Pumpkins & Punkins

First our pumpkins:

My witch

Kathryn's Janus Pumpkin: Comedy
TragedyIrony
Rob & Kathryn's vomiting pumpkin. (Fabulous ain't it?)
Laney as a pumpkin - note the produce tag

My punkins off to trick-or-treat
Laney had more fun playing on the front porch after they got back. (BTW - I bought the monkey costume)
Laney & Daddy
Our girls. It took some work to get this shot. I may post the trial photos later - the joys of digital photography.

An update & the reveal

Well McCall's fouled up pretty good on their sizing with Kat's costume - I had to take 2 inches out of the back and put a pleat that ranged in size from 1/2 inch to 1 inch wide. But after what my costuming professor would have called "Meatball Sewing at its Finest" it is done! And it won first prize at the Jr High Music Department's Halloween Dance.

And without further adu - Happy HalloweenFrom the Monkey:

The Star:

The dress that inspired Kathryn's costume, as Yvaine from Stardust. And a couple of fuzz balls:

Now that's what I call multi-tasking

Tonight I tried blogging a bit different. I set up the lap top and read during the brown, simmer, etc. stages of dinner. It cut down on Laney trying to help me type, which tends to result in her shutting down the browser and the putting the computer in hybernation mode. I also wasn't up way past my bedtime. So, I made dinner (Rachel Ray's Buffalo Chicken Chili - which is yummy and has scalable spice), blogged, and fed the dog! Score one for the modern mom!

Yet another pumpkin patch

Our turn to post pumpkin patch pictures. Sorry for those of you anxiously waiting, but I am holding out on costume pics until Tuesday night (assuming I can find the time to sit down and post).

First a little blast from the past - last year's pumpkin patch pics:

The following are from us playing around in the living room Saturday morning, and have nothing to do with Laney's costume. (The shirt, by the way, says "Ghouls just wanna have fun.")

Laney seemed a bit confused about the holiday. Her Easter Bunny came along for her pretend trick-or-treat.
Off to our church's pumpkin patch. They've been holding it the last couple of years to raise money for playground equipment on the new property.

My parents came into town, so they joined us at the patch. There aren't many pictures of my dad because he too was hiding behind a camera.

And I leave you with this - you like, his pumpkin? It's real! His pumpkin

Renaissance Festival

The Renaissance Festival did not turn out quite like expected. Our household harkened back to medieval times by getting a plague. I came down with a lovely bug on Friday morning, Rob got it about the time he was trying to put on his shoes to leave for the festival and then Kat got it in the wee small hours of Sunday morning. Since we had 5 people in the living room waiting to go with us, I went ahead and took the girls.

Thanks to being sick on Friday and my just generally ding battiness lately, I earned myself some serious terrible mom points. I left the sippy cup at home. Luckily, Laney knows how to drink out of a water bottle, so she was not completely without hydration. I brought $9 in cash and spent $3 on the way in, forgetting that the food vendors and a number of the shops only take ye olde dollar byll. Thanks to Stina for the loan! And in my brillance of taking a ton of Laney type food (hoping to save money on snacks for the fam) I needed two diaper bags. I left the one with most of the diapers and all of the wipes in the car way out in the parking lot. Once again, we got lucky and ran into some friends from church who gave us wipes.

Without further ado, the pictures:

This is the gang. From the left: Catie, Kathy (Kim's Mom), Nik, Kim (Catie & Nik's Mom), Stina and Elena. That's Kat standing in the back.
This is Neil as Giovanni Borgia, a member of the Italian court, trying to get a little face time with Laney. She didn't want anything to do with anyone in costume, even Neil who has been around since she was born.
Kat shows off her new hair wrap.
Kim gets up close and personal with a member of Tartanic.
A little goofiness between Godmother & Goddaughter.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Laney gets down to Tartanic.

Howdy!

Yup, still here. I do apologize for the absence, I just haven't had much blog time for the last few days. I did get a chance to read a few on Monday, but Blogger was down so I couldn't comment.

Our weekend was quiet, we took the bikes out, did some shopping and taught Sunday School. We did attend a new church small group, it definitely has potential, which is nice since we had to give up our old group because they meet during Elena's "witching" hour.

I got some serious progress made on Kathryn's Halloween costume. It's a bit big, thank you McCalls for your totally unrealistic sizing. I measured Kathryn, and I am pretty sure I still remember how I was taught in costuming class, and according to the pattern she's almost a size 12. When she heard me say that, she says "But I have size 0 jeans and they fit!" Before you have a fit, remember she is 13! Well, I know that pattern sizes have absolutely no relation to the real world, so I cut a 12. It's close to 2 sizes too big. Ah well, it's not falling off, its comfortably roomy. I will post pictures when I am done.

Oh, and Elena learned how to undo "child-proof" latches this weekend. Yup, she opens the cabinet and then grabs the latch, pulls it down and opens the cabinet. Two different brands of latches, too! I am very glad that we listened to my mom and put all of the cleansers up high. The cabinet she is so determined to get into contains cat food.

I don't foresee much else that is blog worthy until the weekend. We're going to the Renaissance Festival with friends and that should net a few billon pictures and at least a couple of anecdotes. Peace, love & lollipops!

Purple haired blues

Okay, so the wedding photographer website doesn't allow my to borrow any photos. Rar. Darn copyrights. I wasn't prepared for not being able to right click on the photos, I have gotten so used to JC Penny, Target, Kiddie Kandids, Pink Posh Weddings, and even my cousin's website (she states her copyright on every page, though) that I assumed in the digital age it was the norm. It is their right to protect their copyrighted work. Just frustrating. They did give out this info:

http://www.texasangels.photoreflect.com/

10/6 Coshaw wedding, the password is the name of the wedding.

Kathryn & my back are on page 3, photo #138 is a good pic of the bride, and Rob & I are in #272 (Rob's making a goofy face) with some other members of our church. Enjoy if you've got a minute.

Our weekend in 5 pictures

We went to Chuck & Val's wedding. Yeah, they're marwied! I love going to weddings when I knew them when they first started dating. It was our first wedding at our church even though we've been going there consistently for 4 years. It was such a great ceremony. Proof we do clean up nice. I can post pictures later of their rather unique attire including the bride's purple hair and amazing dress, if you're interested.
Ronny & Lauren baby-sat. All three survived with minor only minor issues.Neither one had ever baby-sat for one as little as Laney and neither had ever changed a diaper until last night. Lauren decided she and Laney should be pony-tail twins:
Rob & I taught Sunday School. We used a leaf blower & a couple rolls of toilet paper this week to demonstrate the awesome power of God.
And I hope everyone got to do a little of this today:
Have a happy Monday!

Superbaby!

Play date

Just a few pictures from Elena's Saturday evening play date with Elise, a friend we have made recently at church. Elise is one day short of 6 months older than Laney. Elise and her parents were supposed to go on a picnic with us, but due to the threat of rain we moved indoors to our house.

Having a discussion over who's rocker this really is
Playing house
Swinging
Elise on the teeter-totter.

The backyard was the best, because there were fewer toys to envy. Laney happily swang & went down the slide a few times, while Elise checked out the "big kid" swing, teeter-totter and our slide, which she loved. Rob & I had a good time with Briony & Chris too. Nice to find folks in a similar family situation to commiserate with. (Not that I don't love my blogger buddies, but it's a long way from Georgia to here to share a sandwich and a beer!)

Finally!

Here's the back story, for my birthday I wanted a new bike. My old bike was just that - OLD. We're talkin 16+ years old. I bought it with baby sitting money and rode it in highschool and college and occasionally after I moved here, but it, like me was sadly out of shape. And while I can't buy a new body at Target, I can get a new bike. I digress.

But there's been some delay. We bought Elena a trailer & helmet we found on clearance the weekend after my birthday, but we were waiting for my parents to get here so they can participate in the whole shopping experience, but Labor Day weekend was too busy. So Rob and I went the following weekend. We loaded up my old bike and the one that Kathryn had outgrown and tried to give them to a local sporting goods store who refurbishes bikes for disadvantaged kids. They were in the process of moving the store, so they couldn't take them, so we had a full bike rack and no bike to take home. The next day we were able to pick up the new bike after church. Here's a visual for you - me riding my new bike in the parking lot in my church clothes! It was silly and fun.

No time to ride that day, so we waited for the next weekend. Friday night, we go out to the garage to air up the tires and make sure we understood how to set up and attach the bike trailer for Elena. Rob airs up the tires and comes to help me with the trailer. While we're working on the trailer, we hear a lovely pop - hiss and Rob's tire is Dead Jim. We buy a new tire and tube the next day but once again life has other plans and we don't get it installed. Fast forward to two weeks later and Rob installs the tire and tube on Friday night and finally set out around the neighborhood on Saturday.
Here's Elena checking out my new bike.
Hanging out in her trailer, with her own personal brain bucket.
Off we go. We made three laps around the blocks - two with Rob pulling the trailer, one with me. Man that thing is cool, you barely feel it. To the point that I kept turning around to make sure I hadn't left her behind somewhere. So here's hoping we get our (and my parent's) money worth out of the new bike, trailer and tire & tube.