Category: General News

Oct. 31: Jessica, Eli, and Celia came over today for a little Halloween playtime.  Andrew and Eli didn’t have preschool this week because of the statewide teacher’s conference, so we got together with Alivia on Thursday and with Eli on Friday.  Today we made some Halloween-y play-doh in orange and brown.  The boys had fun adding the color and then making cakes and pies and finally taking it outside and scattering it around (!).  The weather has been amazing these last couple days, and we’re enjoying it 100%.  Jessica and I took lots of pictures of the kids today.  You can find them in the gallery!

Oct. 31: I am enjoying a late night of movie-watching and photo-editing, and I’ve got some good new pictures in the gallery.
While Ben and Melanie were here, we bought and carved some pumpkins.  Andrew had a fun time making his by pounding a golf tee into his pumpkin and making star-like holes.  Ben, Melanie, and Bryan also made cool ones.  This was Andrew’s first time carving a pumpkin, and it was fun to watch!  Photos are in the gallery.

Oct. 31: It’s so fun to have small kids during holidays!  Seeing Andrew get so excited that he couldn’t sit still…it’s really cute.  This evening, we went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood – about 10 houses – with Andrew’s friends Alivia and Rayna and their parents, Kathy and Brett.
Andrew was leaping about in his adorable giraffe costume.  He and Alivia (sort of) took turns ringing door bells and happily requesting candy from our neighbors.  It was an amazingly beautiful day today, and while we were trick-or-treating it must have been in the 50s.  Wonderful weather!  Pictures of the evening are in the gallery.

Oct. 31: Aside from chasing the kids around, I haven’t had a regular work-out routine since I was 8 months pregnant with Andrew. I’ve recently decided, though, that it’s time. After spending well over a month waffling about which gym to join, I signed up with Curves on Monday this week.
So far, so good! I went four times this week, and it worked really well. I get up at 5:50, feed Sylvia, and I’m at Curves by 6:15. It’s a half-hour circuit workout and 10 minutes of stretching. That gets me back home just after 7. For the most part, everyone at home is still asleep or just stirring.
I’ve noticed an increase in my energy levels, and it feels so good to be moving again! My goal will be to go three days a week, but I’m enjoying going every morning so long as I get enough sleep.
Thanks, Melanie, for introducing me to Curves! My wonderful sister-in-law owns a Curves in Texas:)

Oct. 30: I took the kids out yesterday morning to take some photos of them in their sweet Halloween costumes.  Granny made Andrew’s giraffe costume, and it’s just wonderful!  Andrew loves the costume, but every time I’ve pulled out my camera, he immediately takes it off…so no photos have been taken until just now.  Sylvia’s bear costume is the same type as Andrew’s duck costume.  He was such a cute duck!  And she’s a cuddly bear.  Hope you all have a happy Halloween tomorrow!
Photos of my kiddos are in the gallery.

Oct. 28: You’ll soon be able to find me on Facebook.  That’s right, after years of hearing about it, I’m jumping in.  Bryan joined a few months ago, and he always seems to know so much about what’s going on in our friend’s lives.  My main hesitation has been that I like to keep my blog up-to-date and I like to read my friend’s blogs and my mom/cooking/crafting blogs, and I don’t know if I have time in my life for another area of computer time.  It’s not like the kids often say, “Hey Mom, why don’t you just check your email for a bit and we’ll play safely and quietly here together.”  No, they don’t say that yet.  So I do my computer work during stolen moments here and there.  And now I’ll add Facebook to my list of things that I’ll want to check.
So do you want to be my friend!?

Oct. 26:  Taking a moment here to report that we’re having a great time with Ben and Melanie.  Plans today include an orchard outing and some pumpkin carving!

Oct. 24: On October 12, we met Dad for lunch at Rocky’s followed by a hike out at Cherokee Marsh.  It was stunningly, beautifully perfect.  The color!  It was the kind of day that superlatives are made for.
Andrew had fun looking for lady bugs and nuts and sticks.  He ran and then he wanted to be carried.  Dad and Bryan oblidged.  I had Sylvie in the backpack, and she did a wonderful job.  We all walked down to the water and along the boardwalk and then on the path with the big rock and in through the prairie.
I had a fun time taking pictures, and I’ve got to say, that I’m pretty happy with how this batch turned out.  Looking back, I’m glad that we could capture that afternoon and hold on to some of its brilliance.
Thanks, Dad, for spending some fun time with us!
Photos are in the gallery.

Oct. 24: After working on it for weeks, I’ve completed copying all our CDs to the computer so I can listen to them on our new iPod.  We’ve got 4,300 songs – 15GB.  I’ll want to do our Christmas music too, but that’s all in the basement.  Now in my quest to fulfill my obsessive compulsive tendencies, I’m going to spend lots of time tweaking the genres, making sure the album artwork is all there, and making play lists.
We’re already having lots of fun re-discovering all our music and listening to lots of things we haven’t heard in ages.
Thank goodness for Andrew’s help through all the CD ripping.  He got very good at swapping out CDs, and he’d call out to tell me what track number they were on and how many tracks it had to go.  It was a good math experince for the little guy:)
Oh, by the way, Andrew is in love with the iPhone.  He plays with Terry’s all the time, and he’s been having fun with Melanie’s too.  It’s so funny to watch him quickly navigate his way through the screens.  The boy knows what he’s doing.  But one must keep an eye on him to ensure that he doesn’t unintentionally make a purchase!

Oct. 24: Bryan and Melanie just drove off to pick up Ben from the airport.  Melanie has been here since Wednesday, and we’re having a great time!  Andrew’s been stuck to her like glue.  “Doting in idolatry,” as Shakespeare might say.  The little guy had a wonderful couple of days at preschool, and then he and Mel did a lot of jumping game, book reading, football running in the back yard, puzzles, dancing with scarves, more jumping game, being koalas or foxes or bison or sloths, etc.  It’s fun to see Andrew enjoy his aunt so much:)
Ben and Melanie are here together now until Monday, so we still have a couple full days to spend together.  We’re hoping to do an apple orchard outing.  Mel, Andrew, and I stopped by a farm stand a couple days back and got five pumpkins, decorative gourds, and (I’m excited about these) a couple big sheaves of corn stalks to make our front entry seasonally festive.  With a strand of orange lights, we’re ready for Halloween!