Halloween 2011

This year, because their mom is so un-festive, Emma and Grady took it upon themselves to create Halloween decorations and dress up our house. They raided my tissue paper stash and made super spooky bats and spiders and pumpkins and signs and then taped them up all over the front of our house:

Then, for the first time, they (Dylan) carved pumpkins:

For trick-or-treating, Emma dressed up as a ladybug, Landon wore the monster/alien/bug costume that Grady refused to wear 2 years ago, and Grady was a pirate:

Landon really got into the whole trick-or-treating thing and promptly put every piece of candy he was handed straight into his mouth, wrapper and all:

Trick-or-treating is very much alive and well just down the street from our house. Literally hundreds of kids come out and the houses are super spooky and tricked out with all sorts of special effects. But NO ONE comes down our court because of the bend in the road and it's so dark. So, instead of buying a ton of candy that I would eat all by myself, I bought a box of real fruit fruit snacks to pass out. Yep, I'm that mom. And since no once came, my kids are stocked up with snacks that I'll actually let them eat- definitely one of my better ideas!

Not cool raccoons

Not cool at all...

Progress

5 years ago we sold our little 800 square foot house and bought this house. We loved the location. We loved the additional square footage. We loved gaining a second bathroom. We loved that Dylan could have an office at home. We loved that most of the interior had already been upgraded. And we loved the potential in our back yard.

2 years ago we began our back yard makeover by digging out part of our hillside and relocating our hot tub into the hill...

One year ago we added a back patio and french doors that lead out to it...
And finally, for the past few weeks we've been doing this:
We are SO excited to now have irrigation and, as Emma calls it, "the green kind of grass" (ie. not the brownish kind that we've had for the past 5 years!) in our backyard!

In 3 weeks when we're actually allowed to walk on it, I'll take some more pics and again someday when we have all of the borders planted. I just don't want to overwhelm y'all with more than one project competed per year ;)

The Fall Edition

Here's a photo recap of what we've been up to so far this fall....

Since Phil Collins isn't currently touring, I took Dylan to an Amy Grant/Michael W. Smith concert for his birthday...

Grady turned 4 and had his first real party, complete with digging for buried treasure....

We went camping with some dear friends from Cal Poly....

Landon turned 2 and got his first set of wheels (he can almost reach the pedals!)...

and he moved into a big kid bed....
and he started shaving....

My great friend from childhood, Christen, got married....

Our niece was a "real life" [homecoming] princess....

I sent the kids into the backyard to burn off some energy and they created this super safe contraption....

(a plank, a slide, and a lawn chair turned into a bridge)

We went to Mt. Diablo on a tarantula hunt....

Dylan took us to work with him and we stopped at Stinson Beach for a little fun....

And here I am, 38.5 weeks pregnant cooling off my swollen feet and hoping that this kid will come out SOON!

A real phone conversation I had today

Terri Brown (the director of Grady's preschool): Hi Julie, this is Terri Brown calling from Grady's preschool.

Me: Oh, hi.

Terri: Don't worry. Grady's fine.

Me:.....uh.........

Terri: I just wanted to let you know that during class today they were talking about smooth versus rough and each student had a smooth rock to feel when they were talking about that. Well, his teachers were cleaning up and noticed that his rock was missing so they asked him about it and he said he swallowed it.

Me:.......uh........

Terri: it was pretty small so it should pass on it's own.

Me: well, that's, um, good.

Terri: okay, well, I just wanted you to hear it from me before you came to pick him up after school and heard it from his teachers. I didn't want you to panic.

Me: Okay. Thanks for letting me know.