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We’ve been busy around the house lately and the Ladies love to help! One big item on the agenda: painting. Maddie did not want her room painted… pink is fine with her. But Bettie wanted a change of pace. She has been telling us we need to paint downstairs—we need color. Her ideas are literally a rainbow, so we needed to come to a compromise.

What do you think?

We decided to let her choose a color, but she somehow talked us into two colors: an accent wall of one color and the rest another color. Bettie was very into painting, but Donna and Sean were very into actually painting quickly. Sean also painted our room, so he was in a zone.

Once the painting was done, the girls enjoyed being able to play outside and help with the leaves. Bettie may forget Tommy briefly, but he is never far out of her thoughts. She decided he needed a walk, but found him still dressed up for Halloween. And VERY creepy.

Tommy and Bettie strike a pose

Maddie has discovered the joy of tights. Here is a few pics of her before she went to school today. She is posing with Dime the kitty. She also has a dog named Quarter. These are all named in honor of her new cousin Penny. Don’t ask about nickels, though. She does not want to talk about them–for real!

Dime and Maddie pose

Ready for school!

Bettie’s school is having a spirit week (you know, crazy socks one day, spirit wear another day). Today was team favorites and she proudly wore her Steeler’s jersey that Aunt Robin gave her.

Go Steelers!

She wore her shirt with pride, even though it might get her kicked out of her Brown’s centric baby sitter’s house. For real!

I'm not sure what the posing is all about

Another fall and another trip to Leed’s Pumpkin Farm. We went for the Autism Harvest Festival again, which is a great program they have every fall. Donna and Dracine joined us this year and a good time was had by all. But boy where we tired afterwards!

I’m having trouble with the pictures on this, so I am just going to post them. You can figure out what we are doing!

This just gets better every year!

A new spa technique--corn therapy

More disgusting donkeys

Bettie in pike position

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I can't keep my pants rolled up on here!

Aye, Aye sir!

All snacked up and ready to go

Must keep pants clean....

Maddie finds the perfect pumpkin

Happy Halloween! We had two very excited ladies on our hands. We tried to get good pictures before the Boo Bash at Kindercare and before Trick-or-Treat last night. Bettie was a blur in most and we had trouble getting Maddie to show her full costume.  She was a cowgirl (again) and that is what she consistently says she wants to be when she grows up. The girl knows her own mind! At least she did not insist on a mustache this time around. Bettie was Simba from Lion King. Or a reasonable copy of Simba. Loved the costume–could have done without the roaring and jumping around.

Here you go! Don’t eat too much candy and stay safe!

The only picture where Bettie is not a roaring blur.

We have lots of pictures from the summer, but I’m not sure I am ever going to catch up. We will see how it goes. For now, I’ll try to get the newer pictures up.

Fall fashions from the Ladies McGurr

We can’t believe it is fall already! The girls are enjoying playing outside now that the weather is not so hot. The other day they wanted to take their birdhouses out that they made in with Aunt Melissa and Auntie Em. They are both love to do crafts. Bettie enjoys all kinds, but Maddie is especially into making clay figures and baking them with Grandma Shirley. She has already planned a large number of things to make when she sees Grandma next–an umbrella, a blanket, a doghouse, a cloud, a sun….the list goes on and on. Then she says “We have to cook it!” Here are their birdhouses:

Bettie's birdhouse

Maddie wanted to personalize her picture:

Maddie's birdhouse

The girls also enjoy the Ikea swing Sean bought. We have gone round and round about a big swing set. We’ve looked in various places and thought about different styles. This has gone on for years. Sean saw the swing at Ikea for 14.99 and that solved our problems! Not really, but since the girls are getting older, we are not going to bother with the swing set. The only problem is that both girls want to be on it at once. As you can see, Maddie chooses formal wear for outside dress. You never know who you might see!

Cinderella on a swing

The girls also like to rake leaves, as you have seen in the past. As soon as Maddie left the swing, Bettie leapt on the swing. Sometimes she asks Maddie if she wants to rake, Maddie says “Yes” and runs off. Then Bettie gets the swing!

Good job, Maddie...keep going!

When it rains or is too cold, we come inside and play. They like to kick back with some books, tv, or Wii. Bettie likes to spend time in her room playing with toys. Her favorites vary, but usually involve the faithful brother Tommy. Maddie has been way into Zhu Zhu pets since the spring. She’s only half a year behind. Bettie and Maddie both have some, but Maddie has pretty much adopted them all. Yes, she has already had one caught in her hair. I missed that excitement, but Sean had to cut it out. You can imagine how much fun that was. Bettie and Maddie both paused for this picture with the Zhu Zhu pets, but Maddie bailed at the last minute. You can see her feet.

Maddie's Zhu Zhu pet collection as styled by Bettie

Maddie really loves the pink Zhu Zhus (she has Pinkie, Sweetie, and Jilly). She is hoping Santa will bring her Pipsqueak since he is an older one and not in stores. Maddie pores over the paper with all the pets listed, reads all about them, and then decides who she would like to look for at the store. On this particular night, the girls started them all and all the Zhu Zhu pets were running around at once. They kept running over my feet while I was washing dishes–creepy! I know some people find them annoying. I can see that, but Maddie loves them and plays with them alot, so we don’t have a problem with them. We hope you are all enjoying the weather!

Hello–the last week of August the Ladies McGurr both started kindergarten. In two different schools on two different days. You know life can never be easy…..

I put a question mark in the title because, although they seem to enjoy kindergarten, we have not had discussions with their teachers to see if kindergarten loves them. Here is Maddie all ready for her first day:

I'm ready for kindergarten....

She did not want to have her picture taken, so I did what I could. She goes to a structured communication classroom. There are only four in our district, so she goes to a school across town from our home school. Maddie spends most of her day in the special classroom, but also goes to visit a typical kindergarten class throughout the day. Hopefully, by the end of the month, Maddie will have social studies and science with her typical kindergarten friends. Eventually they hope to have her in the typical class as much as possible.

Here is Bettie all ready for her first day of school:

but is kindergarten ready for me?

Bettie is going to our “home” elementary school which is close by. She is in all day kindergarten too. She LOVES fussing about her lunch. We pack it most days, but she can buy lunch one day a week. Very mature stuff. Bettie oversees the packing of her lunch every night.

For Maddie, I just stuff as much things as I think she might eat in there and hope for the best. Maddie does buy milk every day. We had no idea she would be interested in it until her teacher wrote that she was so happy that she could buy it. Maddie has a thing for milk–reading the carton, talking about the percentages of fat and the colors.

Bettie and Maddie also go to different places after school just to make thing EVEN easier since they are across town from each other.

We finally have our blog issues under control and are back on track. We are using WordPress now, so you might need to redo your RSS feed.

We’ve been busy as usual, just not blogging about it. The girls had spring break from their pre-school, so we went to Cincinnati for an overnight trip. We’ve been wanting to go to the Newport Aquarium and the Cincinnati Zoo for a long time.  We heard good things about both and were definitely impressed with the zoo. The Aquarium was very nice, but so crowded that Maddie was overwhelmed and it was hard to see anything. We went on a Friday morning thinking we would be ok, but no! This gives you an idea of what our time on Friday was like:

Bettie thinks this is great!

That lump of pink back there is Maddie. We spent a lot of time carrying/dragging here from one place to another until we could get out of there. They had some very cool things, like the jelly fish room. They had tons of different tanks–some framed like art, some really tall, and some lit up with different colors. The tank below you could look through to the other side, so we thought we would take a picture. Too bad a jelly fish decided to eat Maddie’s head:

When Jelly Fish Attack!

Bettie has been watching a lot of Sponge Bob so this room really impressed her….

Maddie has also been wild about otters lately (don’t ask!) so we were excited to see the otters at the Aquarium. They were not really into seeing us. I’ll spare you the pictures of them sleeping with their backs to us. The Aquarium also has an awesome penguin gallery. We all enjoyed watching them–Maddie is still way into penguins. She has a giant one she dresses up (in swimsuits mostly) and she travels around with Maddie. She got this idea from Bettie, who rarely leaves the house without Tommy. That’s her brother who wears a bear costume. If you have not seen Bettie lately, don’t worry about missing out on Tommy. She will tell you ALL about him if you give her an hour or so. Tommy’s a complicated and demanding young boy.

Here’s a picture of some of the penguins we visited:

The Best!

A baby penguin!

We stayed over at a hotel so we could go to the zoo the next day. The girls were beyond excited by the pool at the hotel, even though it was frigid. The next morning we got to the zoo bright and early. It was just us, a bunch of guys with cameras and a bus load of Amish people.

We soon figured out why everyone had cameras. The zoo was packed with spring flowers–especially tulips. Maddie, whose favorite flower is a tulip, was so excited.

How did they know that tulips are my fav?

Here are a bunch of pics of the girls enjoying the flowers:

Bettie lost her first tooth soon before our trip, so she has a big smile for all pictures. She is very proud! She requested $5 from the tooth fairy (with a justification in writing, of course), but the tooth fairy stuck with the same $1 amount she gave Maddie for her teeth.

We LOVED the zoo. They had a great array of animals, including some we don’t have in Columbus (like a sea lion, polar bear and lots of wild cats we don’t have). We are getting a polar bear next month in Columbus, so we are looking forward to that.

Bettie is in a lion phase (too much Lion King I think). So, she enjoyed seeing the “Mufasas.” They had a new manatee exhibit too, so we checked it out. Everyone seemed more interested in the scuba guy feeding the manatees than the animals themselves.

Hey, who is that guy?

The girls really loved the insect house. They spent far more time in there then I felt comfortable with, for sure. We’ve been having trouble with ants in the house, so I did not need to see any more. And the insects in there were huge. And gross. Girls loved it.  Must be Aunt Sarah’s influence.

We have lots of things to catch up on, so I will try to post again soon. As our parting shot, here is Bettie in the insect house:

I'm doing this just to bother my mom!

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