Lily loves this statue. She's glad it is finally cool enough to sit here again.
Those geese just never want to come over and talk to her! I don't know why!
She's not falling, she's "rolling" down a hill..... a very controlled "roll" ;0)
My little monkey. :0)
I am sure more fall adventures await us. 
It was really easy. You put 1 teaspoon of water into a baggie, add in 6 - 8 drops of food coloring, pour in 1/2 cup white rice, and then seal the bag and move the rice around until it is completely colored. Then I poured it out onto wax paper & let it dry for about 1/2 hour. So easy!
First I showed them how to set up their pipe cleaners to look like a bare tree:
After they glued those on, they added glue to where they wanted the green grass. Then, when they were done with the grass, they put glue where they wanted the leaves. Then they mixed the red, orange, and yellow rice to make a fall tree.
They did a really good job getting all of that rice on there. Next they glued on their sun and pulled cotton balls apart to make wispy clouds. I think their pictures turned out really good!
After they were done, they went outside to play in the beautiful fall weather. They even decided to have a picnic with their snack:
He was giving Riley props and having him pose! It was cracking me up! So, of course I took a picture of him taking a picture. :0)
I thought he was done, so I walked out of the room. But a little while later, I heard, "Riley, hold out that shark head and have it bite Lily. Now Lily stick your finger in the shark head and make a face like your screaming."
For the record, I have never had any of them do that. 
We put a candle in a muffin and sang Happy Birthday to Baby Lamb.
Then Lily blew out the candle.
It is so funny that she wanted to do this, because I remember Zach wanting to do the same thing for his favorite toy, Dog-Dog. (My kids are super imaginative about naming their toys.) ;0) Zach wanted to have parties for Dog-Dog all of the time....I think it had more to do with getting cookies, cupcakes, or muffins and blowing out a candle than it had to do with Dog-Dog though. 
So we got another candle, and sang Happy Birthday to the Joker. Ares did it in one of his many voices he uses for toys. He just cracks me up!
Ares helped Joker by blowing out his candle:
Lily started her dance classes back up again this month. She is doing tap and ballet and she loves it! Two of her friends from last year are in her class again this year. It is nice that Lily already knew two of the girls (and that I already knew two of the moms!)
Riley had his very first Scout meeting last night. He loved it! He especially loves that Jeff is his scout leader. When Jeff came home from work, Riley said, "Hi, Scout Leader Daddy!" Then proceeded to call him that several more times. :0) I think he is going to have a pretty good year!
We saw so many pretty flowers and plants!
There were so many pretty butterflies! They were flying all over the place. Some would even let you get them on your fingers!
The kids wanted to touch them, but weren't too sure once they were really up close.
Lily finally got brave enough to hold one! 
Then she decided to kiss it!
We left the butterfly garden, to search for the Children's Garden. Along the way, we found more pretty flowers and plants.
There were rainbows everywhere!
There was a really cute section that showed the life cycle of a butterfly. It had statues, dress up clothes, and paper & pencils to draw with.
Then it was time for the musical maze.
We found this cool guy the kids could climb through.....
...he was attached to this huge tree house!
I really liked these trees that looked like people. 
After we tore the kids away from that section of the Children's Garden, we headed over to a cute little house where the kids could pump water and water plants.
They also got to play in the house and "fix us lunch". ;0)
We had so much fun! We will definitely be going back soon!
