Just a Few Recent Pictures

At the pumpkin patch today - little girls in "jail"

Lucia working on her homework.  Alexa providing moral support.

 Going down a bounce house slide at the pumpkin patch

Lucia and Evelyn (friend from school) on a hayride

 Dinner help -- Lucia helps make dinner on Thursdays, Rhea on Fridays.  The other girl gets the table set.  Here Lucia was making a salad, ...

 ... while Rhea and Alexa were helping spin the lettuce dry.  Alexa's favorite spot is on the counter these days: excellent view, she can reach into bowls for snitching purposes, and that night "helped" by dumping 3/4 of the ground pepper jar into the salad dressing while I wasn't looking. :-)

kitty cuddles

 Rhea helping empty the dishwasher.  She loves to do the "high stuff" -- she's our little thrill seeker.  According to her, she loves scary movies, standing on counters, etc. etc. (Not sure what she found so funny here, but it's hard to get a "normal" picture of this goofy girl. :-) )

Baby mamas

Silly sisters :-)

Making tea for Papa :-)  LOVE this one.  Thanks to Tante Pfeffer for the awesome chef hats!!

Riding "hagabo" on Mama - Alexa's word for "huckepack" - piggy back. :-)

Speaking of her words, she talks quite a lot these days, and she's very good and expressing more and more complex requests/thoughts.  Some of her words are readily understandable, but some are very far from the real word.  A few cute examples:

gogo - grape(s)/Traube(n)  (possibly a combination of English/German?!)

wally - water

gogo - croissant

hagabo - piggy back/huckepack and backpack/Rucksack

Hallo - phone  ... "MY hallo" - "MY phone" :-) ... lots of emphatic "MY" whatevers"!" these days.

Aweeoee - Ariel or any other princess/Strawberry Shortcake/...

She has also taken to finding "buzzies" like Rhea... she'll drag a towel around for a while and proclaim it her "buzzi", or a dress from the laundry, or anything else.  It doesn't seem to need any special texture, color or shape, but in the moment she thinks herself attached to it.  So if I try to put her down for a nap without the towel or dress, she starts asking about her buzzi.  Usually, as soon as she sees her bunnies, though, she transfers her affection to them and the buzzi is forgotten.  :-)