Spooktacular!

We have been doing Things and Stuff and more Stuff around here. We've also been having colds off and on, and the pumpkin carving was put off until it was nearly too late! Tragedy was Looming!

 It passed. Have no fear. Pumpkins were carved, and beautifully so.

This year on my thanksgiving list of things that I'm grateful for, I'm going to add; "I am grateful that my kids are finally old enough to clean out their own pumpkins."

 This is a big step in growing up, agreed?

 Amelia started out sitting in her high chair, but she would have none of that. It was on the table or nuthin.

And heaven forbid we tell her no.

 Caleb was taking a turn at having the Cold that night. But, super Daddy that he is, he still wielded the knife and cut out what ever faces the kids wanted. Old enough to clean them out, yes. Old enough to wield the knife - no.

 The kids draw the shapes on paper, and he cuts them out. This has been the method for the last few years, and it works pretty good!

An hour or so later, after the kids had all gone to bed and were dreaming sweet dreams, I came downstairs and found this.

 He was creating a monster. Wahh Haa Haa!!

 You should have seen the kids faces when they saw this on the table in the morning! They were grinning huge and wouldn't go anywhere near it.

 And doesn't it look lovely?

 Halloween day arrived, and most of the costumes were ready to be worn! Emmy's took the most time (historically) and Jonah's hadn't been started. But we got 'er done!

 Check out this little sweetie! She/He is putting my new door knob on MY NEW DOOR. That is an all-caps for joy. But that's another story for a very near future post.

Amelia's costume was my favorite... but... that didn't really work out. She wore her skeleton jammies instead. It's all about being comfy!

 And these three. We have Rainbow Dash (a my little pony) Glinda the Good Witch of the North, and a "freaky" ghost.
Now do you see why Emmy's costume took the longest to make? I had to call in reinforcements for the skirt! (thanks, Tess).

Another year come and gone, and it was a good one.

Now, where to hide their candy.....



I kid! Jokes!

Come Play!

 The kids and I were in Eden for a few days last week to play with cousins and visit our favorite dentist, and when we finally decided to come home we found this in our driveway.

 Best. Dad. Ever.

It was for sale just down the street for a smidgen of a bit of money, so he snagged a friend from work and they went and disassembled it, loaded it up, inched back to our house because it only very barely fit under power lines, and dropped it here to be painted.

 Yay!

I picked up a few gallons of deck stain from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for only $8 a gallon (ok, yes) and we went to work. 

I don't have any idea how old this playground is, but I don't think it had ever been restained before. The wood was so thirsty!

 But it certainly cleaned up nicely. And the deck stain cuts down on the risk of slivers! Love that.

And then, thankfully, Claire graced us with herself.

 And we were so glad she did. JoJo gave her these non-prescription glasses, and she has worn them every day since.

Then it got even better.
"Wanna see my new trick?"

 I like this kid so much.

A few days later the playground was mostly painted and ready for its new home.

 Papa did the "woah. Left. Keep comin..... right... left a bit.... you're there" job.

Muscles come in handy at times like this.

 Plop! Welcome home.

We finished painting the last bits, and let it dry. For three days. Did you know that Oil Based Deck Stain takes 24 hours to dry when it's 75 degrees outside? Guess how long it takes when it's only 50 degrees? Three days. The kids almost died.

But three days finally passed. Let's put this thing together, impending storm or no impending storm!

Amelia was in charge of the tools. I don't know what we would have done without her.

The storm decided to only look ominous, and blew itself out after an hour or so. Fall is so lovely in the mountains!

And considering that our yard looked like this last week, 50 degrees with a little breeze was lovely! 

 And what is the one thing that could possibly make a new playground even better? Friends and cousins to share it with!

 When we moved from Pete's house into our new place, his advice was "Your first home improvement project should be a play ground."

Well, we're a few months late on that one, but it's done now!

Come on over!

Hair today, gone tomorrow

It happened again.

Only this time, after cutting her hair, she cleaned up after herself. Really. She swept up the hair and put it in the garbage can.

She gave herself a perfect mullet, and both sides were trimmed quite evenly! It was an impressive mullet! Especially considering that she cut it with plastic kid scissors. 

And if such a Do was accepted in our culture... nope, I wouldn't have left it even then. It had to go.

As the event took place right before bed, she did get to experience one night of mullet head. Then the next morning I plopped her in her chair in the middle of the kitchen floor, and started cutting away her lovely girly curls.

Guess what? This kid has her own agenda. She decided that she needed a hair cut, so she gave herself one. If she's hungry, she feeds herself. If she's tired, she goes to bed. If she wants to color on my brand new wood floors with a permanent marker, by golly she's going to! And she did. Bless her heart.

She's also incredibly kind. The same something inside of her that makes her think that she's grown up and can do things that a normal three year old shouldn't has also blessed her with an oddly mature sense of concern for other people.

She never departs from me without telling me that she loves me the most and that I'm her friend.

She is always concerned about Amelia's happiness, and is often running around the house trying to find her blankie or favorite book or baby doll or cracker or whatever else she thinks Millie might like.

She also really knows how to push Jonah's buttons, and makes him scream with frustration at least once a day. You should see the way her eyes twinkle with a devilish gleam. Then she melts him with a hug and a "sorry, Jonah" and all is well again. Stinker.

She gets herself dressed on most days, and some of the outfits have been surprisingly adorable. She sings half of the things she says. She loves trees, and told me once that she wants to live with them.

Sometimes when Claire looks at me with her huge black eyes I can see inside of her, and that there is no end to her. I can see that she isn't only three years old, but that she's actually been around for a very long time. 

Strange things go on inside that head of hers, most of which I will never understand. She's funny, to say the least. I have a "Funny Book" where I write down the funny things they say, and I'd say more than half of the quotes are from her.

Oh Claire. I'm so glad you're in my family. Being your Mom is such a treat.

And then, after all that, we did this!

It was eventually time to hit the road again, so we bid a tearful farewell to our campground and it's accompanying playground, which had provided so many hours of good smelling woodsy playground fun. 

 Can you think of a better place for a playground? I'm such a fan.

I tell you what, if it weren't for Banana Slugs, I could live in the pacific northwest.

 Look at these roads. Yum.

We headed south on Highway 101, and saw many a gorgeous thing along the way. There's a lot of those up there.

 The Trees of Mystery! This is Paul Bunyan, or as my kids call him, Tall Bunkin. And his big blue ox, Babe. Have you ever been here? Funniest place ever. Paul talks to you! I don't know where the guy is that's talking, but he can obviously see us. He was hilarious.

The kids were asking him all about his story, where he got Babe and why he's blue, wether or not he had any kids, stuff like that.

He invited us to sit on his boot for a photo, so we did.

 This guy is seriously tall!

Does anyone else find it ironic that we have giant statues of Loggers in the middle of protected Old Growth Forests? Cracks me up.

One of our stops was at a National Park site, where the kids passed off their Junior Ranger books!

 They got their badges, then the ranger lady went in the back and brought out another badge and gave it to Millie, and said that she was the honorary junior ranger. Love it.

 Look at this chunk of stump! Years and years and years ago an Elk got his head stuck in this tree, and died because he was stuck. Then over the years the tree grew around him! You can actually see the back of his skull at the back of this stump. That's not something you find every day!

Is this not the cutest Ranger Station ever? It was chilly and damp outside, and the inside of this building had a huge fire going in the fireplace and it was cozy and dry. So nice! This building was built in the 30's, all hand hewn timbers. It was cool, is what I'm saying.

 This is Founders tree, which is just a huge tree dedicated to some people who protected this grove. I think.

This tree has been through many forest fires, and is basically gutted, but it's still alive! Serious!

 Look at it! Still green. Amazing.

The roots of redwoods are quite shallow, ten feet or so. But they stretch out and intertwine with the roots of neighboring trees for hundreds of feet! They hold each other up. Usually. Metaphors welcome.

After a good long day on the coast, we headed inland towards Sacramento, where we stayed the night with my Aunt Melanie and Uncle Johnny.

 Let the car games begin!

"Seriously, Mom? We're still sitting here?"

This face sums it up. Love it.

Donner Pass was exciting, as always.

 We sang. We watched movies. We read books and played play-doh and ate snacks and tickled feet and played word games and threw popcorn at each other.

 We stayed mostly sane.

Thank Heavens for sticker books.

And Amelia disappeared inside her current novel.

Somewhere in the Nevada Desert, Caleb started looking like this:

Love you, Babe! Can't wait to do it again!!

No, seriously. Let's go.