and some happy faces on the leaves.

Kenzie's First Home

Battle Mountain: The former view out my back door in San Diego

After nearly 1.5 years of whining about leaving San Diego, I can finally appreciate that it was a lucky move. While watching the news online, we've seen that our specific neighborhood was one of the first to be touched by fires. Astonished, via the news... we saw the intersection leading into our old neighborhood demolished by flames. Today, I have confirmed that our ENTIRE STREET was demolished.

This picture is of Kenzie admiring the mountains of our second story deck & was taken just before we moved away. Battle Mountain is just off to the left, and not visible in this picture.

This was Kenzie's first home. Suddenly, all my whines about leaving that home...have become an ENORMOUS sigh of relief.



My thoughts are with our old friends that still resided in that neighborhood (but we've located safe), and the many others that have lost their homes.

Jump!

She tries desperately to be like the big kids.




She's yet to get the timing right. But, she doesn't know it. She celebrates like she's set the new jump-rope record.

Rainy day

Rain, rain...go away...
Little Kenzie wants to play....



Or, sometimes we just have to give up and go outside anyway. It's officially fall (even though our trees aren't showing it yet), and we're trying to wrap our minds around the chilly brisk air and rainy days. At least there is fun to be had by catching raindrops on her tongue.



I've been slow at updating the blog lately and have made a short list of things that I wanted to document, such as the following:

Kenzie is apparently, rather frequently reminded of the family "rules." As result, she also takes such liberties in reminding her parents of the rules too. These reminders usually start with:
"Mama. You. know. the. rules."
And, then are followed with some odd interpretation of HER rules which are generally pretty cute and smile inducing. Like:
1. Mama, we don't talk about bottoms unless we're using the toilet. (this rule was instated during a phase where Kenzie talked about bottoms and what comes out of them...incessantly).
2. Daddy, you have to say "Excuse me" after you do THAT.
3. Mama, you have to keep the scissors put away otherwise I might get them. (holding said scissors in her hand to make her point).

Unfortunately, I can't seem to remember the really cute and absurd rules she implements, but there do seem to be a lot of them!!



We've also made a silly mistake of explaining some of the buttons in our SUV and how they work. There is a yellow button that controls the descent of the vehicle when on steep incline environments. Essentially, you push the button and it drives you down the mountainside. Kenzie however, has taken to yelling: "Mama!! Push the Yellow But-ton!!!" every freaking time we are heading to the peak of a hill. It is my job to do this and I have to, of course, -fake- pushing the yellow button at the top of any itsy-bitsy little hill. It's getting old. Perhaps, we should trade in the car... :)

Ashley

Kenzie has decided that the babe in my tummy's name is to be Ashley. She's so fond of the name, actually, that she names everything Ashley. Including this praying mantis that we found in the early a.m. last week. It was a friendly guy, and he ended up being her friend all. day. long. We set him free at the end of the day.

At first, I was a little creeped out by him. I can't remember if I posted these pictures, but earlier in the summer a praying mantis came in through our sunroofs while we left them open at the library. He was HUGE. We brought him home, finagled him into the bug catcher for awhile and then set him free. While sharing the story with my mother, she originally joked with me and and said the guy was "Harmless!! Just let her play with it!!" She called back a few days later after having watched a documentary on them and changed her position. Apparently, when the things get THIS big, they can be meat eaters! So, now..I have a difficult time judging which ones are small enough to cart around on my kids shoulder all day...and which should be studied from far, far away. :)



I get such a kick out of Kenzie's interest in bugs (obviously). I try to let her explore them (when safe) and teach her to treat them nicely (don't harm any that won't harm you!)... When we first moved into our neighborhood 1.5 years ago, the neighbors found this totally creepy. I'm proud to say that we now see many of the kids running around with Kenzie on bug hunts. (she's still pretty lonely while wallowing in the mud, but even I wrestle with inner screams when she heads in that direction...)

Junky Punky

We finally finished junkin' our punkin'. We (or, rather, I) had envisioned a dragon theme to match my gals dragon costume, however things soon got out of hand (as they typically will with a 3 year old wielding paint brushes). I quickly ditched the "planned" part of the project and just aimed to survive...

Kenzie painted. I arranged the junk. She whined while I arranged the junk. (she had other ideas).
But, I think we like the outcome:



****this is for Holli's contest, and also for the place where big and little art meet and some kenzie doodle fun. Nothing like killing all my birds with one stone, eh?



It was fun, albeit, er, ahem...a wee bit stressful for those of us who aren't so patient. Honestly, I don't know who made the biggest mess - her or me?

Art for Kids Day

We'd heard about the arboretum in our area but had yet mustered a visit, until this weekend. Funny, it's very near us and is now a new favorite.



Art for Kids Day was held at the arboretum, so we enjoyed a day of nature crafts, mazes, hay rides, petting snakes (how that is artistic, I don't know!), and even walked away with a snake painting on her face.



Now, we've signed on as volunteers to help clear new hiking trails and are excited to plan day hikes there with our dog! It's a very cool place.

Field Trip: Pumpkin Patch

Kenzie's first preschool field trip occurred on Friday. It got off to a rocky start due to my volunteering to be a driver of other students. We were assigned Kenzie's favorite friend "Chinnu" to ride in our car. When Chinnu's mom brought her carseat to our car, I about swallowed my tongue. Chinnu, age 4 was still riding in a newborn appropriate carseat. As you can imagine, she was way too big for it and her mother didn't even attempt to put the straps over her shoulders. She just clasped it along her middle and called it good. Panicked, I called the preschool teachers over and explained I was uncomfortable with the risks of this. Eventually, we sent Chinnu to ride to the patch with her mother who wasn't originally planning on going. (Chinnu is from another country and English is a second language to both her and her mother. In all honesty, I don't believe that they understood why the seat was inappropriate, or the danger I was envisioning.)




Kenzie was terribly disappointed.

But, thanks to the fun stuff at the pumpkin patch, she soon recovered.




Shown, are a few shots of the slide, the pumpkin picking, the highlight for Kenzie: (catching a bug!!), the duck races, the corn box...




....and a shot before leaving home where she befriended a pumpkin colored butterfly.

New Recipe

I've found that cooking meals is a bit easier when giving Kenzie something to "cook" on her own.

Her latest award winning recipe:
1/2 pkg. Wasabi Rub
1 cup Bread Crumbs
1/2 cup of Salt
1 cup water
92 Peas
1/4 log of Port wine Cheese

Stir thoroughly.
Beware, it smells better than it tastes. :) But, it's worth the peace.

The Little Camper

We enjoyed another fabulous camping trip this weekend. This time we camped with six other couples and their kiddos. I took A LOT of photos, but ended up with only a few of the Kenzie doodle. The wee little ones were stellar campers and the Friday-Sunday camping trip was just perfect. I won't share the photos of the other family's children, but they sure were a cute lot and each got on very well with Kenzie.



The only disappointment was learning that our newly found and favorite camping spot is CLOSED from October of May, each year. Sigh.