A terrific Halloween parade begins when you show up to the parade to find your good friend is wearing the exact same costume as you are, and you didn’t even plan it.
Category: ridiculous
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Afro circus
Tom picked up a copy of Madagascar 3 at the grocery store. Someone really loved the freebie wig that came along with it.
Apparently, if you want to make people at a grocery store smile, you release a dancing 5-year-old in a rainbow wig.
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Winter
This was our week to talk about winter at school. We were going to catch snowflakes, put ice under the stereoscope, take macro snowflake photos, and all sort of other neat things.
Instead we discovered that there are bulbs coming up in the side yard.
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Star
The year after I got Ellie, she ran off. About an hour later, someone called who had found her. I was so grateful that I remember thinking to myself that I hoped someday I could repay the favor.
Fast forward about 15 years, and I seem to have become some sort of magnet for lost dogs. Remember that lost dog named Daisy? She was just one of many, but she happened to stick around.
ANYWAY, as we were on our way to Barb’s house to celebrate Christmas, Neko noticed this dog in our yard. I’ll try to abbreviate this story.
Dog has tags, we call the number, leave a message.
Dog is (strangely) from the Big City, so we take her with us just in case the man calls back.
Neko entertains fantasies of us keeping the dog.
Man finally calls, and we offer to drive the dog over.
Neko cries. Is really sad. Demands we take a photo before we hand her over.
But really, we did not need and eleven-year-old dog named Star, did we? (A certain 8-year-old would vehemently disagree with me.)
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Happy Thanksgiving
A vain attempt to get a good picture of four of the five cousins. It was probably for the best that Alba was inside, sheltered from these shenanigans.
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Vacation: Days 3 and 4
I know, after all those pretty Harry Potter pictures, this is a really bad one to throw at you. But it’s the only photo I took in the last two days.
The vacation, although filled with good company (hooray for R+D!) and good potential, has taken a bit of a downturn. The beach house is not quite living up to what we had in our imagination.
Now, I should say, we’ve been very lucky with online house rentals up until this point, so I suppose we were due for a dud. The house was nice enough, but it just had…issues.
The worst of which was the mosquito problem. We have also discovered that Ellery is QUITE allergic to Florida mosquitos. She got all these bites in the 30 seconds she stood by the hose area so we could wash the sand off of her. If you count carefully, you will find 14. There are countless more on other parts of her anatomy.
Speaking of sand, the beach is a bust. The waves are rough and the beach is full of trash. This was quite surprising, as, you know, the beach was a bit of a selling point and all.
The pool has been nice, but is full of sand. It could use some gentle love and care, and loses a few extra point on account of its proximity to the mosquitos.
There are other weird things, too. About half an hour after Tom and I began unpacking, we realized our bedroom had no door. The only trash can in the whole house was in the kitchen. We were missing important cooking items like saucepans and cookie sheets. And the blinds were broken, permanently shut, obscuring our view of the ocean.
Despite all this, we’ve had a great time swimming, playing, and laughing. Because really, with company that good, we could be just about anywhere.
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A life of its own
Shep used to have this perfect five-year-old smile.
Then one of his adult teeth started coming in. But the baby tooth didn’t come out.
The adult tooth pushed and pushed. The baby tooth stood its ground. The baby tooth is migrating left, and now stands at a 45 degree angle from the rest of his teeth. It’s wiggly, but still firmly in place.
I love this kid with all my heart, but it’s getting a bit tough to look at.
Tom and I move between plotting ways to speed its removal and coming up with a name for it, since it seems to be here to stay.
(Yes, someone had chocolate for dessert.)
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And what did you do today?
It started innocently enough. I went to pick up the older kids from school, but when I returned, I was greeted by the deafening sounds of our security system blaring.
To make a long story short, something falsely triggered our system. Then a police car, fire truck, and ambulance all showed up in our driveway.
The kids thought all of this made for excellent afterschool entertainment.
So a note to all the people that might consider breaking into our house: 1) bring earplugs, because that siren could blow out an eardrum, and, 2) practice your 50 yard dash, because, sheesh, not a lot goes on in our little town and the police showed up QUICK.
Thank you to Chris for capturing this photo while I talked to the police. And fire crew. And ambulance squad.
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Debut
The kids and I were outside when Tom arrived home from work.
I asked how his day was, and he held up this album. I really haven’t laughed that hard in ages.
He and Chris had spent a good portion of the day recording an album for a friend’s album-in-a-month challenge. So really, they met the album-in-a-day challenge. (I swear, most days they are actually working over there.)
Songs include such gems as “No Refunds” and “Turn the Fan Off” and “Uterus of Joy.”
I will keep you all posted on the actual album release so you can all run right out and get your hands on this awesomeness yourselves.
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Enthusiastic
Ellery decided she was going to hang a few things on her wall.
We have these rolls of painter’s tape that we let the kids use, as it doesn’t damage the drywall. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her gather a roll of black tape and a pair of scissors. She trotted off with some paper tucked under her arm.
About ten minutes later, Tom wandered into the kitchen chuckling and said, “I think I found your photo of the day.”
Clearly, she has inherited my enthusiasm for a job well done.