Miriam has been having a blast lately with all of the fall activities we've been doing. We carved pumpkins the weekend before Mathias arrived. We had gotten 4 pumpkins at the pumpkin patch, and we all camped out on the living room floor with a giant sheet and all the pumpkins. Miriam wasn't that interested in the pumpkins - she liked to take the tops on and off once we cut them, but she didn't want anything to do with the "pumpkin guts" when we were scraping out the inside. She did like to tell us which shapes to use on the pumpkins, and she helped Mario use his drill (?!?) to drill holes in his pumpkin(s). The end result of the drilled pumpkins was that we had pumpkins that looked like they had snowman faces (see pictures below). But Miriam liked putting the pumpkins on the front steps and putting the candles in them so we could light them at night.
She also got a chance to go trick or treating with Opa and Grandma, since we were at the hospital having a baby. :) She dressed up in her Elmo costume, which again got a lot of attention from parents and kids, and did a bit of trick or treating at a local business area. She wasn't very interested in saying "trick or treat", but did hold her bag open for people to put candy inside. :)
As we've been getting further into fall, the leaves on trees around here are changing and falling off. We've only got 2 small trees in our front yard, but the leaves turn a gorgeous red, and we've also got trees in the median of our dead end street that Miriam loves to play with. Since we've had Mathias, Mario has made it a point to play outside with Miriam every day since he's home during the day, and Miriam has done a lot of leaf kicking, throwing, jumping and crunching.
In other news, just to brag on our girl a bit, she is doing fantastic at preschool and gymnastics! Preschool is mostly social for her, but her teacher reports she is very sweet, gets along well with her classmates and although she is shy, she's slowly getting more comfortable with new things and places. She finished her first round of gymnastics and is now in her 2nd class. It is nice that she now knows how to do a lot of the things, including walking on a balance beam and a forward somersault. She's such a smart girl with a funny personality. She knows all of her letters and can recognize whether letters are facing the right way or upside down. (And they ALWAYS have to be facing the right way...) She can count objects to 10, knows all of her colors and many shapes, and loves to make matches. She matches socks, puzzle pieces, and silverware with her bowls and plates. Miriam loves to sing songs and sings almost all day long...at home, in bed, in the car, dancing around the living room, etc. For Mathias' arrival, he bought her a small indoor trampoline that she has been loving. She jumps on it a lot during the day, but it doesn't seem to tire her out very much. She's been practicing star jumps and ski jumps like she does at gymnastics, and it is pretty funny to watch her jump all over the place with her hair flopping up and down and all around. And one of the most fun things about her these days is her speech and language. She talks all the time and carries on full conversations with us. And she is constantly asking about her limits these days, and trying to figure out the "rules". She'll ask something like this - "Can I sit on this? Can I stand on this? Can I kneel on this? Can I stand with one foot on this? Can I lay down on this?", all asking about one thing, for example her trampoline. Her current obsessions are fire trucks and ambulances. We live about .3 miles from a fire station, and she loves to walk or drive past it and see if the fire engines or ambulances are outside. She also gets REALLY excited if she hears a siren or sees a fire engine.
Some pictures from the last couple weeks:
