Happy Halloween 2010!

The Eamonator costume that Ray's mom made still fits.
And the tail is still too cute.
I told him if he put it on and we went out, he'd get candy.
I never told him that I'd let him eat it.

Actually, at this point he had already had a Reese's. We stopped by Alli and Isaac's (E as a crazed Vikings fan: jersey and a hat one of my ex-students gave me that will be featured here soon), and he ate a whole peanut butter cup. Funny how it takes exactly five minutes and then you can literally see the chocolate hit his brain. We watched the end of the Vikings game (boo) and then got home (yes, to the new house!) just in time to see the entire block worth of kids mustering up. We got our treats together and joined them for a few houses.

E was wide-eyed, between the kids (probably 15 or so between 19 months and 8ish), the crazy decorations (one house had an inflatable haunted tunnel) and the proximity to bedtime. However, I think he had fun. We came home and ate dinner near the front door so he could help hand out candy. All in all, a good halloween. I can't wait till next year when he really knows what's up.

Although we may need a new costume... Laura?

Daredevil

Jana sent this photo that her mom took at the apple picking party. Eamon wasn't nearly as interested in apple picking as he was in the big kids' toys.
We're pretty sure he learned this from Wii.

[Edited to add: I didn't explain this nearly well enough. The last time this boy saw a skateboard (Kaya's graduation), he pushed it around but couldn't really figure out what it was for. This time, he knew he was supposed to stand on it sideways and bend his knees and kick to push. He just had no idea what to do about balancing. And I do sincerely think he learned what he did from the Wii ("skating" with his dad). It's a little crazy.]

Fall Color

For a couple of weeks we had cool days and little wind. Thus, we had gorgeous fall leaves. Now, we have insane wind and gorgeous fall lawns. Or so I shall try to convince our neighbors now that I'm actually responsible for raking...

I tried to get some great pics of all that color, but somebody didn't think standing/sitting still was a good idea. So you get this.


"BIKE"
"wait a minute..."
"You stopped pushing!"
So much for artsy, gorgeous shots. The leaves do make a nice crunchy sound when you run them over with a tricycle, though...

Hold On Tight

Ray's parents are responsible for this. E says "Thanks". But he doesn't understand why it has to "go to sleep" every once in a while.

As my mother says, "Who needs cable with entertainment like that?!!" Now, if someone could just clue Ray and I into whether the Backyardigans sing "Movers of Arabia" or "Move Around the Radio". We just don't understand the kids' music these days!

Happy Mother-In-Law Day

I just noted that today is Mother-In-Law day. So, for those of you out there who are mothers-in-law, happy day! To our own mothers-in-law, thank you for being there and for raising/not offing (hey, I'm sure you were tempted at some point)/giving us this wonderful person. Love you both!

And so do I!

New Digs

(Yeah, no good spot for Ray to put the camera. I don't want to hear about it, just chuckle to yourselves.)
This is the kitchen to the right, family room to the left, mountains straight ahead.
View from the kitchen. The mountains are hiding behind the clouds.
View from the master bedroom.

A wider perspective.
Yes, it's official, we have a new home! Address info coming soon via other means. The house is all white inside, which photographs terribly, so more pics once we have some furniture/color moved in! Or at least one active toddler...

Friday Cute: For my Dad

Enough said.

A Day in the Life...

E is becoming a toddler. He wants to do it himself, but then frustrates himself. Yet he's so happy when he succeeds.

Case in point:

Lafayette Play Park

It's hard to do good work when your supervisor refuses to wear pants.
"Where IS that peon with my coffee? I'm freezing over here!"
"I need COFFEE! And PANTS!"
Even pantless, he's a pretty adventurous driver.

We spent a Friday evening at the insanely huge Lafayette playground. For the sake of Eamon's future pride, I will not discuss the circumstances which resulted in his lack of pants. There are no pictures of the huge play structure with the crazy slides because it also has lots of crazy dropoffs that require constant vigilance by both parents, particularly with an adventurous toddler with no fear (or pants)...

Eamon's Christmas Request

E found this at Costco. He would like one. If you send one we may send it back to your house with toddler attached, but he would like one.

In other news, it's very hard to get a baby out of a drumset quietly without fuss.

Pumpkin Picking

One of the joys of our CSA is the chance to go out to the farm. This weekend they opened up the pumpkin patch. This is one of those things I've always wanted to do, but having a toddler makes it more of a must. Particularly a toddler who thinks pumpkins are BALLS.

E was in heaven.

Bigfoot

Eamon has suddenly figured out how to put on shoes.
Just not his own.

Rain Delay

Someone is very excited, but unlikely to see anything before bedtime...

The Fruits of Autumn

Suddenly, Colorado has noticed that it's Fall. The leaves are changing, the days are getting chilly, and E's evening walks are getting darker. For me, this means it is time to start baking and cooking again. I never really want to cook in the summer, which works out okay because Ray is usually pretty happy to grill. But now that it's cooler, it's time to get cooking. I'm eyeballing that slow cooker and dreaming of sloppy joes, soups, and roasts. But we're not quite there yet.

In the meantime, I have this:

I think you should try to guess, first.

We're eating a lot more fruit and vegetables with E around, so I decided we needed to try a CSA this year. Ray decided we should get a fruit share, which I'm thankful for after seeing fennel for the fourth week in a row in the vegetable shares. What does one do with that much fennel?

Fortunately, I do know what to do with apples. We're getting a peck of vegetables a week. Eamon recognizes the white bags and excitedly yells "apple, apple"... which unfortunately means "peach", and they're out of season now. But he loved the peaches and nectarines, and now he's happy with the plums. We still have a lot of apples, more than is probably even healthy for three people to eat in one week (and this is a "single" share!)  Thanks to Jana and her friends the Meyers, we got to go to an awesome apple picking party, and we got even MORE apples. So I've been making a lot of applesauce for the freezer, along with some baking. Jana pointed out that you can throw other things into the applesauce... which resulted in the picture above. The top pot is strawberry mango applesauce. The bottom pot got the plums that were about to go over the hill. For once, I didn't touch the color at all. That is some shocking applesauce! (So, is that what you guessed?)

Halloween color aside, it is darn good!

?

I'm not sure who this boy is that Ray is taking with him, but could someone tell me where my baby went?

Still here!

The Vikings are on a bye week. Grading tests has sucked my week into a pit of pitness, and I haven't posted anything fun since Tuesday. Ray was flying Wed-Thurs, so that didn't help. Then, we spent this weekend running errands and having fun with a certain cute little boy.

Suffice it to say, I have no pictures for you here. We're still trying to get out as much as possible, but I feel like you've all seen the child coated in ice cream or running about the park, and I have no great way to show you the fun bike ride to get the ice cream or get to the park (although perhaps you would like video of him in the garage, torn between his trike ("bike? bike?) and the bike trailer ("hat? hat?" - as in, his helmet)?). E now slides down even the twisty slides with utter confidence, more of a daredevil than I was at five.  We're letting him take some of the (SHORT!) falls, hoping he'll start to notice that gravity is universal, even for him. He turned 20 months old this week, but he's two in a lot of ways - he wants to do it all, he can't express it well enough or do it as well as he wants, and that makes him frustrated and tantrumy.  I'm learning to get him to take a couple of breaths and slow down. Even in his toddlerness, he's still adorable and awesome, which means the hardest part is not laughing, because it's a dead serious matter to him (now if I could just figure out what "it" is).

Things are good. Change keeps coming, but I'm still too superstitious to put it in words here. Ray is flying, and busy, which is good, except that he's not home some. I'm working, but less that I have been, which is nice, except for weeks like this one where I have to work back at the old schedule and I'm not adapted to it any more. Eamon is busy taking over the world (or at least learning that he can reach more of it if he stands ON the chair), which is... eek.

I will get more up here. Please keep checking back. Until then: we're still here!