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G'Mom's birthday is later this month, so we had an early birthday celebration. Chad was impressed with my fast baking skills when I decided to whip up some cupcakes during nap time and they were baked and decorated in 1.5 hours.

JJ sure likes hanging out with Aunt Jen - especially when he's wearing the snazzy pajama pants I made for him.

We also checked out the excellent Children's Museum of Memphis while we were there. It has a a tons of fun stuff for kids, including the cockpit of this FedEx jet that Leah is flying for us.

Leah and Emmie are ready to fly this jet wherever we need to go. Emmie said we were going to New York, though Molly radioed from flight traffic control saying we were supposed to go to South America.

The museum has two areas with green screens where they show the kids on TV screens superimposed over some other video feed. The band here is rocking on the beach to Surfin' Safari.

Emmie selected Justin Bieber's Never Say Never, and the younger girls filled the role of his backup dancers. (Chad clearly had a bit of fun with these green screen pictures!)

Molly and Leah decided to soar through the sky a bit as well.

We also played at the toy river they had set up. Apparently, the little toy shark is very exciting.

We visited Grampa at his office before having lunch at the Bar-B-Q Shop (which was outstanding). The girls wanted to go to Grampa's office so they could draw on the whiteboard.

G'Mom and Grampa took us to paint pottery on Monday night. Molly saw this castle piggy bank and fell in love with it. Now she says she needs some money to put inside!

Leah painted herself the perfect sized ice cream bowl.

With G'Mom and Grampa helping the girls, I was able to paint a piece too. I turned the girls' handprints into owls, inspired by this blog. And I left strict instructions for Mom to keep this one in Memphis. :)

We had a great weekend all together, but we did miss Uncle J who was on a mission trip in South Sudan. On our way home from the airport, we stopped for dinner with Aunt EA and Scott to avoid rush hour traffic. If you are local, you must check out Cheesetique in Arlington. Mmmm, it was so good!

Our county uses schools as polling centers, so Molly was off of school Monday and Tuesday for the election. We took the opportunity to fly to Memphis to visit with my family. Leah was thrilled to sit in the seat like Molly and we were excited to not have to carry her carseat through the airport!

G'Mom and Grampa took us to a giant county park near their house. It has a spectacular playground, including this extremely tall and fast slide.

Molly's favorite part of the playground was this teeter totter.

The girls had fun all together on this basket swing.

Emmie must have thought that G'Mom and Grampa's house was really frigid! Or it may have been that she was excited about her new gifts from G'Mom.

Molly loved her new sparkly clothes so much that she decided to cheer about them!

JJ was happy to watch all the dancing and cheering!

I couldn't resist making JJ a fleece monster hat. He'll be sporting a super fun hat this winter.

Emmie was the recipient of a cute monster hat too. She was also excited to model her new cherry corduroy jumper.

Saturday night we had an early Thanksgiving dinner. In preparation, Aunt 'Chelle needed to snap the green beans, so she enlisted some extra help.

You can never get enough holiday food, right?

The girls all enjoyed playing games together on any available iOS device. They were even seen playing old school board games!

JJ was sick over the weekend, but he did have some smiley moments.

Molly found that JJ's puppy played Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes, so she spent one afternoon trying to teach him all the moves. He was very entertained!

More to come tomorrow…

As we did last year, the girls participated in the Halloween candy buy-back program at our dentist office. The girls were told that they could each keep 15 pieces of candy.

Molly made sure to count her 15 pieces, as well as the pieces that she was going to donate.

Ms. Melissa helped the girls weigh their candy and rewarded them with a thank-you goody bag and $1 coin. When I asked the girls if they wanted to donate part of their candy again, Molly was most excited about the goody bag!

Dodek Dental also set up a table to draw thank you cards to be included with the candy. The donated candy will be part of Operation Gratitude's care packages sent to deployed US Military.

Molly was very intent on getting her card just right for the soldiers.

Molly's school had a Parade of Words for the kids on Halloween day. Each child was asked to describe their costume with a specific word. Kindergarteners described with nouns. Other grades described their costumes with adjectives, adverbs, verbs and phrases. It was a creative way to add a little education into the holiday festivities.

The kindergarten team dressed up as a box of crayons. What's your favorite color? Ours is orange! Yay Ms. Colella!

As always, our first stop is to Trick-or-Treat at Grams and Pop's house. The girls love the full size candy bars there.

The girls were happy to take a picture with Grams and Pop before heading on to Keira and Maya's neighborhood for Trick-or-Treating. Molly is Rapunzel and Leah is Strawberry Shortcake.

Molly and Matilda were both Rapunzel from the movie Tangled. Note the important difference though. Molly will quickly point out that she is Rapunzel from the end of the movie (when her hair is short and brown), while Matilda is from earlier in the movie when she still has very long blonde hair.

Rapunzels are joined by Merida and Strawberry Shortcake (who's not technically a princess, but pretends to be one when she wears the crown Leah has on). Add in Izzy and Optimus Prime, and we've got the whole gang.

I think they may be excited to get started.

Molly and Simon were typically out front. We had to keep slowing them down so the others could keep up.

Leah definitely liked getting some candy.

Leah took her time to pick out exactly the piece of candy she wanted at each house, which often meant she was struggling to keep up with the bigger kids who'd grab and go.

Of course, every now and then you need to inspect your loot!

Back at Keira and Maya's house, the girls inspected what they received and picked out 2 pieces of candy to eat that night.

Molly chose this huge gummy Lifesaver, but had a bit of trouble actually biting through it.

After sugaring up, all the kids had fun attacking the giant Frankenstein, though Leah looks to be too excited to participate.

Aunt EA's boyfriend, Scott, brought the girls two pumpkins, so we took advantage of a hurricane day on Tuesday and carved them.

Leah was a bit more hesitant to get her hands (or spoon!) dirty to scoop out the seeds.

After the girls bailed on the pumpkin carving, I worked on their designs. Molly insisted on keeping them inside so the bugs wouldn't get them, so we had a few friends watching over our dinner.

Chad chaperoned Molly's class to a nearby farm with a pumpkin patch. Before leaving, Ms. Colella talked about the animals they'd see and read a story about pumpkins.

It was a tight squeeze on the bus, so Chad shared a seat with Molly and her friend Catherine.

After a talk about the farm, it was time for a hay ride on a beautiful day. It's hard to believe it's late October with 80 degree days.

They even rode through a stream. The kids had to get a peak at the approaching water. Molly was a bit worried that they might sink.

She picked corn, cotton, and a pumpkin, though she doesn't seem too sure of her choice in this picture.

Molly was even brave enough to feed this goat some corn out of her hand.

On the way home, several kids took a little snooze after a busy day. Molly snuggled up and closed her eyes, though she never actually fell asleep.

I wanted to get some Fall pictures of the girls, so Tuesday we went to Savage Park to take some pictures among the fall foliage.

Still hugging among the trees.

Leah was excited about her pretty red leaf.

At the end of the trail was a fun bench in the woods. I love the colors glowing behind the girls.

Molly decided to take a rest and find objects in the clouds.

Mommy was requested in a picture too!

We wanted them to sit together, but by the end of the outing, Leah had different ideas.

We told them we could go to Chick-fil-A after the session, so they were excited to head back toward the car. And they just like running through the leaves.

Molly's school held an International Day where they had lots of special activities during the day highlighting other countries, and then a special program in the evening for students and their families. They asked Chad to be the official photographer of the event, so he spent the day at Molly's school photographing class activities and assemblies. Here's Molly's class doing the Mexican Hat Dance.

Nice dancing!

Baba Jamal Koram put on a show at a couple assemblies. He's a storyteller who was really engaging. The kids loved the stories and songs.

The afternoon assembly had all of Preschool, Kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade. The cafeteria was completely packed, but he had no problem holding their attention.

Molly's class also made maracas, but Chad couldn't get back to photograph the action, so she gladly posed after school with her tiny instrument.

Molly came home from school with this book she made and told us she had a show for us. She set up some chairs for Jen, Leah, and I to sit in, then read/sang the book to us. I give the show 5 stars.

Molly's school held a fun run on Saturday morning to promote active lifestyles. We brought the whole family to participate. Chad ran with Molly and I ran with Leah. Molly and Chad got ahead of us off the bat, but he turned around to get a picture of us before they pulled too far away.

Here's Molly and her friend Catherine at the finish line after the run.

Leah loved the finish line with all the people cheering.

The girls loved their medals, and they definitely deserved them. Molly ran the entire mile without stopping. Every other kindergartener would run a bit and then walk a bit, but Molly kept on with a nice steady pace. Leah did great too, though she switched between walking, running, and having me carry her throughout the mile.

After the race, they had lots of other activities to promote healthy lifestyles. Here's Molly climbing the rope at the beginning of the obstacle course (she didn't get very far).

Molly continued the obstacle course on her belly.

They also had other fun activities, and surprisingly both our girls wanted their faces painted.

Leah, like Molly, opted for a flower on her cheek. Such a sweet little face!

We were impressed at how well this event was run. In addition to all the activities, the cafeteria was packed with healthy snacks (including Smoothie King samples, Yum!) and every child went home with a t-shirt and a prize. Thanks Talbott Springs for a fun morning!