Keep in mind, these pics were ALL after being told that "grumpy kids don't get candy". So this shows us Cal's interpretation of a "smile". Geesh!
The whole group (including his Fruit Salad cousins--cherry, pineapple, grapes, blueberry). Cal's easy to spot with his big grimace (or is that an Elvis sneer?)
You can't make me be happy.
I'm not looking....
You can't make me!
I'm not grumpy. I'm just not looking.
Fine. We're facing you. Is that good enough?
The kids were supposed to be a Chicken (or "Chicken Boy" as he was affectionately called) and Little Red Riding Hood. Even with her non-traditional warmer outfit, Lissi froze to death and had to end her candy seeking endeavors early. Cal REALLY got into Trick OR Treating this year. He would run as fast as he could before all of his cousins to house after house. After all that, he ate one lollipop that night!
Give your brother a hug please.
Lissi shows off her "Super Red" costume
Showing off her super powers
Cal and his cousin G (aka Blueberry) in front of a Halloween tree
Is this a perfect pic of emotions?? :) I love it! Thanks Marc for taking this awesome picture!
Auntie Celeste and Uncle Marc came to visit from Reno this weekend. Do you think the kids had fun?!
Eating Bulgogi at our favorite Korean restaurant
Must have Ben and Jerry's after Korean food!
Zoo trip
As I was baking and dusting this evening, I was inspired to listen to a CD from Wink's college acapella singing group: The Brown Derbies. I guess I haven't listened to it in quite a while, because I became nostalgic almost instantly. Overall, college was a really wonderful time in my life. I don't want to trade what I have and know now with that time in my life, but it is tempting. I wish I could just run out the door and run off to a concert. Or meet people at the cafeteria for dinner. Or study and learn and have that be my job. Or (sophomore year) toss my shoes into my suite-mate's room and brush teeth with my bestest buds. I'm realizing that my kids will probably not be as impressed by an old "album" that their daddy sang in, yet for me I am filled with emotions and memories.
It made me realize a few things. One thing is that I've always joked that our kids would at best go to state college and more likely live at home and attend classes. As I think about my college years, I am struck that I really want my kids to have this kind of experience if they want it too. I guess I feel like I would be willing to scrimp and save (and make them take out a LOT of loans) if they were able to get into a school like Brown. In all truth, this is a revelation to me since the money involved seemed totally out of the question.
My life now is so, so different than it was ten years ago. I went to college prep school from Kindergarten until grade 12. I went to an Ivy Leage college with the best of the best (and the richest of the richest). I don't think I'd ever really known a person with a disability until my dad's stroke freshman year of college. I'd never even heard of Speech Pathology until my dad's stroke, and even then had no idea what it really entailed until I started the graduate program!
Now, I work in special education, the public schools with no hope for a promotion or "big break" financially. I spend every day with some of the poorest in the city. I see neglect and abuse daily. I pray that my students will one day graduate from high school, but know that many will not. I sing the exact same songs with a group of disabled students, and on the 500th time we've sung the song, they still don't know it. Some can't even combine 2 words together to form a simple sentence. I am the primary wage earner in the family. I have the privlege of parenting the two most amazing children ever, but I have never met the women that gave birth to them. I live in a city I had never even visited until after I was married.
I feel that I am exactly where God wants me to be right now, but I never would have predicted this path in my life. I hope and pray that my children will have some of the fantastic experiences that I have had and will end right where God wants them to be--even if that is a place that none of us would have predicted.
Here's the blackmail photo (as described a few days ago). Please note that Cal's grimace is because it took so long to get his princess dress and NOT because he didn't like wearing it :)
Check out this movie after we came home with our new pumpkin (aka Lissi's "ball ball")
HeavyLifting
Our Home Group met at a pumpkin patch. The plan was to meet at 3:30, stay for about an hour, then go to one member's home to eat potluck and carve pumpkins. We we stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and arrived at 4:15. Luckily, so did everyone else! As a group we went through the animal barn, took a tractor-hay ride and chose a pumpkin. Since Lissi loves "ball ball"s, she thought she was in orange ball heaven. We then split up to head to dinner/carving. At 6:30 we still hadn't even made it a mile from the pumpkin patch and we had to call and say we weren't going to make it. :( What a bummer. Apparently, the entire metro area decided that is was the perfect day for pumpkins! And it really was! What a gorgeous weekend....
Both kids have a favorite blankie (that I made last Christmas) and a favorite stuffed animal. Cal loves his Pooh Bear and Froggie blankie. To our delight, Lissi eventually fell in love with her Flower blankie and Hippo. We tried for months to get her to have a favorite animal to help her sleep at night. We knew it had worked when she started consistently grabbing her hippo and blankie every morning right before she was picked up out of her crib.
See our prodigy! A maestro at one!
Pianist
We've been working on this since this summer. Cal can write his name! Wow! A skill many kids don't have at the beginning of Kindergarten.
Cal's signature
We attended the annual Apple Tasting at a local nursery. Since Cal loves apples so much, this is his idea of heaven! The festivities included FREE: apple tasting from MANY varieties, crafts, face painting, apple cider. There was also apple streudel and bins of apples to purchase. The weather was sunny (blinding at times) and warmish. A perfect fall morning!
Our friend Lisa was watching Cal and Lissi for a few hours this afternoon. Mysteriously, Cal had a tolieting accident of the stinky variety (this is a first!). Because he had no replacement underwear, he was loaned little girl underwear to use for the nest of the afternoon.
So we can tell Cal's future dates that YES, he has worn girl's underwear.
Hardly suprising since two days before he started crying when all the girls at Home Group were wearing princess dresses and he wasn't. He was quite realived to find that there were still some lovely outfits for him to wear.
Although they might not admit it, the kids LOVE bathing together. Heaven forbid one get into the tub without the other! And, Lissi has helped Cal to deal with hair washing. How can he cry throughout the hair cleansing when his one year old sister takes it in stride?
This was "Take 3". Could he look less enthusiastic??? Yes! That's why I needed to try 3 times!
Chicken Dance
We have been stressed about finances for the last few months. In particular, we had some very large "one time" bills to deal with recently. Frequently, we'd talk about how to budget differently and how to avoid over-drawing our bank account. Then, in answer to prayer, Wink got a call a few days ago from a church that wants a huge web design project. Wink talked on the phone on Friday and went to visit with the leaders of this project today. They hired him! From no leads to a huge job in 2 days! Wow! What an answer to prayer! Now he just needs to find the time to work on the project... Please pray that he can be healthy so that he efficiently manage his time.
Just as he had almost recovered, he got hit again with sickness! We don't know if it's the same bug or another one. The poor guy has been sick for 3 weeks now! Please pray that he gets better soon. I don't know how he can take care of the kids, go to school, and work when he is sick all the time and gets horrible cluster headaches. :(
After spending Friday and Saturday at a conference, I get to enjoy my one-day-weekend with the annual beginning of the "rains". They start in mid-October and usually don't let up until next June. Occasionally we have an hour, half day, or day or sun. But we can mostly expect gloom, clouds, and rain for the next 8 months. :( In spite of this the kids and I took our weekly "coffee-cider walk" this morning. The kids got to try out the new rain-cover for the double stroller. I wore my (less than perfect) rain-coat and got wet.
She now walks more than she crawls so we consider her a "walker" officially! Notice that her gait still looks a little zombie like :)
Lissi has become an awesome walker:
Good Walking Girl
Walking and Balloons
As a classic daddy geek, Wink has hoped that Cal would fall in love with Legos, just as he did as a boy. I know that Wink not only wanted Cal to follow in his footsteps, but also wanted to have lots of excuses to buy cool Lego sets. :)
Cal has shown no interest in the Legos or Lego table that he's had since he was one years old until very recently. Now the engineering/architecture geometry-geekiness has set in! Look as some of his recent "creations" with something called "Wedgets" (way cool bday gift from his buddy Alex) and Legos:
We had an opportunity to get a fantastic vacuum at half-price. The timing was poor for us, but this was a limited time offer. So we sucked it up (pun-intended) and decided to give it to each other as a late anniversary & early Christmas gift. I'm sure my mom will be very relieved next time she comes to visit, since she did not like our old vacuum at all.
Cal thinks it's really cool and helped Wink to vacuum the house. You better believe that this will be one of his household jobs when he's older. :)
Wink has been sick for almost 2 weeks. The poor guy has been trying to take care of the kids while feeling miserable. He had a temperature this morning and a sinus head-ache for days. He finally went to the doctor today. Hopefully the anti-biotics will help.
e-i-e-i-o
Cluck-cluck-bak-bak
This is Cal's new Halloween costume. He insisted that he wanted this costume over mom's idea of a Train Engineer (which would have been free to do--of course). After trying on the costume in the story, he ran all around the store and made everyone there smile. He insisted wearing the costume home, in spite of mom struggling with the car seat and all that plumage. He showed the costume off to dad (and posed for a few pics), then wore it to Home Group. What a character! :)
Lissi is going to be Little Red Riding Hood. Pictures to come eventually.
back and forth quickly (see shaking heads movie below to watch this in action).
You may need to click on the picture to make it bigger, but Cal has streaks of saliva going across his face thanks to open mouth/shaking action.
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