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.

trip to the pumpkin patch

Today, we took Jessica to the pumpkin patch. She was so excited to go and see the ponies and goats. She spent a good portion of the morning riding the ponies.



And she also bounced in the bounce house on and off.



She kept going back and forth to feed the goats. She had to make sure to feed them every last bite/



She had fun spending time with her friend Isabella.



And even posed for a few pictures.

driving home from Monterey

The drive home from Monterey is a long trek -- especially when you don't leave until 8pm. We were surprised that Jessica stayed up the entire way. In fact, she was still running around when we got home completely wired. What probably helped was that she sang songs the whole way back. Here is just a sampling.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (aka Fwinkle Fwinkle according to Jessica)



ABC Song



It should be noted that she alternated between these two songs for over an hour. The song quality (if you can even call it that) seriously deteriorated over time and she began adding new lines each time. Nemo made his way into many renditions. I'm assuming because of the nemo like fish earlier in the days. Eventually, we switched over the baby songs (music from Jessica's music class) and Jessica had us all singing. "Mommy and Daddy sing!". she said. Even Jim, who really, really does not like the baby songs, but still knows all the words, was not going to argue with her that night.

a day trip to Monterey

Last weekend, we took a (long) day trip to Monterey. Our first stop was the aquarium. Jessica was really into it this time -- naming the fish and checking them out. She was very interested in the sharks and only wanted to see the sharks. I'm assuming this is because of the sharks in The Little Mermaid and Nemo.



She also finally decided that she would like to start posing for pictures. We get about 5 seconds before she runs towards the camera to see what is going on, but at least we have a chance to take a nice picture. This time, she wanted to pose in front of the fish sign.



She had some of the most fun playing with the fish costumes. The clown fish (don't say nemo according to Jim) was a big hit. She looked at it, checked it out in the mirror, and ran around saying she was Nemo.



We ended the day with some hiking at Point Lobos at sunset. Jessica was so excited to be at the beach (although she didn't actually step foot on the beach) and see the sea lions. Every time I tried to tell her the noise a sea lion made, she would say, "No Mommy. Lions go roar." She wasn't quite getting the point evidently.

last swim day at the park

This past weekend, we took Jessica to one of the last swim days at the park. It was a great day to go as the weather was quite warm. She really had a fun time splashing around and wanted to spend more time there. Next year.

a trip to Big Basin

A few weekends ago, we spent the day hiking around Big Basin. Jessica loved running around and playing in the hidey-holes in the trees.

jessica builds a house with her friends at school

Another fun week at school. Jessica had fun fishing in the water table and building houses and buses out of giant blocks in the courtyard.

a new nightly ritual -- the hot dog dance

Jessica loves the hot dog dance that accompanies every episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Ever since she heard it playing in Jim's office (he found it online), she wants to dance the hot dog dance. It has now become part of her bedtime ritual.

heels are fun

Jessica is into dress-up. Evidently dress-up heels make all the difference.

Another trip to the zoo

We did another trip to the zoo this past weekend. Despite all the animals, Jessica sees to have the most fun running through the tunnels near the giraffe exhibit.