"What a wonderful World"

The weather has been great and we have taken full advantage of it. Kite flying, wood cutting, swinging and playing on the slide has been the order of the day lately. We took lunch to the Botanical Gardens and let the kids roam. They love all of the little places to run, crawl, and hide. They have some great climbing trees and even a creek to play in. Winters coming but we are enjoying it while we can.

Reasons to be Grateful

While avoiding household chores or pretending to be quiet for a slumbering babe or some other lame excuse I have been looking at other blogs and noticed a large amount of grateful posts. It is so easy to get caught up in hostile moments of sleep deprivation and forget just how really great we have it, so here goes:

1. A wonderful husband who likes to rub my feet at the end of a long day and who works hard to take care of the family we have built.
2. A three year old who makes me cry with laughter doing the Hotdog dance, there needs to be video footage!
3. Grateful to be the mama to this sweet spaghetti eater.

4. To have parents that are here to celebrate all of life's little moments and are only ever a phone call away.
5. Friends, those that are next-door, across town, in-state, in country and over the great blue sea. I can't imagine life without your encouragement, laughter, and openness.
6. The most magnificent fall weather I can ever remember.
7. Chocolate
8. A gray muzzled dog that is always happy to just "be" with me.
9. A big beautiful home in a quiet neighborhood.
10. A job with teenagers.

Lawn Inspector?

So Jade loves to help me mow the lawn, when I fire the mower up, she wants to be right there. Sometimes she wants me to carry her, sometimes she just likes to watch, and sometimes she wants to climb on-top. But yesterday she acted like she was inspecting my work. When I stopped she would walk around in the cut grass and give me a look that said " I think you can do better Dad".


I thought her outfit was hilarious, she had the supervisor look down.

She takes her job pretty seriously. She even took off her glasses for a better look.

Welcome to the Jungle

A request for Jess! Today we put on our costumes and headed out to the yard. My little animals enjoyed the sunshine and got a giggle out of having their costumes on outside. This first set is of the shortest giraffe on the planet. She managed to climb ladders, slide and swing, not bad for her first day. I realize not all of these are great shots of her but I wanted a few that really showed off the costume.








Swinging is popular with tigers. So are the GVEA guys who came through with all their trucks and equipment - tree destroyers!! I am still a little depressed over the destruction of 17 trees on the back of our property.


Here we go with the begging and pleading section of the photo shoot.




Slater took this and I love the way it shows the light at this time of the day. The weather for the last week could not have been any more beautiful.

Fabulous Fall Days

The glorious days of fall are upon us! The last week has been filled with weather that just calls us to the outdoors. The air is crisp, the leaves have turned (and started to fall) and the woods smell of berries waiting to be picked. Perfect day for a hike at Birch Hill with my two favorite companions. Even though I took the Chariot along, both kids choose to walk most of the trail.


Now that he has his tiger / Tigger costume he likes to practices fierce growls wherever we go.


Her sweet little blond head! She walked almost a mile today and scattered Nilla Wafers far and wide.


Two in a hole? This is way more impressive than a hole in one :) Frisbee golf takes on all new meaning for these future caddies.


Wish I knew how to use my camera better - it was gorgeous!

Halloween already?

Slater has developed a love of shopping! Where did he get this from? It certainly wasn't his mama, but I loved it today.

When you are an August baby the first two Halloween's pass uneventfully. Mom and Dad get to pick your costumes and treat you like a little doll. But the third one comprehension is dawning and the fourth is all about Y.O.U.

A catalog called Wishcraft arrived in the mail about a week ago. Cute baby and kid clothes? Sign me up, I love to look at magazines and tell myself how much cuter my children are then the kids that they have - and yes they are cuter than those kids, but if I ever tried to dress them up and take photos they would turn rabid and crumble into sad little puddles. Oh well, guess I will have to figure out another get rich scheme.

Hmmmm, rambling but getting to the point soon.

This catalog was full of adorable Halloween outfits, beautiful Renaissance dresses, knights, fireman, piggies, lambs, bunnies, fairies, and Star Wars costumes. Well that was the end of my catalog viewing. Slater took one look at the Storm Troopers and commandeered the whole thing for himself. It was placed in the Star Wars box, hauled around the yard, examined every time that he stopped moving and then slept with that night and for several nights to come. And since I am a total spoiler I have ordered him a Storm Trooper Cody for Halloween (going back to work has to have a few perks).

So this seems like the conclusion to me and my little shopaholics story? But no, Jade still needed a costume. At 13.5 months she seemed totally uninterested (yeah I get to pick another costume!!). So I decided to take the newest shopper in the family and go to Old Navy. Slater thought it was fantastic, his favorite was the tiger, but he tried on at least four others and had to check out his reflection after each change. Sales associates stopped to admire and giggle, other small children were forced to join in the fun - "Hi there kid!" After a shark, bumblebee, dragon, and giraffe it was concluded that both he and Jade needed a tiger costume.

Why didn't I have a camera?

Again with the spoiler - I bought it big, he'll wear it for play, Jade can wear it when she is older - yadda, yadda, yadda. He now has two Halloween costumes and is currently the cutest, quietest sleeping tiger ever!

And to top it all off I was so distracted by all the fun we were having that I bought the wrong size for Jade and had to run back to the store - where I promptly traded it for the giraffe. Seriously this is probably the last time the costume will be my choice, so that makes it OK, right?

Pre-school = Slater is getting B.I.G.

Have three years really gone by so fast?

Slater started pre-school today. This month they will cover a Fireflies curriculum that includes: ABC, 123, the color red, intro to shapes, and animals of the forest. We get a monthly and weekly newsletter with suggestions on how to reinforce concepts at home and a list of books that will go well with the ideas. He is excited to go to the library and pick up a few new books.

He brought home his first coloring activity today, a house with all of the shapes included and he could point out all of them correctly (except the square and circle which he called the house and tree - which they were). Coloring has never been an activity that he liked to do much, but he does it with the other kids and is even getting to the point where he is coloring specific things instead of just scribbling on the whole page.

Looking forward to watching his progress.