Whispered: “Ring the doorbell.”

Not whispered: “WHAT?!”

Spoken: “RING the doorbell.”

Ding-Dong.

“Hi. You two are cute! Great costumes. What do you say?”

Silence… Hmmm. “Thank you?”

“No, before that.”

“Hi?”

“No, after that.”

Whispered: “Trick or Treat?”

Considering how much they love candy, these kids seem to have a very hard time grasping the basic rules required to get lots of it for free.

Eventually, though, they remembered the fundamentals and Ariel and the photo-journalist came home with very stuffed treat-bags.

It was a great night. Cold, as Halloween should be, but not freezing. The street one block away was packed with dozens of kids by the time we got there. It felt like the ‘old days.’ We quickly hit the homes on that street and headed back to our cul-de-sac where it was silent. We are just far enough off the beaten path that folks don’t make it up here. At least we have enough leftover candy that we won’t have to steal too much from the kids.

The shots below are the 2007 Russell Pumpkins. Not the scariest choices in the world, but just plain cute and appropriate for our kids. A princess and her horse. A boy and his dog.

Keep in mind… Hayden is a kid who never even bothered to color in the lines, so when I walked in the door after work and was presented by his latest creation I’ll admit my first thought was, “Who really did that?” My second was “If you did it, who helped you?” I soon learned that the answer to question one was “Yes.” Number Two: “No one.”

Who knew we had a budding artist in the family? With the fascination with photography easing a little for the time being, he’s flexing the right side of his brain with brushes and oils (well… temperas). He spent the evening painting more and even taught Gillian a few tricks. Here are a few of their masterpieces.

Later at bedtime, we realized he painted the carpet in about 7 places as well… what can you do? I’m sure Van Gogh’s studio was a mess as well.

(Remember double click on foto to open more)

Columbus sailed the ocean wide and blue and came to America in 1492.

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“Happy October 11th”

What a pleasant and welcome surprise. I just love surprises, it isn’t very often that they come by currier, in a box with a sweet card. I am so blessed to have such a sweet and wonderful husband. A lovely bouquet of delicate lillies have a special spot upon our dining table, where they radiate warm with their fall colors and sweet scent. ~ Thank you, honey! ~

I don’t know who was more excited, my baby girl or me! Gilli and her best friend, A had their first Pre-Ballet class several weeks ago. The first day, the girls were so excited that they had to get their ballet clothes on three hours before class. Of course I let them get dressed so I could get some pictures of them in their tights,leotards and ballet slippers. They were just adorable, and as I remember my first lesson was about at this same age many, many moons ago.

I have to admit, I was a very proud momma, and even a wee bit envious. My little girl looks like a ballerina, much more than I did. I hope G loves it and sticks with it for a bit. She seems to really be having fun and looks forward to class each week. It really helps that her best friend is in class with her. They are just so cute! Am I living through my daughter? Maybe so….but at this point, how harmful is that? Both girls will be in their first performance, the Nutcracker, this holiday season! How fun is that?

I am so glad that we have dear friends to be sharing this experience with. Stay tuned for more on Ballet Slippers.

There is so much to appreciate about each Season, isn’t there?

Just as it seems that each stage of my children’s life is my favorite, I find myself declaring each season my favorite as well. However, each year I seem for forget how much I really do love Fall in our beautiful state. What is your favorite Season? Why?

Just a few things I love about Fall:

~Cooler temperatures
~Jackets
~Cuddling under the blankets
~Sneaking a few extra minutes of sleep because it is so cozy
~Hot Cider
~Browns, greens, oranges, reds, yellows (trees, clothes, food)
~Harvest
~Pumpkins, pumpkin spice lattes
~Apples
~Harvest loaf
~Soups, stews, chili
~Happy Apple Farm
~Hay rides
~Jumping in leaves
~Walks in the park and hearing the leaves crunch under our feet
~Long drives in the mountains to see the Aspens changing

It is often funny what tunes, jingles or phrases catch the ear of a child.

Recently, Hayden was watching “Unwrapped” (one of our favorite shows) and a catchy commercial was aired for Planters Peanuts. Hayden loved it so much, he recorded it on his camera so he could download it and listen to it. You can only imagine how tickled he was when he found out that his Dad had downloaded the full-length version of this song, just for him!

It was no longer a 90 second snippet!!!

HURRAY!!!??!!! For us all….have you ever tried listening to a 90 second something, over and over and over and….well you get the picture!

Many a night since has been spent having fun singing and dancing to this tune on our Karaoke Family night! Want to go NUTS with us?

**Side effect Warning** Mr. Planter did influence our children to actually try peanuts and like them!

Four years ago, on birthday 36, it really hit home how young my dad was when he died at 36, in 1972. Yesterday, it really hit home how young I was in 1972.

My son and I have done a lot together. We’ve fished and camped and ridden bikes. We’ve gone to hockey games and baseball games. We’ve played catch and shot photographs. We’ve washed cars and shot water guns. We’ve stayed up until midnight together a couple of times and we’ve eaten gallon-sized root beer floats. Once, I even had to talk to him about how hard and unfair certain parts of Kindergarden can be.

However…

We haven’t caught many fish or camped that often or ridden very far. We haven’t discussed power play percentages or the infield-fly rule. We don’t throw hard and we’ve only… okay, we’ve shot a million photos. He can’t drive the car he washes and he still doesn’t know to grab the hose and ‘escalate’ when the waterfight gets good. He’s never been out until midnight while mom and dad worry. There is certainly always room for a little more root beer and I haven’t talked to him about how hard and unfair certain parts of life can be.
I don’t feel like I really knew my dad at all and at the same time I feel like Hayden knows me very well. Who knows the mind of a Kindergardener, though… then or now. Just to be safe, I pray it’s God’s will that I’m around a lot longer.

Q4282

As a kid I remember thinking “mom is about 42″… “Grandma is about 82.” As I think about it now, Mom was probably about 40 and Grandma 70 or so… oh well, it worked for me at the time so I tucked it away in my mind. Q4282.

So yesterday we drove in to a spot that looked familiar. I parked, hopped out and walked about a hundred feet and found Q4282 on the back of the stone. I’ve forgotten things today that I tried to memorize a week ago and I’ll forget things next week that I know today, but that number is firmly tattooed in my brain.

The cemetery was huge the last time I was there (10? years ago) and it has grown dramatically since then, stretching as far North, South and West as it can. In the future I guess it will just continue to creep East toward Denver. We only saw one other car while we were there and it was very different feeling than the times I’ve been there on Memorial Day. There weren’t thousands of US flags or bouquets. Just beautiful fall colors and awesome silence.

It was a quick, unplanned visit and my little girl was asleep in the car after a long day. So in a way that seems oddly appropriate, the only child who saw my father’s grave site today was my little boy, who is a few months into Kindergarden, as I was in 1972.

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Good minds think alike! You can tell we are family, we all think along the same lines and it can be so much fun.

Kip asked Gillian to be his breakfast date for this morning and I asked Hayden out as well. Gillian asked to go for pancakes at Mimi’s and Hayden requested Einstein Bagels. We each went our ways and had a great morning of quality time with our kids. It is so nice to have one-on-one time with them to hear about the things that are on their minds. I got to chat with Hays about school and later we went to Circuit City to check out more camera’s. Gigi and Dadda went and looked at Barbies and movies, then we all met back home to share our morning.

It is such a blessing and I pray that the kids will always cherish that time with us like they do now. (Photo’s forthcoming)

Fall break is already upon is, it seems like they just started school.

First day of fall break, I was sitting at the kitchen table enjoying the morning breeze and colorful trees when out of the blue Hayden asked me if I could get his bike helmet for him. You see, he had already gotten his bike (that is too small already) out of the garage. I am sure many of you have been in our shoes, but I am always taken a back with this eldest child of mine. We have never been able to get him to do anything before he is ready. But, when he is ready he tackles it with such determination. We rarely second guess his interest level on certain milestones as we know they will come when he is good and ready.

Riding a bike was not any different. Since he was three we have tried on and off to spark his interest in riding to no avail. Fearful that little sister would ride before him, even to the point of not pushing her, we figured it was just going to be a fact of life. But, something happened this summer, he discovered his balance while enjoying his Razor scooter. We occasionally would have him test bikes for size at various places (not willing to commit yet to another bike that would not be ridden) But, one day he rode a bike in one of the stores. He actually liked it but we were not impressed with the selection this store had. So once again we put it off….

Back to today…we got geared up and went out back in the grass first and practiced balance which suddenly seemed to come naturally. He was riding, solo…my boy! One of the most amazing comments he made was “Mom, I was thinking…If I can ride a bike in the store…I can ride it here too” D-E-T-E-R-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N is a beautiful thing when you see it in your children.

By the time daddy went back to work, after lunch, Hayden was riding laps on our backyard path. I know his heart is skipping with joy, but I have to say, Mom and Dad are pretty excited too. Way to go big guy!! Congrats!!!