"Tunneling" at Gigi's Halloween Party

This past Saturday Ryan's grandma's assisted living facility had their Fall Halloween Party.  They invited all the residents and the residents could invite all of their family members...kids could come in their costumes, and they had hot cider, hot dogs, etc.  It was really cute, and of course all the elderly residents LOVED seeing the little kids in their costumes.  Thank you for inviting us Gigi!!

This year Brynn is a LADYBUG!  But with the "hat" part on I think she looks more like
an alien ladybug!  HAHA!  So...here is the "alien" and Gigi.

Since Jason and Sarah were out of town on a work trip for Jason, Pam and Rick were
keeping Charli.  Ansley was with Sarah's parents on a camping trip.

Brynn got to have Charli all to herself!  

Have we ALMOST mastered the CHEESE face???  Getting closer!

Getting her face painted for the first time.  She didn't move a muscle, but of course about two seconds later
she was wiping it off!

Gigi with her great-grand-kids (minus Ansley and Trevor...Trevor was there we just couldn't
get him to want to take a picture...ha!)

She LOVED helping feed Charli her bottle.

I didn't take any pictures of this, but we went outside and they had a little bonfire.  They also had some guys placing some good ole' country music on the guitar.  The kids were so funny...dancing and spinning.  When they would stop Brynn would yell "more!"  It was a little chilly, but not too bad.

When we came back inside Brynn found this scarecrow and kept trying to hug it and dance with it.  

Her latest funny little phrase is "snuggle!"  When we are outside (like at the little bonfire) she will say "cold!"  I've been telling her that when it's cold outside we need to snuggle.  So she keeps saying "snuggle, snuggle."  But the funny thing is she can't pronounce "snuggle" and it sounds just like "tunnel, tunnel."  SO CUTE!!

St. Louis ZOO

Last Tuesday we went to the zoo in St. Louis.  Ryan is off on Tuesdays, and we figured it would be a lot less crowded during the week than on a weekend.  I wasn't subbing, and it worked out that my parents could go too!  I think we need to do this every fall and spring...it was SO NICE!  Actually...the first couple of hours weren't nice.  We thought the weather was supposed to be 75 and sunny, but on the way up it started raining!  My mom and I wanted to go do something inside for the first couple of hours, but the boys INSISTED that we could just do the indoor stuff (monkey house, snake house, etc.) while it was raining.  It poured until right after lunch, and then it was just GORGEOUS!  Brynn just LOVES looking at all the animals!  I know she won't remember this trip to the zoo, but I still think it is SO important to expose her to stuff like this while her little mind is just soaking up everything.  WARNING - lots of pictures.  =)

After not getting to hold Brynn for the last 6 weeks,  my dad is making up for lost time!

I REALLY wanted to get a picture of her sitting on this (I have one of me when I'm little) but it was just too wet!

She was enthralled with all the little monkeys...

She started crawling around and jumping and making all these little noises like SHE was a monkey.
It was really funny...

Still LOVES turtles!

We brought our lunch and ate INSIDE because it was still raining!

The weather FINALLY started clearing up and it was just beautiful!  My parents had never seen her ride any rides or gone on any rides with her, so they were SO EXCITED to get to take her on the carousel!  Perk of going on a rainy Tuesday?  They were the ONLY ones on the ride!  HA!  Then we rode the train and got to see lots more animals that were actually outside!  FUN!

Riding the "choo choo"!  She LOVED it...it was the perfect length and she liked giving the man
her ticket every time he came around.  =)

The tunnel!  Her face looks like she's scared but she really liked the tunnels.
When we got done she kept saying "choo choo" and "tunnel."  The next day when I asked her
what we got to go through when we rode the train she kept saying "tunnel."  I couldn't believe she remembered that!

Maybe this should be out family Christmas card?  HA!  Brynn has really been into
picking her nose lately...gross I know.  =)

CANNOT get this girl to sit for pictures...here is take 1.  

And take 2...HAHAHA...looking cute Dad!

We stayed until about 2:30 and then headed home.  We weren't even out of the parking lot yet and Brynn was already asleep!  On the way home we stopped in Perryville to visit my grandma Sally.  It was her 89th birthday and it was good to get to visit with her.

Leaves, Leaves, and More Leaves!

Something we've been doing quite a lot of lately is playing outside in the leaves!  The big tree in our front yard is bigger than big...and so we have a TON of leaves.  Every morning I look out and there are tons more covering the ground...you can't even see any green grass anymore!!  We like to sit outside while supper is in the oven, and draw with chalk, rake the leaves, etc.  Here are a couple of pictures from the other day.

If we use the rake, she wants to use the rake.  If we use the broom, she wants to use the broom.  =)

She dumped all the bubble stuff out...so now she sticks a piece of chalk in and
pulls it out and blows just like she used to do to the bubble wand...

Did I pick out some good mums or what??  They are BEAUTIFUL!

Taking a fall walk...

Now we just have to actually do the work and rake all the leaves up...that's going to take a LONG time!