Leaves

My boy had fun raking leaves the weekend after Thanksgiving. He helped his Papa Ford rake them from around the whole front yard.


They made a really big pile.

I enjoyed seeing them work together to clean up the yard. Owen thought it was fun.

Can you see my boy in this pile of leaves? Look closely and you may see a shoe underneath these upwardly scattering leaves.

And there he slides, right out the other side.

Dinner at Miyoshi

After we got home from our cruise, I wasn't ready to start cooking again yet. So we went out to Miyoshi instead. It helped having a nice chunk taken care of by a gift certificate I bought online at www.restaurant.com for a fraction of the gift cert value. Yay for restaurant.com and their awesome sales!

Chloe likes their soup, but makes me eat the mushrooms first.

Chloe is also not fond of the fire. She must sit in Grandma's lap to protect herself. And plug her ears. :)

I LOVE this picture. One of my all-time favorites. Thinking I need to get this printed/framed for Chloe's room. :)

Owen was impressed with the magic tricks of our chef.

He thinks magic tricks are some of the coolest things ever and wants to see the tricks over and over. And over.

My Bean. My little artist. Coloring sweetly.

She decided she didn't like the company at the dinner table so much and descended to a horizontal position.

She decided to show a little more attitude when she realized my camera was in my lap. Can you see what face she is making?

Not as blurry here, just a bit dark.

Here we go.

Full on attitude.

In focus.

Not too dark.

And no flash.

I love my new lens.

Now I can capture moments like this under restaurant tables.

Halloween 2009

Jackolanterns carved the afternoon of Halloween. Nothing like the last minute to get things done.

These were the dozen plus snails removed from the pumpkins when they were brought inside for carving. Who knew pumpkins were snail magnets?

This was the Halloween party at our clubhouse on Friday night. Both Owen and his friend Nate were Darth Vader. This was also the first time Owen had been out of the house in three days since he had strep throat that week. He was happy to see his friends and play!

And Halloween night. Before it started raining. That is Preston playing Yoda.

Nate is in the middle and Owen is on the right.

The rain was supposed to be gone for the evening, but it started back (after one very long, rainy week) about five houses into Trick or Treating. So we headed back home and the kids hit maybe ten houses total before going inside to count their candy and ask why other kids were still out Trick or Treating. But with Chloe having finished her antibiotics for strep throat the day that Owen got strep throat, we weren't about to take any chances of getting sick(er) kids from the cold and rain.

They still got plenty of candy. The next day, we played Trick or Treat upstairs. Todd sat in Owen's bedroom with a bucket of candy while I sat in Chloe's room with another bucket. The kids took turns knocking on the doors so we could tell them "Happy Halloween" and put more candy in their bags. I think that was more fun for them than going door-to-door on Halloween.

Chloe's Halloween Parade

Chloe's class dressed up in their Halloween costumes today.

Pushing her way into her classroom this morning :)

They held a little Halloween parade at 9am and marched circles around the parking lot for us.

She makes a pretty cute little witch, no?

There are fiber-optic lights in the skirt, but hard to see them light up when she's not cloaked in darkness. A black broom with silver/tinsel sweepers is hanging in her closet, waiting for her to take trick or treating tomorrow night....if it's not raining too hard.

She got tired of wearing her hat and handed it over to me to hold because it kept falling off when she was running.

Have a Happy & Safe Halloween!

Apples & Biking Go Hand in Hand

Look, the child can bike one handed!

So carefully riding and watching over her precious cargo.

"Look Mommy, It's the cutest little apple in the world that I have ever seen!"

I think she's the cutest little thing in the whole world that I've ever seen :)

Kids Need Reading Glasses?

I had my camera upstairs the other night to take pics of Chloe's braids, but ended up catching the kids wearing Todd's reading glasses instead.

They both wanted to act silly while I took their pictures.

Trip to the Optometrist

Owen hung out patiently in the waiting room, flipping through an activity book and filling out the answers. Bean was relegated to the floor by my feet after not listening about keeping shoes off furniture and out of the way of other patients.

Owen did well holding the pirate patch in front of one eye at a time to read the letters as they progressively got smaller.

Chloe thought it was fun, too. Like her crimped hair? She went to sleep with wet braids in her hair the night before.

Doesn't she look small in this chair?

What is a visit to the optometrist without a dinosaur to celebrate?

So glad that Owen has fun at doctors' offices and can be relaxed!

He did well answering the questions....what looks better? A or B? 2 or 3?

Chloe made sure Dr. Dickinson knew she did NOT want eye drops on this visit. It was still fresh in her mind that Mommy had eye drops to have her eyes dilated several days earlier and couldn't see for squat without the stylish wraparound sunglasses.

Chloe did better at holding still and looking through these 'binoculars' to read the letters. Owen was more interested in sticking his hands around to spin the dials and poke his fingers into the eye holes. :)

After the exams were complete, Dr. Dickinson allowed each kid one turn of raising and lowering the other kid in the chair. They enjoyed that.

Owen has a slight astigmatism in one eye, but will likely see that disappear as he matures. Both kids had 20/20 vision. So hopeful they both keep that and don't inherit my wretched vision.

Owen's Report Card

Ok, so general conduct needs improvement. But he's normally the first to finish his schoolwork and is bored, so he gets in trouble for playing around or talking. Hard to be too upset when he's kicking out top grades on reading, writing, spelling and math.

We Love IKEA

The kids had fun playing in Smaland for a little while, then we checked them out to have lunch upstairs inside IKEA. Owen had a stomach ache, so Todd took him out to the car to chill while Chloe and Luke had fun in the cart. Martin just tried to take in the immensity of IKEA while I pulled out picture frames and organizational buckets galore to take home.