Fall Is Here

We had a decent wind today that blew a fair amount of leaves on the grass this afternoon.  The kids spent alot of time trying to scoop and shovel.  I finally pulled out the leaf blower and wala, a ginormous leaf pile.

More Camera Fun

A couple weeks ago, one of my friends brought her camera equipment to playgroup so we could see how portrait taking works.  It inspired me, so we finally bought a flash for our camera.  I have some other portrait type equipment still coming, but even with just the flash I've taken some pretty decent pictures.  Once I get some that I'm really happy with I'll share the full size files.   I don't have any good ones of Loofa yet because, quite frankly, that boy needs a hair cut.  Ephant and Brother B had school portraits on Thursday so I took theirs in the morning. They can potentially serve as backups since the school ones always turn out terrible.  Fefe is a little tired of posing as you can tell.

When They Say Plumper, They Mean It!

Last Wednesday we visited our new favorite pumpkin patch.  I can't say it is better than Lakeview, but there are definitely better aspects to it (for example, the clean and dry pumpkins).  

Picture taking works out better when the sun isn't shining right in your face:

One of the many tube slides at the farm:

Loofa's favorite part.  You have to pump pretty vigorously to get the water flowing.  Loofa could have done this for half an hour and with the same expression on his face the whole time.  I couldn't find him at one point when we had moved on and finally found him back here:

Fefe discovered animals finally and was very happy to shriek at each and every one of them:

Loofa has become very sensitive to smells lately, but I don't blame him here:

Look mom, there is an animal pooping, who would have thought?:

Our new favorite torture device:

The many varied poses, my favorite, man with arms sticking out of his head:

We'll be carving our 30, 35 and 10 pound pumpkins this Monday, so stay tuned.

Jam Session

Brother B has been quite fascinated with J's string instruments the last few months.  J finally pulled out his electric guitar and amp last week while Brother B and Loofa played their raquets. Maybe we'll have a few strummers in the family.  The poor kids won't get much innate musical talent from me, but their dad's genes sure are jam-packed.

Lesser Known Milestones

Fefe has successfully navigated into the "open up and dump it everywhere" stage.  Somedays I just follow her around the house from mess to mess.  The funniest is when she sits there looking away from the object of attention and just blindly dumps stuff out.  I'm sure it is part boredom and part exploration. On the legit milestone front she is still NOT walking.  We managed to get her to take a few steps again the other day, but it is not sticking.  Since then she just gets mad at us when we try to make her walk even holding our hands.  I guess she'll do it when she wants.  She is talking earlier than the other kids so I guess that makes up for it.  It is such a change from Ephant and Brother B because they were both so speedy in all their physical milestones.  I guess that helps to make each one of them unique.

Dreams

It is no wonder wild animals fill my dreams when we have dead possums in our yard and raccoons eating our cat food.

Go Maroon 5!

Soccer season is finally over!  Ephant never wants to do it again and Brother B can't wait to do it again next year.  We succeeded in getting pictures of Brother B and video of Ephant so you'll just have to settle for this classic action photo of B.  I wish I had Ephant play soccer last year in the lower key age group, but I wasn't about to attempt that with a newborn.  Now it is time to move on to gymnastics and swimming lessons.

Creativity or.....

It is a constant battle for me to not get frustrated when the kids make messes.  Ephant really pushed the limit the other day and yet it was pretty hilarious at the same time.  She had three crackers and decided she wanted a cracker sandwich.  So she crushed up one cracker and used it as the filling between the other two.  I told her I wasn't too happy about the big mess she made in the process, but she did enjoy her cracker sandwich.

The Long Awaited Deck

I was going to let J post this, but he's been so busy I finally decided to take care of it.  Hopefully he'll like my choice of pictures.  He has been wanting a deck pretty much since we moved into this house. Now that we have it, our big outdoor work is pretty much done.  My last goal is to grow a green thumb and keep the plants I buy from dying.  My lilac bush is looking very sick and I don't know what is wrong.  It really is hit or miss when you are a lazy gardener like me.

From beginning to end:

Life

Two weekends ago we had out annual family/friend camping trip.  Sadly I forgot my camera so no photos.  Our summer disappeared too quickly, hence the late September time. The weather was great though.  It was a tad cool at night, but thanks to a good friend, Fefe (or the Stay Puft Marshmellow baby) was nice and warm.  Her hands did get a little cool, but such is life when the thumb needs to stay available for thumb sucking.  Ephant and Brother B had a great time finding and playing with the caterpillars all over the place.  Fefe didn't sleep that great, but I guess that is to be expected when camping.  When we drove home she fell asleep within about 30 seconds of getting in the car.  I decided it would best to wait to do that till we got home.

Last week I took my last zoloft and have been going through lovely withdrawal (although for some reason they prefer to call it discontinuation syndrome).  Since I had a cold last week I felt like I had the flu with the two combined together.  I'm feeling better now, although still a tad dizzy.  I had to take a nap a couple days in a row and Loofa decided to up the ante in badness.  The first day wasn't so bad, he just got into my purse and ate half of my chocolate bar in there.  The second day he pulled the smart card out of the dish network receiver.  I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out why it wasn't working.  He also pulled down the coat rack, screws and all, trying to get into my purse.  That smile is his "I know I'm in trouble, but I know I'm cute" smile.

Conference weekend went really well for us.  I received a conference packet from my mom and a friend that was fabulous.  Ephant and Brother B got more out of it then they ever have before.  We'll definitely have to do that again next time.  They were a little hyper by the time Sunday afternoon hit, but that is what comes with a two day house confinement.  

While the kids were bored they decided it was tent building time and put together a tent with the plasma tv box.  Ephant asked if they could sleep downstairs in their creation.  We decided to let them do it, although the chances of them ending up in their own beds before the night was through was about 100%.  Loofa had to sleep in the teepee since the box tent wasn't big enough.  He surprised us all by still being there in the morning.  I remember loving sleeping in other rooms as a kid.

On another vein, if you are ever tempted to watch "There Will Be Blood", DON'T DO IT!  I think that one has made my personal top ten worst movies ever made list.  How it was nominated for an acadamy award is hard to fathom.

It's Gratuitous

But who doesn't love sunglasses on a baby.  I, of course, had to hold her arms down for the picture.

Sunday Walk

One of our favorite places to go on a Sunday walk is the retirement home waterfall:

Wish I Could Sleep During Church

Mormon Culture Strikes Again

J finally gave in to the constant and rabid comments about his hair. I feel bad for him because he was really enjoying it.  Doesn't he look sad :(