Halloween Pre-Funk

We got together for our yearly pumpkin carving, dinner, kids run around with glowsticks and costume party. Brian and Ben scooping the pumpkins out for us....

More scooping...

Cute cousins.

Scary cousins.

Sam wore this monkey the last 2 years... now B gets a turn.

This is the first year Sam has been into the carving. The original plan was to have spooky pumpkins. Sam wanted all of the pumpkins to be "happy and laughing"... This little one grew in his garden.

The big kids informed us tonight that when they are lit up the are called jack-o-lanterns. They reminded us of this over, and over and over...

Big Mac

Mac had his follow up appointment today with the surgeon. It turns out he has a blown ACL in his knee. During the exam they also found what they believe to be cancer on his elbow joint. Just gets better and better doesn't it! They could do both surgeries together for the small price of $5000... (that is not a typo). We could choose not to fix the knee although he would eventually develop painful arthritis. If we opt for the surgery there is a 50% chance that his other knee could go out. He is only 7 yrs old which makes it such a hard decision. So not a very uplifting visit with the vet. As you can see Mac looks a little bummed about the whole situation.

Enjoy it while we still can...

The kids have been feeling a little cooped up...can ya tell?

So we decided to head outside for a while. It has been CHILLY here in Portland this week – in the 30s overnight... But not too cold to play outside. The kids had fun watching airplanes, running, jumping, sliding, spraying the hose, riding bikes and just being boys.

Did I tell you how much I LOVE my neighbor's tree this time of year?

Happy Birthday to you!

Today Grandma Mary celebrates her 79th birthday!

She is an amazing woman. When I was little, my grandpa once told me that she would do anything for one of her kids or grandkids... He was right. She is also a fun, stylish and hip lady who travels, exercises and has a busy social calendar! We love you Grams and hope you have a wonderful day. You deserve it! xoxo

Annual Outing

We headed out to Baggenstos Farm this morning with the Adams/Whitings for our annual pumpkin patch outing.

Ben is feeling so much better today. Lots of energy, smiles and giggles.

Cockadoodle Doo

Sam found a great pumpkin this year. He usually goes for the green, flat, no-stemmed pumpkins. This year he went for big, round and ripe!

We didn't plan to be green. :-)

Sam and Lizzie discovered pumpkin bowling with Papa.

Everyone came over for lunch before Aunt Susie and Uncle Dennis had to hit the road!

A Crazy Day

Ben woke up this morning with a fever and throwing up - lovely! Poor guy was miserable... just wanted to be held and snuggled.

Here is Sam trying to figure out how to take his temperature too.

We had a special treat this weekend - Aunt Susie and Uncle Dennis drove over from Bend for a visit. We had dinner over at Ellen's tonight to hang out and celebrate her birthday a few days late. The kids LOVE Aunt Susie - they played school and taught her all kinds of new songs, dances etc.

Blowing out candles on the very "orange" cake...

Ian loved the frosting...
Miss Lizzie - always playing dress-up...
Here is Colin. This has something to do with his role in The Signing Christmas Tree... Not sure how this started tonight but we all got a good laugh. Sam busted out with some new dance moves tonight that we didn't know he had! He performed this over and over - Enjoy!

Goodnight! xoxo

All things Ben...

Ben had a busy day today. Sam has preschool on MWF mornings...which leaves Ben trying to find things to occupy his time. No big brother to follow around...

We dropped Sam off at school today and headed to the rec center for Ben's kindergym class. The parking lot was empty (never happens) and I knew something was up. Turns out all classes were canceled today - Grrrr. We had fun playing at the park instead.
I'm looking for trouble... Weee! Ben loves the trampoline and "being a monkey" as he calls this move.

I was making lunch so he pulled the blender out and started filling it with treasures.

This kid loves water. He fills and dumps cups, spoons, bowls etc. When that gets boring he dumps the water onto himself! Brian let him play here tonight and didn't realize he was wearing socks. Ben thought it was rather amusing. Feeling guilty about wasting water, I ran the dishwasher on quick wash tonight...and will again tomorrow. :-)

Here is my little burrito after bathtime tonight. Sam preferred being a taco. Off to bed!

Big Yellow Dog and A Professor

Mac had a visit with our vet this week. He has been limping around and having a hard time getting up and down. We thought his hip was giving him trouble but it looks like he has a knee injury. We were referred to a surgeon to have further tests and exams...depending on the problem and the type of surgery, treatment will likely be $3000-4000. What?! Our vet is pretty conservative and says it is a hard decision to make as he is only 7 yrs old. Some dogs do ok with anti-inflammatories, exercise and TLC. We will meet with the specialist and see what they say. He is our first baby...

Professor Update... Last week Brian was part of a panel at Univ. of Portland discussing the US financial situation. The discussion lasted about an hour and is now available on iTunes U. If you are interested in hearing about credit markets, leverage, commercial paper, reserves, derivatives, bonds and a bunch of other financial hullabaloo... check it out here.

If you don't have iTunes installed, this will direct you to download the page. Under the Academics section, click 2008 Financial Crisis. Brian's part of the presentation starts about 13 minutes in. The whole thing ends with a question/answer session. Enjoy.

Siestas

OK so I have this thing about sleeping kiddos. They are so darn sweet. I am feeling pretty lucky my boys do this every afternoon at the same time.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Field Trip

Sam's preschool class took a trip to the Pumpkin Farm today. He loved it.

It took Sam about 5 seconds to find the perfect pumpkin. Here it is!

The kids learned how to make apple cider...

...and about a few different pumpkin varieties. They thought the bumpy one was cool.

There were all kinds of animals - turkeys, horses, goats, bunnies, chicks, pigs, and super cute yellow lab puppies.

Baby pigs eat donuts?! At the little farm store they were making apple cider donuts - hot and fresh with sugar and cinnamon. YUM!

Ellen's Birthday Bash!

Can you believe it? Dee Dee turns 40 next week! We celebrated tonight with friends and family - what a great party! Here are a few pix from the evening...
There is a long story behind this cake - don't get me started. It involved 3 trips to the bakery... but it turned out very cute and delicious.
The cholocate fountain was a hit... The kids hung around this table most of the night... I even caught one guest eating the chocolate out of it with a spoon! With Brian in Eugene all day, Ben was all about mom tonight. He got tired around 8 and stayed very close... ummm pretty much attached to my neck.
Finally got a picture of mom and dad - this is a rare moment people!

Dancing, Dancing and more dancing... Yayyy for dancing! The band was awesome!
Ian crashed out...

Here is Sam cuttin' a rug on the dance floor. This video is sideways and I am too tired to figure out how to fix it. :-)

Happy Birthday Ellen!! We hope you had a special night - you deserve it! We love you!

xoxoxo

Bored

This is what you do around our house if you are bored. Round up blankets and twirl like a princess and fly through the house like a superhero. When I informed Sam that since he is a boy he would be a prince -- he looked at me like... Whatever! "Lizzie is a princess..."

So he became a prince and Ben declared he was a "ghost pwincess"... They twirled and rolled and tore threw the house with their capes. It seems lately all they do is run through the house, upstairs and down, through each room creating tornados. Wherever Sam goes Ben goes. Wherever they go I eventually end up... picking up toys, cars, trains etc.

October

I just love this time of year. The weather is still nice enough to play outside but that cold, crisp air is here. Sam helped me dig out the Halloween boxes today and decorate the house. He was so excited to hang up pumpkin garland and find spots for all of our witches, goblins, spiders etc. For some reason he thinks Halloween is on Monday? Not quite yet buddy! Here are a few things I love about October:

~Apple cider
~Visits to the pumpking patch
~Annual pumpkin carving with the Whiting clan
~Chili and cornbread
~Halloween parties with friends
~Trick or Treating
~The excitement on Sam's face when he gets a treat every time!
~Crunchy leaves
~Time to get out the winter coats, sweaters, socks - I love to bundle!
~Cozying up by the fire

The holiday season is officially here!

The Heartland

Thursday morning started off early! We got to the airport around 5am with plenty of time to spare, got in line at Starbucks and preceeded to wait 40 minutes to get our coffee... so long story short we almost missed our flight. Not so funny at the time but thinking about it now is rather amusing. Picture us running at full speed down the concourse with carry-ons, coffee and in flip flops as they paged over the loud speaker "this is the final call for boarding... doors are closing!" As we could finally see the gate my latte flew out of my hand and hit the ground - AHHHHH! I grabbed the empty cup and kept running for the plane. I didn't even care about the coffee...it was the fact that I waited in line so long to GET the coffee. At least we made the flight! If you look closely at the photo above you can see Leah waiting for her drink... and the employee behind the counter that makes espresso about as quickly as my 4 year old.

It was great to have a few days away with good friends. The convention was a good resource for our mops group here. We heard several great speakers, musicians and networked with others to get new ideas. We didn't have a lot of time outside of the "compound" as we referred to our resort... but did take a shuttle to downtown Grapevine for winetasting, shopping and dinner. A lot of coffee, chocolate, margaritas, wine, nachos (NO more nachos!) were consumed. We watched baseball, Saturday NIght Live, sat by the pool and came really close to attempting karaoke.

Kristi and I took the earliest flight out so were up at 1:45am Portland time - yikes. Brian and the boys had a good weekend - all went well. I was so happy to see them all -- they have been asking for tickles, snuggles and stories. I normally don't love the whole bedtime routine but tonight was a sweet treat.

Will be an early morning!

All are in bed. The house is quiet and I am getting ready to leave in the morning for Dallas. I pick up Kristi at 4:15am - yikes! We are meeting the rest of our friends and heading to the airport for our 6am flight.

I am already missing my boys - all 3 of them and the puppies too. Sam seems to understand that I am leaving - he said tonight "mommy why are you gonna miss me?" and then "but you'll be back on Sunday and daddy's gonna take me to the park." When I put Ben to bed he kept saying "mommy's going on the big hairpwane!" It will be interesting to see how he does without me here... he loves daddy but when he is tired or upset he is all about mom!

The 6 of us are heading to TX for an annual MOPS conference. The hotel looks fantastic with pools, lots of restaurants, bars, shopping etc. This is the first time I have left both boys with Brian. He will do great but of course as a hyper-paranoid mom I am leaving all kinds of notes about the usual schedule, meals, naps etc.

Will be back in a few days -YEEHAW!

xoxo

Shopping

Once in a while I get this crazy idea that I can run errands or go shopping with the kids. It usually ends up with me chasing Ben everywhere, trying to keep him from climbing on things and pulling things down off of shelves, hangers etc. Then we head to the cashier with him under my arm yelling "Noooooo... I wanna walk!" Yesterday I thought I would run into Nordstrom Rack really quickly. The boys were standing next to me and then disappeared (I could hear giggling). They hopped from rounder to rounder squealing and hiding inside the clothes while I browsed. I finally got them out of there and they each insisted on taking home a hanger. Sam even slept with his - of course! Who needs toys when you have hangers?