Pumpkin Patch '10

Our annual trip to the pumpkin patch was blessedly warm this year. We spent the afternoon playing in the hay, exploring the haunted forest, playing hide-and-seek in the corn maze, and picking out a few good pumpkins.

Jake battles the skeleton head.

King of the....giant hay-bale pumpkin head?

Go Team!

Today was Team Spirit day at Haley's school and the kids were invited to wear their favorite sports team jersey. We're a little short on sports jerseys at our house, but luckily had this in the dress-up box.

Fargo Mini Half Marathon

One sunny and unseasonably hot (90 degrees) Saturday in October, we headed down to Fargo for another half marathon. I had trained for months and was hoping to improve my time by quite a bit - shaving a full minute and a half per mile off my previous time. Unfortunately two days before the race I came down with a flu and spent my race-prep time downing tons of vitamin C and hoping my fever would go away.

By race morning I was feeling better, if not quite 100%, and headed to the starting line. The first 9 miles went great - I was right on pace & feeling strong, and got a good boost seeing Rob and the kids along the course. And then I BONKED. I felt like I was still on pace, but every time I looked at my watch I was going slower and slower. Pretty soon my body gave up and my head followed shortly thereafter. If someone had offered to give me a ride to the finish line I would have taken it - I was too tired care any more! All my reserves built up by weeks of training had been wiped out by the illness. So I walked the remaining 4 miles to the finish line and finished with almost the same time as my first half-marathon. I did finish, and I will be beating my time someday...as soon as I stock up on hand sanitizer.

The BEST part of the day, and the whole reason I signed up for this race to begin with, was that my friend Amy ran it (her first half-marathon), and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. WAY TO GO AMY!!!

Alex guzzles while waiting for mom along the course.

A Book A Day

Haley often has her school library books half-read before she even gets to the car. She zips through them so quickly - her current favorites are the Magic Tree House series, which she can finish in under an hour. Can you say i-n-s-a-t-i-a-b-l-e appetite for reading?

Tinkerbell Premiere

One day after school we invited a couple of friends home with us to view the latest Tinkerbell movie and enjoy some popcorn and Tink-green treats. The kids loved it; we'll have to make it a regular event during the long winter months.

Sweet Sleepyheads

Why are kids so incredibly sweet when they're asleep? Maybe because they're not whining or fighting or asserting their independence? Whatever the reason, I love it. It makes me want to pick them up and rock them back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Because no matter how big they get, as long as I'm living my babies they'll be.

I can't remember exactly how Alex wound up like this, on our bedroom floor.

Jake has been requiring multiple "snuggly friends" at bedtime lately. Here he is sound asleep with Caramel, Lucky Puppy, Snowball, Bunny, CuddlyBear, and Fuzzy-T, the Transformers blanket.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

We had SUCH a FABULOUS time in Washington, D.C. over Labor Day Weekend. What a wonderful place to visit with the kids - there is so much to see and do, and most of it is free! To make things even better, Grandma and Grandpa Wood met us there and gave us the inside scoop on their top picks. The kids were great travelers, we got to stay in two different fabulous hotels, and I didn't lose any of the kids on the subway (which I was terrified of doing). It's a great place to visit and we highly recommend it to everyone!

Of course we couldn't see it all, so we tried to hit the major sights and museums. A lot of walking and subway rides later, this is what we saw:

The Washington Monument was even more impressive in person than I thought it would be.

Roar! We loved the Natural History museum.

The view along the mall from the Lincoln monument.

Alex takes in the sights from the comfort of the stroller.

Our poor, country kids - they could not believe how brave this squirrel was.

Haley stands next to the stone marking where MLK, Jr. stood while giving his famous speech.

With Grandma at the WWII memorial.

The subway was pretty darn exciting at first - not so much by the end of the week. However I have to admit that I was still wowed every time we took the enormous escalators up out of the Dupont Circle station.

Oh, we could have spent the whole week at the Air and Space Museum - we walked through the shuttle dozens of times and tried to see all of the museum, but we'll have to go back some day.

It was H.O.T. and humid that week so we tried to stay in the museums during the day and see the monuments in the evenings.

What a TREAT we had waiting for us at the Capitol. One of Rob's former students was an aide in Senator Dorgan's office, and the senator was kind enough to take a few minutes to talk with us and let the kids try out his desk. Then we were off for a private tour of the capitol - what a great experience!

Jake signs the "No Vegetables At Dinner" Act.

Cute kids, stunning rotunda.

This is how Alex saw the Capitol tour.

On our last day we were thrilled to be joined by old-UW-college-day friends Jens and Karen at the National Zoo. It was hot, super crowded, and the kids were a little tired of sightseeing, but it was wonderful to have a few hours to catch up with them.

Baby Brother

It must be hard being the youngest in the family - always wanting to do what the big kids are doing. Alex loves to be outside, but since our yard is unfenced (so far) he can only go outside with me. Luckily at 14 months he's still little enough to get enjoyment from just watching Haley and Jake play outside.

And it's not like there aren't perks to being the baby, either. Take dinner time for example - who else gets to make SUCH a BIG MESS? Almost all of the spaghetti got eaten, except for a few stray noodles stuck to the window.