Disney On Ice II

Christmas came a little early this year. My dad felt that rather than giving us "stuff" he wanted to share an experience with us (thank you!!), so he took everyone (minus Shane & Dallas) to Disney on Ice. What a nice gift! Everyone had a good time, and we don't have to find a place to store it -- other than in our memories.



The whole gang posed for a picture afterwards.


And then we were treated to lunch at Chuck-A-Rama to celebrate Harold's first birthday. Apparently we took advantage of the all-you-can-eat because nobody (in my family) ever got hungry for dinner. So, we really got two meals out of it! Happy birthday little Harold!

Mission Accomplished

I set a goal to read this book a year and a half ago (April 2010). I bought the book, but this 1200 page (plus a couple hundred extra pages of notes) was a bit daunting at first so I thought maybe I'd just wait and call it my summer reading project. Yes, I could read it over the summer. Plenty of down time, sitting by the pool. That would be perfect. Only perfection was not achieved. It wasn't even attempted! I can't remember why or what excuse I had to offer, but I didn't even get one page read the whole summer. Well, maybe I read the table of contents or introduction, but no actual novel. So, once again I attempted the same goal this year. It would be my summer project! I even gave up my book club in May so that I could devote more time to reading all the books I had piling up on my shelf. I started May off with something else -- I needed something easy to get me going. I think I actually read two easy books to jump start things... and by that point swimming lessons were just about over. Too bad we signed up for the early sessions this year! I started Les Miserables about two days before the end of swimming. That was a good start, but there went my dreams of reading by the pool. The book was so overwhelming, and I still had SO many other books I wanted to read, that I decided to break it up. Les Miserables is written in 5 books, so after I finished each book I could read something else and then come back to it. That worked. I was making good progress on my original goal, plus I was still getting some other books crossed off. And early morning of November 1st I finished my book! I even went back to book club in October, and I've already finished another book in the nine days it took me to get this post written.

Hall-O-Ween

Halloween was pretty slick this year. We kind of know the drill by now. The kids started getting their costumes on around noon. Brandon came home from work, and we ate his special birthday dinner. We usually kick the season off with egg nog on his birthday, and I was excited when I found Silk makes a soy egg nog. It was pretty good! Then the girls wanted to dress Brandon and I up. They weren't willing to let us off the hook this year. I told them I just wanted to be warm, so whatever they made me I was going to wear my coat over it. Sophie said, "Your coat looks like a caterpillar!" So, that's what I was. They made me some antennae out of pipe cleaners and pom poms, and Chloe did some face painting on me. Brandon got to be a cowboy, so she painted a mustache on him. Then we left to go trick-or-treating. I made them decide on a route ahead of time so we didn't spend all night back-tracking to catch houses they really wanted to get to. It ended up helping us get done a lot sooner. We were home just after 8:00, and we couldn't have asked for better weather.


This morning we went and sold their candy to the orthodontist. And we've already made a commitment that next year I get my barn dance! I'm sure I'll be reminding them of it all year long, but it's written down here as proof that we're doing it.

I was going to spare you my Halloween lecture this year, but I came across this beautifully written blog post that really expresses a lot of my feelings. I thought I'd share it with those interested in further exploration. Other people can always put things better than I can, and this way I don't have to feel like I'm the one doing the preaching :) *note to Jason, if you're reading this: this was written by the wife of your amazing plumber!