A decade

A decade ago, November 22 fell on Thanksgiving Day. After much drama and delay, Caleb was born. I missed the Thanksgiving feast for this bundle of joy:
He truly spent most of the first 6 months of his life looking like this. (I have tons more where these came from!)But, he was also often known to look like this:So, that made up for the crying, and yelling, and wailing, and screaming. Really. It did. Since his birthday is so close to Thanksgiving, this year we decided to have his birthday party this past Saturday. We went to a local place, Shankz. The kids played blacklight mini golf. It's a good thing we planned an indoor activity since it snowed that morning, and rained for the rest of the day. Caleb requested a Harry Potter cake, so I did my best.

He loved his presents, and even got to put his hand print on the wall of the party room. Happy Birthday to our wonderful boy!

Halloween

In years past, there has been no dressing up of any kind for Halloween in the school. However, this year they cleverly allowed it disguised as Storybook Character dress up day. So, Caleb decided to dress up as Harry Potter.
Abby was a beautiful, (and modest) Jasmine.
Here is Caleb and his friend Zane as Harry and Ron Weasley. A duo to be reckoned with, to be sure.
And these are our pumpkins. Caleb really stuck to the HP theme. Abby expressed her love of cats, and I am responsible for the goovy pumpkin. Also, I think it odd that on Nov. 1 (when I took this picture), I have dahlia's blooming. Beautiful, just a bit out of season.

Random catch up

In September, for a friend's birthday party, we went here:(Great Wolf Lodge)

I was trying to be cool (my first mistake), jammed my toe on a kiddie slide (within the first 5 minutes of arriving), and did this:What you may or may not be able to see is a chip above the second joint of my second toe. Yes, it hurts. No, it will never fully heal. Yes, it is still purple and swollen. No, I never want to go back to Great Wolf Lodge.
A few weeks later, Dave came home from work with this beauty he found on the floor of his shop:Now that I have taken a picture of it, and documented its' place in our family history, I can finally get it off of the kitchen counter, and throw it away.

Annual Autumnal Activity

Today we had perfect weather for one of our favorite fall activities...going to one of the local pumpkin patchs. This year we went to Lattin Cider Mill. Abby walked to the far side of the field to find her perfect pumpkin.
Caleb's approach was less physical and more intellectual.
Of course Abby spent as much time as possible with all the "cute goats."
We saw lots of these...

And one of these:
I'd never seen an albino peacock before. Well, not counting Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2.


We filled our bellies with hot apple cider, and fresh apple fritters. Fun was had by all.

First Day of School - Part 2

Caleb's excitement yesterday for school starting was put to shame by his younger sister. Abby reminded me of Nemo - "first day of school, first day of school". She literally jumped out of bed and didn't slow down until we got to the school. Am I the only one who loves little kids with huge backpacks?

At our school, half the kindergarteners went yesterday, and Abby is part of the group whose first day is today. Here she is with her friend Lexi. Hopefully their friendship survives them being in the same class this year!
I can't believe both kids are now in school. I'm glad that they both enjoy it so much.

First Day of School - Part 1

Caleb was so excited to start school today. (can't you tell?) It was all I could do to make him wait for his friend Zane to start walking to school! He has a teacher who is new to the school this year, and a couple of kids who are also new to the school. It should be a great year.

(Un)Labor Day

We spent the Labor Day holiday doing nothing laborious. We drove to a park we have never been to before - Burfoot Park - and hiked down to the beach.

There we found a couple of pirates fighting valiantly on a sinking ship.

It is on days like today, and walks with this view, that make me truly love where we live.