Geoffrey the Giraffe

Claire cannot resist people in character suits. She absolutely positively has to receive a hug from them and get a photo with them or her life does not feel complete. This happened last weekend at Toysrus. I feel so bad for the person stuck in that suit supporting such a ginormous head.

 

Rake it real good

I hope my children never outgrow playing in leaf piles. Claire is pretty handy with a rake now. Tyler is still useless, but at least he's cute as he destroys the piles. 

 

 

Can't get enough hiking

Hiking is just THE BEST. You know how it is...you set out on the trail and the weather is perfect and you've bribed the kids with just the right amount of candy and the leaves are gorgeous all around. Ahhhh. What is the right word to describe how I feel after a hike? Content? I think that's it. I just feel like I don't care what else we do that day. I've already done the best part.



 

 

This is Patapsco State Park, practically in our back yard.

 

My son is a super hunk. Why would his shirt lie?

 

And now our Halloween costume photos! The moment you've been waiting for!

 

Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker visited us early, on October 18. So nice of them to swing by.

 

 

 

These two kiddos had a blast at our annual Halloween party. Emmett from the Lego Movie and Ella from Cinderella.

Summa

Holy mackerel that was a fast summer. Technically I guess it is still summer, but I see a cool-off ahead in our forecast so I'm calling it. Here's the summary of our past few months:

 

 

1. Sprinkler time. Lots of it.

 

2.  Swimming in the bay. Who cares if the water is brown? We like the low key "waves".

 

3. Rooting for the O's.

 

4. Trip to Iowa to see both sets of grandparents.

 

5. Brian elegantly celebrated another birthday.

 

6. Pool time. When the water wasn't too cold for my picky swimmers.

 

7. Indoor playtime. These kids love playing quietly at home. I love them for that.

 

8. Washington DC excursions. This one was a the National Building Museum.

 

9. Goat exposure. We love goats. This cute one resides at the Baltimore zoo.

 

10. Staying up too late at the county fair.

 

11. Hitting the nearby amusement parks.

 

12. Catskills vacation.

 

13. Dragging the kids to historic home tours. We enjoy a challenge.

 

14. Claire started 1st grade! Tyler started pre-K!

 

15. And peaches. Eat them and be happy.

Kindergarten comes to an end

Claire has one more week of school as a kindergartener. Her class did an end-of-year program for all of the parents, which we loved! The students worked very hard in music class to have almost 30 songs memorized and choreographed. Here is Claire doing her part in one of the songs.

Here is the whole kindergarten class singing the finale. Claire is in the front row on the left. Sorry about the poor quality -- it's a long video so I had to make adjustments.

 

 

Brian and I played the "New York, New York" (sung by Frank Sinatra) for Claire, and she was shocked. She doesn't believe us that those lyrics are the original ones. We have some more educating to do...

 

The only thing left to say is: 1st grade here we come! 

A Change of Pace

For those of you who wonder if anything else goes on in our lives besides our kids, the truth is we periodically do things that aren't directly related to them.  So for a change of pace, you all now have the priviledge of seeing our brand new bathroom which more or less finished today.  Its function now, there just are some small touchup items to call it complete.

Here are some pictures:



Before (well, after a very small amount of demolition):

After:

 

 

Camping at Cape Henlopen

Okay folks, you know how I operate. I love love love posting photos a month late.

 

That is a lie, of course. I am simply the worst blogger ever. Here's my post about our camping trip a few weeks ago! We limit our camping to only once a year because, well, we really like to sleep in beds and that is hard to give up. It's so worth the poor sleep though when we see how much fun the kids are having.

 

 

 The ocean was quite cold but that didn't stop Claire and Tyler. They put on their swim suits and played in the surf. I was wearing long pants and a fleece jacket.

 

We couldn't resist driving down to Rehoboth beach for one afternoon. Very pretty!

 

There are old army towers in the park, and they are great for sunset viewing.

Claire brought a few friends on our camping trip.

 

Here's Tyler after winning a slap jack game -- happy boy!

 

And now it will be a year before my next camping post.