A Thanksgiving Recap

A bit late, but the Thanksgiving photos have finally been processed. Here is a recap of our time in Indiana.

On Thanksgiving evening, we took family photos (whole family and just our family) in front of the Christmas tree.




Jessica modeled various Christmas outfits while in Indiana. Of course, we could not get her to sit on Santa's lap in any of her Christmas outfits. She wants nothing to do with him it seems.



This is Jessica in her "princess" nightgown that her Mimi made her. She pretty much pranced around in this the entire time we were in Indiana. She always wanted to wear it.



She also enjoyed reading her princess books and watching hours and hours of Mickey Mouse (the same episode over and over again).




And, she had lots of fun playing trains and farm with Papa.

Jessica helps decorate her Christmas tree for her room

Tonight, Jessica and I decorated a Christmas tree for her room.

We got her a tree that was as tall as she is.



She enjoyed wearing the tinsel as a necklace.



She picked out ornaments for the tree.



This is the final products. Lots of glitter and bling!

another fun week at school

Jessica had another fun week at school.

She enjoyed lining up magnetic tiles in a row.



She played with rubber bands and used them as bracelets.



And, she played in the sand (standing of course so she wouldn't get dirty).

fun at school

Jessica had another fun week at school. She painted with race cars.



She counted the fish and spied them with her binoculars.



She worked on glue projects.



She had fun playing with Isabella and going down the slide together.



And she played legos outside.

Jessica loves to dance and sing

Jessica spends a lot of time dancing and singing around the house. She likes to do it in her beautiful dress.

couch potatoes

Just a couple of couch potatoes at our house.

Jessica has more fun at school

This past week was a busy one at school. A harpist came to play for the school and Jessica got to try her hand at playing the harp too.




She also has taken an interest in playing with the large outdoor blocks. Some of them are simply "too heavy" for her, but she likes to stack the small blocks "high" and "ride on the bus".




She also likes to spend time playing in the manipulative room.

Jessica goes Trick or Treating

On Halloween, Jessica went trick-or-treating with her friend Isabella. Both girls were dressed up as princesses.



Jessica really seemed to get into trick-or-treating. She loved to ring the doorbells. In fact, Jessica and Isabella raced to see who could push the doorbell.



She also loved the idea of getting candy, despite not knowing anything about it.



As soon as she got her candy and said her thank-you, she immediately turned to Jim and I and said, "Next house". She wanted to keep going and going. We were out for over 1.5 hours.



And, here is just a cute pic of Isabella and Jessica walking down the street.

Harvest Festival at Jessica's School

The Thursday before Halloween, Jessica's school had a Harvest Festival. Kids could come in costume. Jessica was Cinderella of course.



We told her we were going to a party. She was very excited until she found out that we were going to school for the party. That did not seem very exciting. But, once we got there, she loved it and didn't want to leave.

She spent a good portion of the night looking for her friend Eliza. They got into some trouble in the art room playing with glitter.



One of the teachers dressed up as a pocket lady and handed out trinkets. Jessica saw the other girls getting bracelets and rings and she had to have them.



And, who said a princess has to be prim and proper? Our princess had lots of fun going down the slide in the dark.

Jessica goes to the Disney princess show (again)

Jessica got to go to the Disney princess show again with her friend Leilani. Jessica dressed up as Cinderella (her favorite Disney princess at the moment).



Jessica's favorite part of the show was the Cinderella portion. Good thing that took up the entire second half.




And, finally, a picture of our own Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

Jessica plays mini golf

On Friday night, we decided to try mini golf with Jessica. We told her were were going and her comment was, "We are going to play the mini golf." It actually went better than expected. Jessica "tried" to hit the ball, although she wouldn't take any direction from us. We're in the "I can do it myself" stage. She seemed to enjoy herself.

Jessica carves pumpkins for Halloween

Tonight, Jessica carved her first pumpkins for Halloween. Well, we carved them for her, but she picked out which pumpkins got which stencil. We went with MIckey Mouse, Snow White, and then a regular jack-o-lantern.

This is Jessica scooping her first pumpkin. Jim helped her and she only did one scoop (if you could even call it that). I can't blame her. I don't scoop pumpkins either.



The MIckey Mouse and Snow White carvings seemed much more time consuming than we had originally anticipated. Jim eventually broke out a power tool and Jessica went to investigate his progress with the Mickey Mouse pumpkin. She seemed happy as she declared, "Mickey Mouse".



Jessica wanted to pose with her three pumpkins -- Snow White, Mickey Mouse, and the normal jack-o-lantern.



And here is a close-up of the pumpkins.

Jessica wants to thank Susan for the princess dress

Jessica's new room has a dress-up closet. She loves going through the clothes, shoes, and accessories and picking outfits each night. Tonight, she wore a princess dress that Susan gave her. Jessica's comments on the dress:

- It's pretty.
- It's my Cinderelly dress.

She was really happy with the dress (she even wanted to wear it to bed).

Jessica is ready for Halloween

Jessica is enjoying Halloween. She likes to point out pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns, witches, ghosts, and scarecrows wherever we go. Her favorite seems to be witches. She wants to wear her witch outfits all the time and declares that she is a witch. Recently, she posed for some photos with "her" pumpkin outside.

bedtime

This is what bedtime looks like in Jessica's new room. First, she gets dressed in her favorite princess skirt. Let me rephrase that. She gets dressed in all of her princess skirts as they are all her favorites. This means that she wears four at once. Then, she plays with various tiaras and princess tops. Once dressed appropriately, she reclines in her new bean bag chair and looks through book after book. Used books are simply discarded on the floor (hence the large heap of books scattered around her). Tonight, Jim asked me why Jessica was 30 minutes late going to bed? Well, we had to clean-up the mess she made.

Jessica moves to a new room and a new big girl bed

Jessica moved to her new big girl bedroom (aka the Sleeping Beauty bedroom) this weekend. It didn't seem like too big of a deal for her to get sleeping in her big girl bed. She won't yet sleep under the covers really. And, she still spins in circles / travels over the entire length of the bed.

Jessica builds an airplane

Jessica likes to play with her legos. She spent a good amount of time building an airplane this weekend.

I'll clean it

Today was clean-up day in the backyard. We cleaned and covered the backyard furniture in preparation for the rainy season. I had planned to clean while Jessica played in the backyard, but Jessica had other ideas. She wanted to do clean-up too. We got her her own towel and she helped with dusting off the furniture.

cheerios (with milk in it)

For the past week, Jessica has asked for cheerios with milk in it for every meal and snack. She really enjoys eating her cheerios and has about 2-3 bowls per meal.

my blankie

All of a sudden, Jessica has become super attached to one of her blankies and a bear. She wants them all the time. Unfortunately, we only have one of the each of them (a parent's nightmare) and neither can be found easily since they were bought 2+ years ago now. There was a recent accident with Jessica's blankie (pasta sauce all over it) and we had to put it in the wash right before bed time. Jessica watched it being washed. We tried to make it fun for her, but she wasn't happy going to bed without her blankie.