Haircut

Isabel got a haircut yesterday. It was only her 2nd one so when the hairdresser told her to pick out a movie to watch, Isabel thought she got to keep the movie.

Lesson learned for the week: Never feed the baby prunes again.

"Those People"

The haunted dining room



Where the real fun happens



2 grouchy kids at this point



Family Portrait



Let me at that candy!


Another Halloween has come and gone. I don't know if everyone is aware that Halloween is Ryan's absolute favorite day of the year. He thinks its criminal that its not a national holiday. And you know when you drive through a neighborhood and you see that one house that went all out for the occasion and you think "who on earth lives there?" Well on our street that is us. I can't possibly describe the amount of decorations we have and the time it takes to put them up. Ryan has music playing and a fog machine and of course all of our monster friends outside. He measures his success by how many kids drop their candy and run in fear. One poor kid got tangled in the cobwebs and couldn't get away fast enough. I had to take Ryan driving through the neighborhood so he could see if any houses had us beat and one did. So there are already improvement plans involving a strobe light and cemetary. The competiton is on for next year.

And the girls. Well Isabel talks a big game about going Trick-or-Treating but when it comes down to it she is just too shy. She hides behind me and won't even take any candy. We just go to a few neighbors. This year our famous puker Liza managed to spit up on Isabel's costume so she demanded we take the costume off RIGHT NOW. Never mind that we were in our neighbor's entryway. Isabel prefers to watch when the kids come to our house. And I must admit, it is quite a show. Now the big clean-up begins.

Election Fever

My friend sent this little bit of election humor my way and I couldn't resist posting a link. Too funny, Thanks Almas. Click here

Pumpkin Carving

Ryan completed his annual pumpkin carving yesterday. Isabel helped by picking out the pumpkins. And my favorite part~roasting the pumkin seeds.

Getting ready for fall

Our new table



This is what happens when dad is bored.


We put up all of our Halloween decorations this weekend and found a little costume for Liza. Isabel is so excited. Our weather is starting to cool off a little bit too so it feels like fall.

We finally got a new kitchen table. Our old one was falling apart. You had to be careful how much you ate or your chair just might give out. But those worries are long gone because we had a guy we know make a set that matches perfectly with our kitchen. And all the seating is quite sturdy so I can eat all I want.

What?

How is it possible that it is already October??? Liza will be 6 months old soon. She rolls all over and wants to crawl but it will be a while before she figures that out(hopefully). She smiles all the time and has become the unofficial greeter at her daycare. Isabel is always asking about grandpa and the grandmas. She loves her dance class and has decided that grandpa will benefit from lessons she will provide him at Christmas. "Grandpa is really gonna like this", she will say while jumping and twirling.

We repaired all of our hurricane damage. Ryan and I are back at work and very busy trying to catch up. We were out of school for 6 days (that we don't have to make up hooray) but it is a big scramble to get caught up.

Fall is Ryan's favorite time of year. He adores Halloween so we will start decorating this weekend. We have about 2x more Halloween stuff than Christmas. I'll have to take pictures of our haunted house.

Go Vikes!

Ryan dresses the girls up in their cheerleading gear on game days. Not that it has brought the Vikings any luck so far. We'll see what Old Gus can do this week. Isabel has even started to ask football questions like "dad who has the ball now?" She likes to get her pom-poms out and then Ryan likes to pause the TV when the cheerleaders are on (for Isabel's sake of course.)



Before the Game



After the Game

Clean Up

Isabel wanted to do her part with the hurricane clean-up. Notice she is wearing a dress and jewelry. Later she put on her princess dress-up dress and shoes. The neighbors thought that was pretty funny. And Aunt Mandy wondered if she ever wore her dress-up dress. Ryan was checking out the pool equipment and Isabel had to run in the house and grab her tool kit so she could assist.

We survived Ike!

Well hurricane Ike came through on Friday night. Our area is looking pretty good, just lots of downed trees and fences, roof damage, and power outages. We are very lucky to have power right now. We cleaned up the yard and will be dealing with insurance and contractors now. Lots of people are still without power and the people on the islands will have it rough for quite a while. Things get very unsanitary, very quickly without electricity or water. All the basic necessities are in short supply around here but everyone is happy to have survived.

Busy, busy, busy

School has started so we are busy down here. I always feel like I've been run over by a truck at the beginning of a new school year. I'm at a new school, in a new district, doing a different thing this year. But it is going well. My commute is about 5 minutes. I brought Isabel up to the school last Saturday and I really wish I had thought to bring the camera. She loved it. She came prancing into my room and sat in the desk closest to the teacher's desk, pulled out a social studies book and pretended to read. She is already excited about kindergarten. She has started ballet classes so she wears her leotard around all the time and walks on her toes. Liza is a very happy baby and is growing so fast.

Anyone looking for a good book should check out Look Me In the Eye by John Elder Robison. It is written by Augusten Burrough's older brother and is about Asperger's Syndrome. Check out the website.

I would post some pictures but it is not letting me upload any at the moment.

A day at the zoo

Some more pictures of our trip. We took the kids to the zoo one day. Isabel misses her cousins. She said today, "mom I miss my friends and I know they miss me." Healthy self-esteem. Well back to the wii for me. I rock at bowling, tennis not so much.

vacation

We have developed a serious addiction to our wii. Ryan and Isabel went out hunting for one last night and were successful after 2 hours and 7 stores. Now we just have to find the wii fit. So you know what we have been doing all weekend. That and lounging in the pool. After floating in the pool for hours I can understand why waterbeds were invented.

Liza has discovered her toes, her voice, and how to roll over.

Isabel's quote of the week: "Mom I understand you, I'm just not listening."

The pictures are from our trip up north. You'll notice everyone had to take their turn holding Liza. That bag sitting on the counter is all Ryan packed for 10 days! Amazing.




10 days worth of stuff is crammed in here



horsin' around



grandpa and Liza



auntie Mandy and Liza



grandma and Liza

Time flies?

You know all the sayings about time flying, where does all the time go, etc. Well I know a way to make time stop. It involves 11 hours, 3 planes, a four-year-old and a four month old. Time will feel like it is standing dead still. We made it home but I am still recovering. We had a very nice visit and I will sort through pictures and post some eventually. Work starts tomorrow for me after 4 months off. I never know what a new school year will bring.

Passing the time

We got stuck up in ND a little longer than planned due to the tropical storm. But that's OK because Ryan (not I) was stuck fighting the crowds to get supplies and moving all of our potted plants and lawn furniture inside. He said there is flooding and the power was only out at our house briefly so nothing too bad for us. It gave Isabel more time with grandma and grandpa. Mandy and I looked through our old barbies and were cracking up over the 70's and 80's style clothes. Then we found some old pictures. Maybe getting older isn't so bad. What if we were all stuck looking like our Jr.High pictures.


watering with grandpa


the silly car


playing dolls


story time

My new fave movie

If you are looking for a movie to rent....Lars and the Real Girl is great. I've never laughed so hard. A lonely guy, a life-sized anatomically correct doll, it sounds pornographic but its not. I swear it could have been filmed in my hometown. Which only made it funnier.

The new way to fight high gas prices

Mandy drives like a grandma no matter what vehicle you put her in.

Summer Vacation

We had a nice visit with Ryan's family. Isabel loved meeting her cousin Ava, she called her my girl. They had fun prancing around in their princess dresses. And Liza got her fair share of attention. Aunt Joan had her belly laughing one night and grandma Bear almost didn't give her back to us when it was time to leave. The girls miss all of the attention already.

Summer vacation

We just spent a week with Grandma Bear in North Dakota. One of the things we always try to do is drive through the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Isabel really liked the Prairie Dogs. We ran into more of that slow moving North Dakota traffic.

Fire it up

Goober and Justin....Get that bug ready to roll. I'm looking forward to my annual ride.

Keeping busy

I have been trying to keep Isabel busy this past week. She goes from 0-100 and doesn't stop all day long. We had painters here for 3 days last week so we were stuck at home. When we did finally escape the house we had to find somewhere cool to hang out so we spent the day at the mall. Isabel did Build-a-Bear and gave her bear her favorite name of Sarah. She sleeps with her every night now. She loved the playground and the carousel too.


Bathing her bear


Justin could do some damage on this crane machine, we didn't win anything


Riding the carousel



Baby birds