Week in Review

The girls' school held its annual Barnes and Noble Night on Thursday, when some of the teachers dress up and read stories at the mega bookstore. Additionally, the school gets a percentage of profits from the sales that night.

It's always fun, and the girls enjoyed picking out books. Violet chose an Animal Jam book, from the National Geographic online kids' game she and Cora like playing. Cora picked a couple of Warriors books, buying one with her own money.

On Friday, we went to Juliana and Daryl's house for Natalia's 7th birthday celebration. The kids made crafts, played and generally made merry.

Cora and Maya really enjoyed spending time together again; it's been since May or earlier, sadly. With how much the girls are growing up, it's a great thing that they still love playing together.

On Saturday, after Cora's football game, big sister helped little sister to climb high up in one of the pine trees at Central Park.

On Sunday, we made a quick trip to Lombardi Ranch for some autumn fun. Lombardi's isn't open regularly, as water problems have forced them to stop growing the corn and sunflowers and everything else that made them into a Fall Wonderland for decades.

But, knowing how much they are beloved, the family opened its doors to part of the property for one weekend, for photo opps with some of their iconic props.

Violet thought posing in the jail was a bad idea... but she didn't mind taking the photo of us.

The pumpkin selection was way smaller than normal years, but we still bought a couple of small ones to show our support.

Here's the girls in their babyhood at Lombardi Ranch:

RLC Halloween Fun

Our church's fun Halloween event has grown bigger and better year after year. This year, the theme was "A Tribute to Lombardi Ranch," because our town's beloved Lombardi Ranch isn't operating this year because they don't have enough water.

We arrived at the same time as Elaine, Vivian and Violet, so we went around the trunk or treat spaces with them on Saturday.












 Some of the spaces were very elaborate; it was fun for these girls to pose with the Wizard of Oz folks, since they were in their 1st Grade Wizard production together as Dorothy and the two witches.









 Our Life Group manned a space for passing out candy, and we also had fun hanging out with Sara and Tony and some other Life Group friends. I even got to cuddle baby Adelina for a bit.
Violet, Vivian, Cora and Violet passed out candy from our booth before heading out to collect their own candy.















Christina, Cami and Melanie came too, so Violet got to see one of her favorite classmates.

The Lombardi Ranch touch was present everywhere - their bands were playing, the hay maze was set up, the train was running on the Real Life Church property, and tiny pumpkins were available for sale.

They even carted over from the Ranch the giant pumpkin, so families like us who visit every year could take their annual pumpkin photos.

It was a long evening of fun, after two baseball games in the heat earlier in the day. But it was a lot of fun, and we wouldn't have wanted to miss it!

Lombardi Ranch 2014, Part III

Violet's third trip to Lombardi Ranch this month came as her first field trip with Growing Hearts Preschool.

A "ranch hand" led the small group on a tour, telling the children about the animals and allowing some to feed them. Violet was a little nervous about feeding her half corn cob to the big horse.

When the lady asked animal questions, Violet was always first to answer - thanks in part to Wild Kratts, her knowledge was impressive.

The children also learned a bit about farming, and about how pumpkins develop.

Since it was Halloween morning, the children were allowed to wear their costumes.

Miss Lorrie also arranged for them to pick their own pumpkins.

I love Violet's expression here, as she sits between her friends Izzy and Caleb. She is often very silly, and you can see that, as she talks in a funny voice to Sea Pony.

Earlier that morning, Violet remarked that she was the only animal in the group, but Caleb said he, as a spider, was also an animal. So, I overheard them repeating later on that they were the only two animals in their group.

We so love Violet's preschool!

Lombardi Ranch 2014, Part II

Violet's Fall Carnival was the same day as our Mom2Mom trip to Lombardi Ranch. Also, it was scheduled for just an hour before I needed to pick up Cora from school, since she's out at noon on Fridays.

Thankfully, Colleen listened to my dilemma and offered to have Violet stay with her, Liana and Lucas (who happened to have a day off school).

Violet was more than happy with this arrangement. Colleen also graciously shared these photos with me. 

Here are a few people from our group.

Later in the afternoon, we went together to a birthday party at the park for a mutual friend.

Lombardi Ranch, 2014

We made our annual family trip to Lombardi Ranch for pumpkin-and-scarecrow fun on Monday.

 This scarecrow display was one of our favorites.

On our way home, we stopped for dinner at Chronic Taco. The last time we ate here, Violet had her first quesadilla, which is now one of her favorite things to eat for lunch.

Lombardi fun with Mom2Mom

Shhh, don't tell Cora, but we went back to Lombardi Ranch on Friday with our Mom2Mom friends.

We went as a family twice already, but on this trip, I paid for Violet and me to ride the train, visit the petting zoo and buy a small pumpkin. Violet loved all of it.

Lucas happened to have a Friday off from school, so he entertained all the girls while we waited for our turn on the train.

 L

 My friend Kasia took a lot of these photos - they are great!

Lombardi Ranch, 2013

It's October again! Time for pumpkins, costumes and Lombardi Ranch.

Cora went to bed Wednesday night asking if we could "go to the pumpkin patch" on Thursday, and repeated the request Thursday morning and afternoon.

Lucky for her, Daddy was up for it, and able to get home in time.

We were also glad to take advantage of some cool autumnal weather, which always makes the trip feel more right.

Gobble, Gobble. Here's looking at you next month, Mr. Turkey.

Cora's much better about taking photos these days, but Violet is in a "maybe not" phase. This year, the Scarecrow Alley sign posts have been overrun with rats and crows.

Of course Violet would like the Lombardi Ranch Bake Sale Wars scarecrow, while both girls liked the Angry Birds entry.

(Cora loves climbing into our bed on Saturday mornings with Stacey's tablet to play Angry Birds, and Violet can carry on playing by herself if Cora is finished. Stace finds that his tablet background is ever-changing, and sometimes it's set to "airplane mode" with the internet off. Hmmm.)

More dinnertime silliness!

Lombardis with the Fam

We returned to Lombardi Ranch with the family for some more autumnal fun. Violet insisted on bringing Patch, once she realized that Patch is the same type of doggy that she's dressing up as for Halloween. (Don't call her a Dalmation, though. She is just a doggy.)

Atop the hay bale pyramid...

Thankfully there were plenty of non-scary scarecrow displays to direct our girls' eyes towards. Here they are with Scooby Doo and pals...

...and with their friend Hello Kitty.

 Stace took over for pumpkin-carving with the girls. Cora wasn't nearly as squeamish about squishy pumpkin guts as in years past. Now I need to wash, season and toast them! Yum.

 Violet LOVES her "smiley face pumpkin," as she calls it all the time. She talks about how much she likes, says it's funny, and giggles.

Cora went for a scarier version, a skull. She's been much more interested in scary stuff this year, though she still gets a bit spooked.