Thanksgiving at Grandma's

First of all, check out my turkey projects!

This year we spent Thanksgiving weekend at Poh-poh's house. Goong-goong was in the hospital recovering from surgery, so it was a quiet Thanksgiving. However, I always love going to their house. It helps that Poh-poh spoils me and I get away with lots of things (like staying up way past my bedtime)!

A TV party! We set this up in the living room every time I go over. Those are all of Mommy's old stuffed animals.

Whenever Uncle Andrew comes over he also spoils me with gifts. This time he brought me a 20-pack of play-doh. I wasted no time opening all the containers and making one giant play-doh ball.

He also built me all kinds of forts. We started out with a simple pillow house.

Which soon got upgraded to a blanket castle.

The next night he built an add-on.

Perfect hideaway for watching iPad videos.

We topped it all off with a visit to Chuck E. Cheese and it was a pretty good weekend!

She Really Is My Daughter

Johanna texted these photos of Kaitlyn painting her Thanksgiving apron at daycare. Look at that precision! Such a perfectionist, just like her Mommy.

Preschool Photos

Behold, this year's preschool photos!

Poor Brady

Poor guy just wants to sleep!

Kaitlyn also insists on reading Brady a bedtime story every night. I love the ear flip at the end.

Home Depot Birthday Party

Braden had his fifth birthday party at Home Depot. That's right, Home Depot! They hold free kids' workshops there every few weeks, but did you know you could schedule a private workshop for a birthday party? Such a cool idea. All the kids and I loved building and painting our own model helicopter, a special project that the staff picked out for us. It was fun using a real hammer too! While I enjoyed the party, Daddy enjoyed 45 minutes of uninterrupted browsing through the store. Too bad there wasn't a birthday party discount.

Mommy was too busy helping me to take pictures of the assembly. But it involved her holding these tiny nails in place while I hammered. Scary.

Showing off my finished product. So proud!

Super-Halloween!

This year for Halloween, I dressed up as Super-Kaitlyn! Between daycare and preschool, I'm always hanging out with boys, so they were likely a big influence on my choice of costume.

I was so excited to wear my costume to preschool. We had a little Halloween party, and then a parade for the parents. 

See how short I am compared to the rest of my class?

Hanging out with Super-Josh.

We also recited "Five Little Pumpkins."

At night we went to the Chiu's for pizza before trick-or-treating. Wylie and his Star Wars family joined us too. Check out their costumes here. Can you believe Auntie Vicki made all those costumes herself? Too bad Mommy isn't that creative. Her witch costume was a last minute purchase from Target, and Daddy's costume came straight out of his closet.

Superheroes were a popular theme this year.

We walked over to the same block as last year for trick or treating. It was so crowded this year, we could barely walk on the sidewalks. One house even gave out Jello shots for adults! There were lots of decorations, and I refused to trick or treat at some of the scarier houses. Thankfully, Wylie was patient enough to hold my hand and help me to the front doors. We ended up with lots of treats by the end of the night, and I went to bed tired and happy. Until next year!

Our pumpkins this year.

Apple Hill

In the spirit of the fall season, Mommy thought it would be fun to take me apple picking, so we took a trip to the place to pick apples, Apple Hill. Apple Hill is a collection of orchards, pumpkin farms, wineries, and Christmas tree farms in Placerville, about an hour east of Sacramento. There are produce stands, you-pick orchards, bake shops, bbq stands, arts and crafts booths, picnic areas, and lots of activities for kids. It's a fun place to visit, but gets really crowded during the fall.

Since it was a three hour drive to get out there, we made a weekend trip out of it and spent two days farm hopping. Unfortunately we went at the end of the apple-picking season, and discovered that almost all of the orchards were already out of apples to pick! We thought we had driven all the way there for nothing, but ended up finding one orchard that still had apples left.

Here are some pictures of everything we did (and ate)!

Train ride at El Dorado farms.

Free apple samples at Denver Dan's!

What do you eat when you go to an apple farm? Freshly baked apple pie of course, topped with a gigantic scoop of vanilla ice cream.

We were hooked on the fresh pressed apple cider offered at almost every farm. They don't sell this at our local grocery store so everywhere we went, Mommy had to buy a container. 

Hot n' fresh apple cider donut at Rainbow Orchards

Pony ride at High Hill Ranch, one of the biggest and most crowded ranches there.

Hayride!

High Hill was also home of the famous apple cider milkshake. Yum.

Boa Vista Orchards famous hand-dipped corn dogs. Mommy also bought a fresh frozen apple pie from here. Can't wait til Thanksgiving to eat it!

The highlight of the weekend was definitely picking the apples. Although most orchards were already picked over, we were lucky enough to find a small one that still had apples left. They were harder to find, but hunting for them made it even more fun. I was so excited every time I found and picked an apple off the tree!

A farmer showed us a tree that still had a ton of cute little fuji apples. Even though they were small, he said, they were full of sugars and were the best apples. We went and picked away. He was right, they were delicious! 

Apple picking was such a fun experience, I hope this becomes a new annual tradition!