Girl Scouts!

Pinning Ceremony
Originally uploaded by tracyg00

Last week, Megan and the rest of "my troop" had their Investiture Ceremony -- which means they received their Official Daisy Pin. It was pretty cute. Megan and Sarah got to march their flag around the room and they each had to say their first and last name into a microphone in front of a gymnasium full of people. Megan said she wasn't scared at all.

We had our second monthly meeting today. The girls earned their rose colored petal patch (which represents Making the World a Better Place). We organized a food drive for the local food pantry. They made a little turkey pine cone craft and learned a Daisy song. Jake got to come along today. He wanted to wear a vest like Megan, so I added some pins to his fleece vest and he was happy.



Jake is still cracking us up on a daily basis. A few weeks ago, while we were at Damien's birthday party, Christina told Damien to come out of his room to say goodbye to Uncle Jimmy. Jake looked at them and serious as can be, said, "That Uncle Jimmy - he's ours". I guess he's not ready to share his uncle.

Speaking of Jimmy, Jake was telling us that Jimmy has a fat belly and proceeded to stick his belly out as hard as he could and turned quite red in the process. It was pretty funny.



Jake had picture day at school last week, so I combed his hair and used a little water since it was sticking up a bit. He came down the stairs and said to Jimmy, "My hair is awesome". We're not really sure where he came up with that one.

And, finally, Jake found his Halloween costume from last year and decided to put it on yesterday. It was WAY too small, but he ended up keeping it on for about 6 hours. Then, he got up this morning and put it on again for a little while. I think I have to hide it.



We made a visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden on Sunday since it was so nice outside. Our neighbor, Francesca, came with us. Nothing funny here, just a nice photo:



And, Darin pointed out that Megan has found her "me time". She gets into the shower and sings like there's no tomorrow. She literally sings the entire time she's in there and couldn't care less as to who might be listening. I'm gonna have to record it.

Good Times

Funny Faces with Grandma
Originally uploaded by tracyg00

The last few weeks have been fun and busy. A couple of weeks ago, we paid a visit to Grandma Helen and Scott. The kids had a great time running around with Scott and enjoying the birthday cake that Grandma got to celebrate my birthday and Scott's birthday. They got them to make funny faces for this photo :-)

My kids seem to have a lot of photos of themselves flying through the air. So, I figured I'd add another for all to see:



And then, since it's always the kids flying around, we decided to add one of Darin:



There's not much of a story to go with this photo. I just happened to love this rare moment:



We made it to the Children's Museum a couple of weeks ago, as well. We ended up spending over 3 hours there. They had such a great time and since we got there closer to lunchtime, it wasn't crowded at all. They seem to like the facepainting station the best. They get to decorate their own faces:



and here's Jake:



And, finally, Halloween turned out to be quite fun. Jake was enough of a sport to put a mask on for a photo. He literally told me, "I'll put it on for only the picture, mom". I was able to snap two photos and then he was on his way....trick or treating in his jeans and coat again.



And, Megan embraced her role as Bat Girl. Here's some of that Girl Power in action: