Boo at the Zoo

Our third year at Santa Barbara's Boo at the Zoo!

 Two of the Boo Crew Members were lucky enough to pose with Jessie and Woody.

 Kim and Taylor's kids: Caitlyn (Wendy Darling), Eliza (Tinkerbell), and Caleb (Peter Pan) pose here with the girls (and part of Uncle Taylor).

This is why Uncle Taylor was partially in the picture... He had a very tiny Captain Hook (Ryle) attached to him all night.

Here we are in full Toy Story effect. 

To Halloween & Beyond!

Arachnaphilia

Los Angeles Museum of Natural History has a Spider Pavilion.

We overcame our (okay, just my) fears, and decided to bug out for the day.

 I kind of love these pictures for a few reasons:

1. You can clearly see Nola's seemingly permanent purple hair extension
(this thing has to go on record as the longest lasting Chuck E Cheese prize in our home)

 2. Nola has entered this new stage of "camera awareness," 

which makes it really hard to take any candids of her, 

but she strikes some pretty sweet & hammy poses 

(five seconds before she has to come over to approve of them.)

 3. These little girls are such tender playmates (98% of the time...)

4. I should also make a note that Nola was mainly admiring her manicure,

which was another one of the many "rewards" (read: bribes) she earned for 

OFFICIALLY being potty trained.

Payton bonding with a beetle.

Nola and the mantis agree that purple braids are the must-have-accessory this Fall.

Various States of Dress and Undress

Nola is three.

She is in Preschool,

and does she ever have an opinion about what she's going to wear each day.

I thought I'd share this outfit from earlier this week,

as it was particularly unique.

You can't really see the purple hair extension she's been wearing for about a week now,

but it's there (and, as a side note, she fully earned it as she is OFFICIALLY potty trained).

What you can see is her Jessie doll 

(one of the other incentives we've been dangling over her head during potty training --

I'm sure more of these "rewards" will be popping up in upcoming blogposts).

Funny thing about her strong opinion in her attire at school,

is that Nola actually disrobed (down to underwear) the first two days of school

during dress-ups, and stripping is something we've really been working on with the girls,

trying to teach them that nudity isn't something that you can just do anywhere --

a tough concept, as they are nearly nude most of the time --

especially in our backyard, during the heat of the summer.

To demonstrate my point, this is a fairly common outfit of choice for Payton.

Rain, rain, don't go away!

It seems like it's been years since we've had a thunderstorm, but today we had one.  

We ventured out for preschool and a play date, but were stuck inside for the afternoon, which means the girls were a captive audience for some pictures...

Payton watching the rain... probably her first official rainstorm.

 During the storm, our bread maker came back from being repaired,

and the box was a major sanity saver, as it filled up a good couple of hours while the chili was cooking.