Just Telling Our Story

Stretching out the big day

E recently turned 4 years old (gasp!), and we have been celebrating in short bursts over the past week! We like to stretch our birthdays out as long as possible! :o)

It started two weekends ago with a birthday party at my sister's house. The party was actually for my sister, my mom, my brother-in-law and me (all of us celebrate birthdays in February and the last of January, in addition to my dad, who lives in Colorado), but my younger sister was going to be out of town at the time of our little family celebration just for E, so E got a gift at the catch-all birthday party, too! Thanks, Margo, Tyler and Gage!

By the way, I get frustrated that we have so many birthdays in the same month. I was really trying to have a day that was special just for E, but it meant that two of Chad's and my siblings (three counting the out-of-state brother) were not able to come. Ugh. Poor girl is going to have to grow up sharing her birthday celebrations like I did, I'm afraid. I was really trying to avoid that. Birthdays are pretty special when you're 4 years old. And take it from a girl whose birthday was just two days after her mom's, when you don't have a day to yourself, it kind of takes the magic out of it...forever. (No offense or bad feelings toward my mom, though. Just the way it is. Can't do much about that.)

ANYWAY...

On her big day, I took brownies into E's daycare class for after-nap snack. When I did this for G, he loved it. He loved having the attention and having people sing to him and having his mom visit. Not so much for E.

She is rather shy, and she absolutely hated it that the other kids were looking at her because her mommy brought her a balloon and was serving snacks that day. She couldn't even eat. She just sat there, staring back at the kids with her head bowed, uncomfortable and probably wishing it would just get over ASAP. I felt horrible for her. When all of the other kids had finished their snacks, and it was just E and me left at the table, I asked her what was wrong. She leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, "I don't like all the kids looking at me." Poor girl. I wish she weren't so shy. But it's who she is, and I'll try my best to help her through it. That's a whole topic in itself. A future blog topic, perhaps.

I digress again!

On her big day, E chose her favorite place to eat and play:

This is not my favorite place to go, and there was an obnoxious little sassy girl that kept squealing/screaming at the top of her lungs, I'm not kidding, about every 10 seconds for about 20 minutes. She was mean, loud and sassy, and the grandmother that was with her did nothing to keep her under control. So that little girl put a bit of a damper on our evening, but E had a good time anyway. G did, too!

We opened a few presents from Mommy and Daddy there. Her main present was this:

A set of twin baby dolls. She has a million babies but can't seem to get enough. She loves every one of them.

She also got a purse and a cute little outfit from our neighbor friend and G's bus-stop buddy, Sophie. Because Sophie wasn't there to be with her when she opened it, I thought I'd post a pic for her mom to share with her.

She liked the purse! (By the way, she got three purses for her birthday and loves every single one of them. She's definitely a girly girl.)

We had to get the standard shot before we left: How old are you?

That's also how long her time-outs are now that she's a year older. She got a taste of that yesterday. And soon she'll start hearing the, "take four more bites and you can be done" prerequisite for ending dinners she doesn't like!

After McDonald's, we went to Dairy Queen. Our local one is seasonal and closed until March, so we went to Plainfield's. It worked out OK, because she had picked the Plainfield McDonald's over the Avon one (our two choices for ones with Playplaces), so we were close.

This weekend, we had her "official" birthday party for family. Ernie (my sister's nickname) and Eric could only stay for a short time, so it was a small gathering: the two grandmas and our friend Michele and her two girls, who are both close to E's age. They love each other. They were doing this little hand-pile thing where they put their hands on top of each other in the middle of the table and then screamed, "We are best (raised hands quickly!) FRIENDS!!" It was pretty cute.

She opened presents, of course, and got lots of very cute things!

Papa and Omi: E got your gift! The outfit is really cute! Thanks so much for sending it. We're glad you were here in some way. E and G (and Chad and I) miss you guys!

She got a tea set from Grandma Farnsley, too. I like this shot, because I have a feeling this will be a common Friday activity for me and E. We love our Fridays together. It's perfect for girl time, when Chad's at work and G's at school.

That little blue purse was made by my friend Michele. Too cute! She got lots of great gifts...but I won't put a picture of each here. I'm already getting a little long on the post and getting tired of uploading pictures! :o) But a big "thank-you" to everyone who brought her gifts and came to her little get-together. She had fun!

Not done yet, though.

The cake was a story in itself. For a year (and I'm not kidding...I'm sure this started right after her last birthday), E was telling us she was going to have a Dora birthday. Then after that, she'd have a crayon birthday, and after that it was either Hannah Montana or Barbie. Well, at our little trip to DQ on her big day, she snubbed the Dora cake and adamently said she wanted the Barbie one. So after a short fit, we ended up with the Barbie cake. We didn't really care to start with, but we didn't want to buy the Barbie one and have her change her mind (in typical E style) right after we bought it. So we had to make sure she was set on Barbie. She was.

I'm discovering that my beloved camera doesn't handle super-low-light conditions as well as I originally thought. I think I'm going to have to start shooting in RAW.

And even after yesterday, the party wasn't over. Today, we were surprised to receive a package in the mail from E's Great-Uncle John and Great-Aunt Colette. (No, I'm not sure that should by hyphenated...not going to go look it up right now, though.) E opened it tonight before bed. We made her wait because she was extremely grouchy until then. She did not come home from school happy today! But the presents helped!

Thanks so much, John and Colette, for sending the goodies! She loves them!

Oh, and this little book, Bats at the Library by Brian Lies, also from John and Colette, will be one of our favorites, I think. (Colette is a book editor for the St. Pete Times, so I guess she's naturally good at picking great books! She and John are the most well-read people I know.)

It has such a fun little rhythmic rhyme to it, and E loved the illustrations, too. She giggled at every single page when I was reading it. Every single one. By that time, she was in a giggly mood. A fourth day of birthday celebrations was enough to get her over her crankiness and into bliss-land.

Thanks to everyone who helped our little girl celebrate her birthday! She was looking forward to it for a long time, and I think she really enjoyed herself at every stop! I don't know how she'll threaten us from now on, though. For the last couple of months, when she's been frustrated or when she has been disciplined, she would fold her arms, crinkle her eyebrows and say, in her sternest voice, "You're not going to come to my birthday party." I wonder what she'll come up with now.

Miscellaneous Monday: skates, a birthday and a cool quilt

I have had so many times in the last few weeks when I've caught myself thinking, "Man, I really need to update my blog!" I'm especially aware of the fact that I've been lagging because I see my Christmas card (the one that encourages people to see our blog for updated news about us) every day...and then I realize there's nothing new posted. Anyway, the thought of the 1000 or so photos backed up in my computer, begging to be sorted and (some) posted just makes me put it off another night...and then another. So today I figured I'll take it one step at a time and post something recent—then I'll worry about those other photos some other day! So here are a few miscellaneous happenings around here.

• Santa brought both of the kids new rollerskates for Christmas, and yesterday they were itching to try them out. Because snow and ice don't make the best skating conditions, we decided to give it a go inside. It was quite amusing. We had to take a break for Cub Scouts and shopping, and while we were gone, both kept talking about their skates and wanting to put them on when we got home. So I think Santa made a couple of good choices with these. It's funny, because for a few weeks, they didn't give two hoots about them. I guess they just didn't know what they were missing!

• I can remember the first time I tried on a pair of Rollerblades. My sister and I were in Florida with our dad and stepmom. I couldn't stop without running into a stop sign or a patch of grass, but I was hooked from that very first day. I started saving my money, and bought myself a generic brand for $60 the next time I went to visit my dad and stepmom in Florida. (They hadn't yet caught on in Indiana!) My favorite part, though, had to be all of the knee, wrist and elbow pads! Helmets weren't yet seen as important riding companions at the time, and I didn't have the money to buy the protective gear, so I was only protected on that first ride when I fell in love with in-line skating. But there was something about that protective gear that made me feel somehow like an athlete, and I loved it. Now, I look at these pics of our kiddos and I just love to see them all decked out for some good, old-fashioned roller skating. I can't wait to get them out on the road (or at least the sidewalk) this summer!

• My little nephew turns 1 year old on the 16th, and I know I won't think to say it later this week, so: Happy birthday, Little Guy! (No, he can't read and doesn't care if I send him a big Happy Birthday, but his mommy might like to see it!) Hope you guys have fun with him, Margo and Tyler. We're looking forward to the party this weekend!
  
  Here they are on Christmas:

• Last night I started the major project of combining all of my digital photos onto one external hard drive. I had been downloading them to our PC for archival, sorting and printing purposes (then backing them up to CD and external hard drive from there), and downloading to my Mac for blogging and digital scrapbooking purposes. Well, with more than 6,000 photos taken since last July alone, we have seriously more than 25,000 photos -- and many of them are duplicated on two different computers. It's a major space-sucker, not to mention a major challenge! So getting them to one manageable system is imperative...and a real pain. So the process begins. Because I don't have all of my pics accessible from my Mac just yet, this is the best pic I have of my little nephew that I can get to quickly! (I don't even have ALL of my Christmas pics on this computer. I seriously made a mess of our photos on my Mac over the holidays, which is another reason I need to get organized again!) Here's to 2009 being a more organized year when it comes to photos!

• See that quilt on our bed in the left edge of the top photo? It's a wedding quilt my mom made us. At our wedding and my showers, she had everyone who came (or tried to have everyone, at least) sign a quilt block, and then she put them together in this amazing quilt. Each signature forms the main part of a house, and there are trees and grass that come together to form this really cool little village. We have been afraid to use it, since there are buttons that make the leaves on the trees, and with kids and animals who are always on our bed, I'm a little worried it will get torn up. But it's bright and cheery, and we love seeing the names and signatures (some of people who are no longer with us), so we're enjoying it for a while. We won't use it forever, because this is one quilt I want to make sure outlasts ME. Here is one close-up shot of the quilt. I'd show you the whole bed, but that means I'd have to make it (better than tossing the covers in place) first, and I just didn't feel like it this morning! Anyway, you know how I am about sentimental stuff. So I wanted to share.

That's all for now. I was hoping to be through all of my personal stuff (daily check of bank accounts and my favorite blogs, and then the posting of an occasional blog update myself) and onto the work that provides an income by 9 a.m.! Have a good week!

Happy New Year!

Well, all, I am waiting for someone to call me back for a work thing, so I thought I'd take just a couple of minutes to wish everyone a happy New Year...a few days after the fact! We are doing well, just keeping busy. I am so thankful that things are back to "normal" around here today. The kids are back in school (they survived two weeks with each other...but just barely), Chad and I are back to work, and the house is finally calm again, at least for the time being. I love the holidays and vacation time, but there's something to be said for the good ol' routine of everyday life.

We had a busy couple of weeks, and I have TONS of pictures (of course), but I haven't taken the time to get myself organized and sit down to blog. Hope to do that soon. In the meantime, enjoy your 2009. Hope it's happier and less stressful for many of you who are dealing with job losses (there are several of you, unfortunately) and health issues. I'm saying a little prayer for all of you that 2009 is healthy and prosperous!

Trying to find the Christmas spirit

Well, folks, it's less than a week until Christmas, and I am simply not in the Christmas spirit. I am actually eager for the holiday to just be over, because it's stressing me out! I am feeling a little "bah-humbug"-ish. I know I'm not the only one. I've read the blog posts from friends and talked to a couple of other moms at both of the kids' schools today, and I know it's a common feeling right now. But that doesn't make me feel better!

First, it's work. I've been super busy this week, which is a good thing for business but a bad thing for my sanity. Everyone is planning for vacations and not wanting projects to carry over (payment wise) into the next year, so everything was due at once...all of them on Thursday or Friday this week. I had nine big deadlines this week, which translated into about three times my normal billable hours for this week (and last week, too). I had to ask for two deadline extensions (which I hate doing), and I nearly killed myself meeting the other seven. I'm not done, but the weekend gives me this illusion of being able to relax tonight, so I am.

I enjoy my job, so just being busy isn't a bad thing. However, when I am working every single free moment, from 5 a.m. to midnight five days straight, everything else on the to-do list suffers. Most of those things were Christmas-related. Christmas cards—for both clients and friends/family—postponed another week. A Christmas party missed. Christmas shopping put off again, forcing me to now suffer the consequences of having to fight last-minute crowds.

And when all four of us have been sick—three of us missing at least one day of work or school...on different days—in the last week, that doesn't help either.

Of course, Christmas means lots of Christmas activities for the kiddos. I love 'em and stress over 'em all at the same time. Today was a Christmas musical program and two Christmas parties between the two kids, along with a mad-dash trip to go find a Christmas present for my hubby between events...all before 3 p.m. We finished the teacher gifts last night (I was trying to be a little frugal, but that translated into needing to spend more time making things. I think I'd rather have spent the extra money to buy something ready-to-give!). We finished most of the family/friends Christmas cards last night. But I still have loads of shopping, errands and gift-making to do. When will it end? Not soon enough, I'm afraid.

And of course the money issue around the holidays never helps anything. How is it that we can spend hundreds—even a thousand, pushing two, or more—dollars on gifts, and they still seem like we're not giving enough? I hate the pressure of feeling like we didn't give someone enough, or our gifts don't look like much compared to other people's. I really hate that. We have a large list of people to shop for and can't do as much as we'd like for everyone, and that stresses me out, too. It shouldn't. I know. But it does. Everything stresses me out this time of year. And it's supposed to be a joyous time of year, right?!

So there's my story. I know I'm complaining, and well, I just needed to get it off my chest. So thanks for listening (if you're still with me). My next posts will hopefully be a little more positive or at least entertaining! Sometime soon, I'll fill you in on our adventures with loose teeth, a dog that rolls around in cat poop (so not kidding) and other fun stuff happening around here. It's been a joyous December so far!

I am looking for the Christmas spirit. Anyone have any inspiring stories to share? Any good advice to boost my spirits? Anything at all?

PS Still looking for a last-minute, easy gift? Here's what we gave the teachers this year.

It's a CD calendar that props up just like this on a desk. We bought 10 empty CD cases for $4, purchased the calendar PDF for $4 (hey, it's on sale today!), downloaded it immediately, cut and assembled. $8 for 5 teacher gifts. Not bad! (Although, with 12 calendar pages and a cover, four cuts per page, and five sets printed, it does require 260 passes through the trimmer! Thanks, Chad, for helping me out on those!) I'm going to design my own next year and get off even easier (unless I run out of time, of course, which is a good possibility)! Plus it's a really cute calendar. I'm going to print one for myself, too. Love it!

The laughs and cries of Little E

That's my cute little daughter "brushing" my handsome but bald (he disagrees...not bald, he says, just short-haired) husband's hair. Too funny! Most days, she really brightens our life. She has such a cute and lively personality, and the best laugh ever.

But then there's the hopefully-it's-just-a-phase defiant, grouchy and bull-headed little girl. I have to admit I have some of those qualities some times, but this one, well, she can really lay it on thick lately. And how is this for a pitiful picture?

Little E is starting to feel the consequences (finally) of her actions the other day. Her toyless room is quite pitiful, really. It's nice to walk into a clean room, but E, who really doesn't have any interest in movies, but LOVES her babies and toys, had a little bit of trouble entertaining herself last night. She lost her toys (all of them) over the weekend as a result of bad behavior (fits, saying No, defiance, hitting and kicking Mommy, etc. ... to an extreme extent), and she's just now starting to realize how stinky that is. I do kind of feel for her, but yesterday she hit me again, so she's lost everything until Thursday now. Hopefully she'll be nice today so she can get everything back! Good luck, girl! Goodness, I hope this is just a phase! I'm rooting for you, E. You can do it.

(Not sure what happened to my formatting - text size and maybe font - but Typepad's not letting me change it back. Ugh!)

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By the way, I reread my last post this morning, and it seemed a little unfair to Chad's family. Don't get me wrong: We had a nice Thanksgiving and had a good meal at Cracker Barrel. We were just happy to have some time with them, especially because we don't often get together with both his mom and brother's family at the same time. Also, I can't say enough about his mom. Anita is excellent about being flexible around my family. She never complains, and we do spend most holidays with my family. So I give her lots of credit for that. I just feel like, because of the size of my family and the set-in-stone holiday times, sometimes Chad's family gets the raw end of the deal. I'm very aware of that. And I'm very aware of the fact that his family is great about working around my family when scheduling our get-togethers. So thanks, Anita and family. I do appreciate it!

Miscellaneous Monday

Hi all! Hope you enjoyed a short Thanksgiving break and are back to your normal routines today. We had an enjoyable Thanksgiving and weekend, but it is good to be back to work today. It helps that I've been playing with pictures all morning (for a work project), which is something I really enjoy!

Thanksgiving was split as usual between my mom's side of the family and Chad's. I was a little disappointed that my sisters weren't at my mom's family's celebration (lunch) at the same time I was, especially since the only reason we were planning on lunch there was so that we could have Thanksgiving together. In the past year or two, many of my cousins have been coming later for dinner, and most everyone who's there for lunch stays for dinner, too, so we would have seen more people for dinner if I had known ahead of time that my sisters were coming later.

Because we were having lunch at my family's Thanksgiving, we were 4/7 of Chad's family that was gathering for Thanksgiving, and they didn't want to have to cook a big meal for the remaining 3/7, we ended up eating out for Chad's family's Thanksgiving. I could tell Chad was a little bummed by it, and I imagine others in the family might have been, too. But what do you do? It's not my sisters' fault that they weren't there for lunch. We just didn't talk to each other before plans were made on Chad's side of the family, or we would have done things differently. Next year, we're going to let Chad's family pick the big meal (lunch or dinner) and we'll go to my side of the family's for the other. I feel like Chad's family got the shaft this year. And because my side of the family is significantly larger than Chad's, Chad's family often does get the raw end of the deal. It's just easier to shift things around when there are less than 10 people total in three small groups, compared with 30 or so in seven or eight groups. Add in the steps and in-laws on everyone else's parts, and it's ugly. Sorry, guys.

(There's a lot more I could say about the joys of splitting holidays between families, but I'll refrain for now. It's never fair for anyone.)

Anyway, at Thanksgiving, we did play a fun game of LCR (Left, Center, Right). I really thought my grandma was going to win, but it turns out it was my aunt, Dick's Kathy. (We say that because I have two aunts named Kathy, both by marriage, so we distinguish them by their husbands' names. She's married to Dick.)

As you can see, there were big bucks at stake ($60!). My uncle Mark (I have two uncles named Mark, too; this one's the one married to Jane) won the first round. He got a cool $54! I was hoping to win, of course, but no such luck!

I love the look on my Grandma's face here, when she realized Kathy won. (Forgive the funky angle and poor-quality photo.)

Thanksgiving evening we went to Cracker Barrel with Chad's family, then went to his brother's house to hang out. A nice day over all.

Friday was fairly relaxing in the morning. It was so good to be able to sleep in and just hang out. Seems like we did do something in the morning, but I can't remember what! Maybe shopping? Anyway, Friday night I took photos for the Downtown Danville Partnership at the town's Christmas tree lighting. It was really fun, and the best part about it was that we didn't have to fight the enormous crowds that we normally do when we go to the downtown Indy tree lighting. Anyway, I got this shot of the kiddos...just a great, real moment. I love that E's sticking her tongue out, seemingly at no one in particular, but rest assured, it was meant for G.

When you live in a small town for any period of time, you're bound to run into people you know at events like this. I ran into several, but the one that resulted in the most excitement was my old neighbor, Mike. He works for the town and got me up onto the top of the courthouse roof so I could get some good pictures for my client. What a cool thing that was. My legs were like Jell-O (I'm not a huge fan of heights), and there was a rather wide lip around the building to keep people like me from falling off, so I couldn't get my camera at the most ideal angle. But I did get a few good pics, I think. Here's one, of our little town's claim to fame, the Mayberry Cafe.

And here's the same restaurant from ground level.

Of course, the main attractions that night were Santa and Mrs. Claus.

And when they lit the tree, well, that was the highlight of the event for some. (By the way, this photo was shot under the absolute worst shooting conditions possible -- horribly low lighting, Christmas lights that need to shine, a long depth of the photo that needs lit, lots of movement and no ceiling off of which to bounce the flash. There is no easy way to get a good picture with all of these variables. The only thing that could have made it worse would have been rain. Thank goodness there was none of that! The pressure was on for me to get a good photo or two for my client. Ugh. The ones that best stopped the motion were dark in the background and had really bright faces from the harsh flash. The ones that had the best lighting naturally showed movement due to the flash setting required. I couldn't shoot in both modes at the pivotal moment, when the switch was turned to ON, because there wasn't time to switch settings on my flash and camera. So I had to choose what I thought would work best and go for it. It was a no-win situation, really. But I did the best I could. This one showed the least movement by Santa, which was most important.)

The rest of the weekend was spent at home. I can't say that it was wonderful, because the kids were, well, not so good. In fact, E lost every single toy she owns (including crayons, markers and scrapbook paper) for three days. It's all in the garage until Wednesday. Let's just say she was a challenge like none we've ever seen. But we did get some crucial things done, like getting our family Christmas photos taken, getting the kids' photo taken with Santa, and doing some serious shopping for the kiddos for Christmas. If we had had everyone's lists by Saturday, I think we could have wiped the whole slate clean! We were on a roll!

But the highlight of the entire weekend for G had to be the fact that he finally got to use his hard-saved money and buy himself a Webkinz eagle. He's been dying to play with him online, but we only let him have an hour a week of video and computer game time. So he's eager for next weekend. (We did let him play for an extra hour yesterday, but now we have to stick to our rules!)

By the way, E got a Webkinz penguin with her money, but not one minute after we paid for it (in fact, it was just enough time for us to turn away from the counter where we paid), she threw an enormous fit in Penney's saying she didn't want it. Things went downhill from there. It doesn't matter much...she lost her chance to play with it by the next day, anyway!

Hope you enjoyed your holiday, too! :o)

Happy Veterans Day!

To anyone who has served in our armed forces, a great-big "thank you" today!

As much as we love to complain about how "bad" we have it right now (the economy in the toilet, gas prices that were at record highs just a few weeks ago, etc.), let's all take time to remember that we live in the best country in the world—and that is because we have people who risk their lives for our freedom every single day.

If you have friends or family in Iraq or Afghanistan or any other country—even right here in the United States—they are in my prayers today. And if your friends or family have returned home safely from their service, I pray for them too.

To all of our veterans, thank you. And God bless you for your service to our country.

***

PS Let me know who the veterans are in your life right now! (Just click on "Comments" right below this message.)

I am thankful for the service of my brother-in-law Seth; our friend Jeff's brother, Rich; our friend Mark Treece; our friend Kelly's brother, Jeff; Fred Hunt from my BNI group ... and many others, too.

Another happy Halloween behind us

...and the kids did great in the candy department. We should be set with candy until Easter. (I just dumped out our leftover Easter candy--and some from last Christmas--this week to make room for the Halloween candy. One or two pieces a day for the kids, and it lasts forever!)

The big day yesterday started with trips to both of their schools for their class Halloween parties. We got lucky twice this year--once because Halloween fell on a Friday, my day off, and once because their parties were back-to-back instead of overlapping. So we were able to make it to both.

First up was G's, where they made cupcake spiders that took the majority of the party time. They had a ton of goodies, and even E was able to have some!

Then it was off to E's school, where one of the moms had made the same cupcake spiders (but with orange icing), and where they dressed up as dogs, since no "real" costumes were allowed. Too cute.

Then we came home to find that there were four orange cards in the mail for these two - one for each of them (they didn't even have to share!) from John & Colette and their Nana, my mom. They were elated. (Thanks, guys!)

Soon, it was on to Grandma's house so she could see the kids in costume for the first time before we headed up to my sister's new neighborhood about an hour north.

They posed for a couple of pics at Grandma's house, and then we headed north.

E was a princess fairy, although before the night was over, we had all kinds of people asking what she was: a ballerina? A butterfly? A princess? A fairy?

G was Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars. The outfit made more sense when he was carrying his lightsaber.

After Grandma's we headed to Auntie Ernie's (that's kid-speak for Erin; the nickname has stuck since G was little and couldn't pronounce Erin).

She and Eric gave them a TON of candy. And then we hiked their neighborhood for just about an hour. They got gobs of candy and even Beanie Babies (full-size ones!) at one house. They were just too cute running (literally) from house to house to get the goods. E got a burst of energy at one point and was even "flying" from one house to the next. My pic of that didn't turn out so well because I was trying to take it while I was walking, she was flying and the sun was setting. But this was one of several cute moments:

The long underwear we had on under their outfits (expecting a cool night, although it turned out to be beautiful and warm) was too big for G, so he was constantly pulling up his drawers, and E was constantly running to keep up with G (who was also often running).

Eventually, E pooped out, and G was the lone trick-or-treater as night fell. I love this picture, even though it is a little blurry. Not bad, though, for hand-held and no flash!

We called it a night with plenty of official trick-or-treat time remaining, but we had had enough. The kids had fun and got a bunch of sweets, and this was the first time we had been trick-or-treating with my side of the family, so it was nice to just have some time to hang out with Erin and Eric after hitting the streets for a while. I didn't get a good shot of the kids and their stashes (they were in just-woke-up hair-dos and PJs when we took a shot this morning), but rest assured, it was plenty. :o)

Today we got to be farmers with my (ex)stepdad, David. The kids loved it, and Chad and I got some great pics. I'll plan to post them later, maybe tomorrow. I still want to share some pics from my mom's pumpkin-carving party last weekend, too, so hopefully I'll carve out (no pun intended) some time tomorrow to do that. Until then, hope you all had a happy Halloween, and welcome November! Can you believe Christmas is just a month and a half away?! Yikes!