Hill Ridge Farms

All six kindergarten classes at Lil's school went on a field trip to Hill Ridge Farm today. We did all sorts of things, but the two favorites were the hay ride and picking out pumpkins.

More Halloween festivities

By Wednesday's end, I think we will have most likely gotten our fill of Halloween. Tonight we went to the Halloween supper and carnival at church and took Mae with us. Lil asked me about halfway through to please stop taking pictures, and I felt really old when I heard myself saying to her, "Listen, honey, you're going to appreciate all these pictures when you're older." Land sakes alive, I officially sound like a parent.

Lil, Reid, and May

Pirate Rooster

Lil with Grace (Jasmine) and May ("Professional Cowgirl Singer")

Lil and May

Annie (Dorothy), May, and Lil

Lil with friends May, Grace, and Annie

Reid with one of his other partners in crime, James

Mae and Reid

Halloween cookies

Lil, Reid, and I came home from church today and got busy making Halloween cookies. Reid told Lil several times that hers were "just beautiful."

No Reids Allowed!

Lil had about had it with Reid yesterday morning so she made a sign he was sure to understand and put it on her door. He didn't like it, which is clearly what she expected - check out the face she drew on him.

A scurvy pirate, a black cat, and Oren

So much for Bob the Builder - we clearly shopped too early for Rooster's costume this year. Over the weekend, he decided he really, really, really wanted to be a pirate, and finally today I agreed to look for a pirate costume. Lo and behold, Target had one left and it just so happened to be his size - and it was on sale. Clearly he was meant to be a pirate. :) Reid has been running around the house yelling, "I'm a scurvy pirate!" and, "My pirate ship is out of gas!" and, "My sword doesn't hurt people because it's soft!" (Fortunately the costume came with a sword made of foam - I demonstrated the perks of this in the store when he requested a much larger, much harder sword.)

Lil is still very excited about being a cat.... We didn't use any face paint in our dress rehearsal since she'd just had a rainbow painted on her face at a birthday party. She's scooting around the house on all fours. (This is also why she isn't wearing the tights that she'll wear on Halloween.)

Oren was over for a visit late this afternoon - he's getting so big!

Camping out (in a dishwasher box)

Last week, much to our dismay, we had to bite the bullet and buy a new dishwasher. While we fully anticipated how much we would appreciate a dishwasher that actually worked, we did not realize the potential the box had - or that its potential would be fully realized on our back porch.

Lil and Reid came in late this afternoon and asked us if they could camp out. As I had not really been paying any attention to what they were doing (no one was crying), I didn't know until I went outside what they meant by "camp." Pillows, blankets, toys - even a full Lightning McQueen display complete with the Piston Cup made of mega blocks - were set up inside the dishwasher box. Snacks and beverages were also on hand. They must have planned to get really thirsty because they had at least three juice boxes apiece out there.

Even Ruby, who - bless her heart - was diagnosed yesterday (by the vet, not me) with "terrible" hips, bad knees, and an ACL tear in one of her back legs, didn't miss out. The Ritz cheese crackers must have lured her out.

Officer Rooster

Reid's friend Francie had a dress-up birthday party earlier today, and Reid decided to be a police officer. Howard and Anderson ditched their costumes within 5 minutes, but Officer Rooster stayed in uniform till the end.

Officer Rooster takes a bite out of crime and looks very much like a stripper while doing it.

Reid was never more than a foot or two away from his best pals, Anderson and Howard. I'm pretty sure not one of them noticed there were other kids at that party.

Fall Festival

Tonight we went to the fall festival at Lil's school. They had a grand time, though I think we all had sensory overload after a couple of hours!


Lil running up and down the kindergarten hallway when we first got there....



Lilly and her friend, Sam


This is Lil's, "I got scolded for disappearing with my friend, Annie, and I didn't much like it" look. Reid was just enjoying someone else getting in trouble.

The Fair

We went to the state fair this afternoon with friends, and Lil and Margaret were delighted to get out of school a little early to go. We now have a lovely assortment of very high-quality carnival prizes - a dolphin, a cow, Spiderman, a tie-dyed whale, a couple of dogs, a green pony, and a purple unicorn.

Olan Mills?

Do you think my children are photographed entirely too often? Check out the pose here. I felt like I was working for Olan Mills this morning.

Rooster and the bobcat ("really cool tractor")

This afternoon after all the landscapers had left for the day, we paid the bobcat/tractor down the street a visit. These pictures were taken before Reid figured out how to honk the horn (which was surprisingly loud for such a small tractor). After he notified - with the horn - the entire neighborhood of our whereabouts, we prompty abandoned the bobcat we'd been admiring from our backyard and scooted home to ride big wheels.

Cherub Choir, Round 2

The Cherub choir sang again in church this morning.... They all looked so cute in their robes!

Pumpkin Patch

This afternoon we made our annual pilgrimage to the pumpkin patch at the church up the street. Trey and I were instructed to pick ours out (the bigger ones, obviously), while Lil and Reid spent a good long while contemplating which of the smallest pumpkins were the best.