Letters to Lyla and Lottie

Lyla always says “wanna help cook!” and so of course she does.  This time we were making “ooky” Halloween cookies.  Baking with my helper invariably ends up in mis-measured ingredients, a broken egg or two, and a giant mess.  Todd always asks me why in the world do I bake with the kids.  It’s one of the questions whose answer lies in those lonely dark days, when I wondered if I’d ever be a mother.  I revel in these moments….and hopefully the gals I visit teach understood why their cookies looked especially ooky. 

This was another one of those activities that I thought was slightly lame, which of course ended up being a favorite.  All it is is shapes cut into a cardboard box!  I bought random objects at the $ Store (including Styrofoam shapes in the floral section), grabbed some things around the house, put them in a bin, and let Lyla go to town.  My favorite part about all these activities is watching her take the invitation so easily and jump right in.  How does she know those slots are for putting things down?  After we were board with the items I prepared or the activity, I just grabbed a bucket of our everyday toys.  It was surprising how many of our toys are basic shapes.  We keep this box in our toy area and bust it out all the time now. 

We had to take a time-out for stirring the gems..lol

Dear Lyla, you are so smart it kills me.  I just set out all the supplies for making Halloween snow globes, which was more than enough to get your imagination going.  You screwed off the lid and immediately started dumping things in.  I think the glitter was your favorite.  You’re getting so good at dumping that I could even trust you filling the distilled water and glycerin.  I try to “butt out” and resist telling you what to do as well as letting there be no wrongs during these activities.  So, I said nothing when you packed the jar so chuck full that the eye balls and pumpkins wouldn’t move!  You loved it soo much that we made a second one for Lottie.  For the next week or so, you’d randomly go grab it and say “shhhaakkke it!” or “look! oooky!”. 

Dear Lyla, you like to everything that we do.  So, since we don’t have a little lawn mower for you, we improvised!  Thanks for helping vacuum that lawn baby girl!

My big helper couldn’t help but want to feed her little sister.  This is what happens when an over zealous two-year old gets ahold of baby food.  Carrot baby food to be exact.  Lottie actually thought it was hilarious as well. 

We made our annual visit to the Paragonah Pumpkin Patch early this year, to get the best pickin.  It was especially buggy this year, but we still had a great time picking pumpkins.  Lyla loves her cousins, being able to roam, and the outdoors, so this was the perfect outing for her.  I let her pick whatever pumpkins she wanted.  She worked hard toting pumpkins from the patch to her little stash piled by the car.  Anytime she saw a pumpkin that had been eaten by bugs she’d say “ewww!”.  Silly girl.  Lottie Lou slept during the picking but woke up just in time for a photo shoot.  The day ended with an ice cream at the Dairy Freeze.