Pumpkin Walk 2010

Here's a taste of the many, many jack-o-lanterns we saw at this year's pumpkin walk.

Which is your favorite? I think mine is the robot dressed up as a ghost.
Can you recognize the tv characters? (especially the dimly lit ones)

Cherry Cake

Chloe brought me this recipe this morning.



To make this beautiful cherry cake you will need:

2 eggs
3 cups of flour
4 cups of sugar
10 cherries
11 cups of frosting

Mmmm, sounds good!

Girl Talk

Ellie: Everything is made out of daisies . . . except for maybe three things: books, daisies and dinosaurs.


Ellie: Sometimes I don't like Charlie very much. I need a little help loving him. So I think I better marry him.
Chloe: But if you marry him then you'll love him TOO much.


Ellie: Mom! I lost my mouth bone! (Pulling on her cheeks) I know I used to have it, but now it's gone! Look! No mouth bone!


Mom: Look, Ellie, your medicine is blue. What do you think of blue medicine?
Ellie: Very handsome.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . .

A couple of weekends ago, my sister and her family came up to hang out for the day. My brother-in-law Clint brought his rockets for us, I mean, the kids to see.

Testing the direction of the wind,

Re-checking the launch buttons, and . . .

Blast Off!

Thanks, Clint. That was more fun than watching the back hoe.

(I want you to know I'm kinda proud of catching that last picture - if you enlarge it, you'll notice most of the fam are still looking down.)

6 Weeks Along

How Building our House is like a Pregnancy:

We have a nine-month construction loan.

By our calculations, our "due date" is about May 27th give or take a couple of weeks depending on whether you start counting from the date we closed on our loan or the date we broke ground. (wink, wink) We'll get a better idea when we get to 20 weeks.

We hope it's done pretty close to our due date -- Too soon, and it might need extra help; too late, and we'll start getting really ornery.

I feel like throwing up, much of the time. Mike has sympathy nausea.

I'm finding it hard to sleep through the night.

I'm moody. I want to throw fits. (Watch out if you work for the power company.)

I have no energy left to clean my house.

We eat pizza or other take-out 3 times a week.

( . . . and hence) I'm gaining weight.

We're starting to realize just how much this baby is going to cost.

Looking forward to the 2nd trimester, when hopefully things will get a little easier, for a while.

** S I G H **

But . . .

This is something we want for our family.

It's very exciting to chart each little milestone, watching it grow.

And we know it will all be worth it once the big day comes.