Carving like a boss

I am not the first Stringer to use power tools on a pumpkin.  Corey took that honor a few years back when he used a jig saw on the face of his jack-o-lantern.  It looked horrific, as one might expect.

This year, I was determined to make a different type of pumpkin for myself since I knew the kids would each want a traditional one.  I have zero artistic ability when it comes to carving delicate designs or painting (especially on an uneven surface like a pumpkin!), so I needed something a little easier.

I had seen the idea to make a polka dotted pumpkin using a really big drill bit, but I was worried about the candle getting enough air to keep burning.  I wasn't satisfied with the size of any of the bits I found in Corey's toolbox, but then I found the huge thingy that bores out a hole about an inch and a half in diameter.  (It attaches to a drill but I don't think it's called a bit?)

Ready?

GO!

The end result was nothing short of awesome, but there were a few casualties along the way.  First and foremost was the floor.  I cleverly covered the table to protect it, but the pumpkin shavings went EVERYWHERE.  Second, poor Peter did NOT like the noise the drill made and he screamed in terror while Corey held him in the family room throughout most of the process.

I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of it all lit up on the front porch.  Now what am I going to do to top that next year?

October preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch

I can't believe I failed to post these adorable photos of Charlotte's preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch.  The place we went is partly owned by the grandfather of one of the boys in her class (and partly owned by some friends of Barb & Larry!) so it was especially cool.  Even though the trip was virtually the same as the previous month's apple orchard excursion, we left this outing with some great pumpkins and very cute photos (courtesy of Barb, since our camera is busted).

Hooray for hay rides!  The woman in the orange shirt is Charlotte's beloved teacher, Mrs. Mann.

We picked out a little pumpkin to bring home to Peter.

Everything is more fun if there is a hay ride involved.

Can't go anywhere in the fall without people giving you cider and donuts!

One of the benefits of not being the photographer is that there can be pictures of me.

Playing catch-up with a special story time

[Our good camera is broken and I have been super lazy about posting anything lately using the camera as an excuse.  No more!  I have lots of fun stuff to post, and will just make do with the cruddy cell phone pictures.]

Luckily, this next report I have includes a photo sent to me by Charlotte's preschool.  Her NanaB was a special guest at school to read some spooky Halloween stories on behalf of the library.  Charlotte got to come up and help NanaB lead the class in a fingerplay about witches and ghosts, and Charlotte's sweet teacher snapped a photo to send to me.

Charlotte's class loved the story time and the next time Charlotte's friend, Shelby, was at the library she went on a hunt to find Charlotte's NanaB.  Barb didn't happen to be scheduled to work that day, so Shelby and her grandmother left a nice note for Barb on her desk.  Then, when Barb came to school to watch the class' Thanksgiving program, Shelby made a beeline to Barb and asked excitedly "did you get my note?!?!?"  It was very cute.

Scenes from Halloween

Cinderella informed me that princesses don't "smile big" for photos.  Someone should tell Kate Middleton that, I guess.

Batman was so in love with his costume that he is actually still wearing it on November 1st.  I dread the moment I have to rip it off of him.  Then again, it is made from some sort of polyester resembling tissue paper, so it might just literally rip right off of him at some point!

ENOUGH POSING FOR PICTURES!  IT'S TIME TO FIGHT CRIME AND COLLECT CANDY!!!

Costumes with winter coats over them are never quite as cool, but the kids dealt with it fine.  Corey reports that they were very good at saying "trick or treat" and usually remembered to say thank you.  Once Peter heard that he wasn't allowed to eat candy until he got back home, he decided it was time to return to the Bat Cave.  He lasted a good half an hour in 42-degree drizzle, though.

Charlotte lasted nearly an hour!  Here she is, posing bravely by a giant spider with red eyes.  She wasn't such a fan of some of the spooky graveyard scenes, though.

After the kids returned, their loot haul revealed that other houses were giving out full-size candy bars and other treats that FAR eclipsed the single Dum-Dum suckers (don't judge -- I didn't want to buy candy that I would be tempted to devour!) we were doling out.  Whoops.  We started handing out a few suckers at a time and started running low.  Charlotte donated the vast majority of her candy to the cause, since she really doesn't like a whole lot of it.  Whose child is she, anyway?  I held back all the full-size candy bars and we grabbed the rest of Peter's candy (he only likes suckers and M&Ms!) to give away as well.  We ended the night with just a handful left.  Perfect!

Happy Halloween from a little princess and her crime-fighting friend!

Sweet Sixteen Dance Party

To celebrate all of the birthdays that happen in Corey's family in the month of September (Corey, NanaB, GrandDad, Granny Great, and Ellie -- plus Uncle Doug, who couldn't make it), NanaB threw an oldies dance party.  I made Charlotte and Maisie a couple of felt poodle skirts for the occasion.

Maisie accessorized with a traffic cone party hat.

Quinn and Peter formed the local youth biker gang.

Ellie and Grandpa Great looked straight out of "Grease"!

Charlotte lent Granny Great a poodle skirt out of the dress-up box!

DJ Don was pumping the party tunes, and the kids hit the dance floor like pros.  No, I have no idea who taught Quinn his moves.

Time for the girls to dance!

It got a little chilly, so we headed inside to continue the party.

Happy birthday to all of the September Birthday Crew (and friends)!

A little piece of Tennessee came to visit

We miss all sorts of things about Tennessee, but one of the biggest ones is the Chabots.  Not that I mean they're big, but they were (and are!) such wonderful friends that it's seriously painful to even think about living so far away from them right now.  So, when they found themselves up in Michigan in September for a family wedding, we made sure to work in a quick reunion between all the nuptial activities.  It was like we had never been apart.  Thank goodness they have family up here and should have excuses for being up here from time to time.  Now we need to figure out how to arrange a Stringer visit to Tennessee so we can see them (and the Marshalls, Scotts, Herbs, etc. etc. etc.!).

We were having too much fun to take many photos, but I got a few quick shots of Drew and the goofball kids at lunch.

WE MISS YOU, DREW, KYM, LUKE, ODIE, AND GABE!!!!

The family pages

I am totally stuck on the next blog post, because it requires sifting through a bunch of adorable pictures and making Sophie's Choice-like decisions.  Hence, I am completely abandoning the chronological narrative and just posting something current.  More on those past events later.

Anyway, Charlotte had to bring in to preschool a double-sided paper with captioned photos of her family and pets taped to it.  It's going into a three-hole-punched page protector to be inserted into a binder full of all of the pages done by her whole class.  It was due, well, about five weeks ago or so.  I had a hard time deciding which pictures to use and honestly just kept forgetting about it.  I'm sure Charlotte's teacher has already labeled us as a problem family, because we were also shockingly late in getting her health appraisal form submitted.  We HAVE, amazingly enough, turned in her homework (yes, she has weekly homework!) on time and always return on time the class books that the teacher sends home with each kid every week.  I actually remembered to bring the class snack on our appointed day, but only because Charlotte reminded me.  I swear, I have more to remember to do for this class than I had to do for all of my law school courses combined.

Here are the family picture pages we finally came up with, after Corey had the brilliant idea to use the Comic Life program.  They turned out pretty cute and looked very nice after I had them printed out a two 8x10s and taped them to a piece of cardboard.  I can't wait to finally turn them in to her teacher!  (And sorry to all her aunts and uncles -- you didn't make the cut this time because we ran out of room.  It looks like Charlotte has a herd of orphans for cousins, but c'est la vie.)

Birthday building

That same day as Arts & Apples, we had Granny Great and Grandpa Great over for a dinner to belatedly celebrate Granny Great's 39th birthday (well that's how old SHE says she is, anyway).  Before we ate, Granny Great and the kids got silly building the tallest Lego tower ever.  Well, it seemed pretty darn tall to Peter, anyway.

Hmmm . . . what to do next?

Put another Lego on, of course!

Yup, that's Peter's ornery smile.  It was about this time that the game got to be finding more and more creative ways to knock down the tower while Charlotte laughed like a hyena.

It's so nice to have helpers when you're opening presents.  Charlotte was especially excited because Granny Great's present was a purse I sewed out of a pair of Charlotte's old jeans.

GG & GG brought a super cool floor puzzle with enormous pieces for the kids to assemble.  I think they put it together three times in a row (with a lot of help).

Gotta love a birthday party that ends with puzzles on the floor!  Happy 39th birthday, Granny Great!!

Arts & Apples & a wagon nap

The day Sonia and Erin left, we headed out to the local Arts & Apples festival to see the Rochester High School band play a little show.  In our quest to teach Charlotte and Peter about marching bands, we were willing to go see the band from Corey's rival high school -- but only because his parents met in the RHS marching band!  My parents also met in the Arizona State University marching band and my sister and her husband met in the University of Notre Dame marching band.  Corey and I would like to think that if we had been in the same college marching band that we would have started dating then, so we will be heartbroken if our mugwumps refuse to join the band.  Thus, we're starting early with the indoctrination.

We wound our way through some of the festival to reach the "Main Stage".

This was just a show with the band standing in place in horrific casual uniforms (t-shirts tucked into see-through elastic-waisted tapered-leg pants!), but at least the flags performed.  Peter liked to stand and bounce while watching the spectacle.

Charlie Jo watched intently and clapped gleefully after every song.  She was mesmerized by the flags.

"Hi band!"

Peter got a little bored about halfway through and started trying out new uses for his sunglasses.  Could they be a beard?

Peter then climbed into the wagon and demanded that we go.  I left Corey and Charlotte to watch the band while I pulled Peter around like a sultan reclining in his litter.  Things got quiet behind me as I looked at the crafts for sale, and when I heard some ladies giggling I turned around to find Peter completely zonked out.  We headed back to find Charlotte and Corey, and Corey took this photo of the Mommy-slave pulling the sleeping sultan.

Everyone we passed commented that THEY would like to be pulled around in such a manner as well.  One woman tried to buy Peter as a piece of art.  He did look pretty cute.

We looked around for a while, bought some presents, and walked about a half of a mile back to our car without Peter waking up.  Unfortunately, he was quite offended when I put him in his car seat for the ride home and he screamed all the way back to the house.

I can't imagine the horrible kink in his neck that he must have had after sleeping in that position had a very positive effect on his mood, either.  Poor Peter -- it's tough transitioning out of taking an afternoon nap when you're apt to fall asleep at odd times and in odd positions!

Wild times with Sonia and Erin

It still takes a long time for Erin and Sonia to drive to our house, but at least it's only 200 miles as opposed to 300 miles!  Next time, we'll be smarter about routing them around the Detroit rush hour instead of going through it.  True to form, Sonia fell asleep literally three minutes from our house.  When they pulled up, Charlotte and Peter practically leapt into the car with excitement.  Sonia slowly woke up and reached out to touch Charlotte smiling face as if to check if she was still dreaming. When she figured out it was reality, the three cousins had a gleeful reunion.  Those three really get a kick out of each other.

When they get together, there is a lot of running.

Had to put Peter in the Kyrene de la Mariposa t-shirt in honor of our beloved Tempe, Arizona elementary school!

Sonia and Charlotte had a little too much fun playing beauty parlor that morning and had insisted that Auntie Ernie put in no less than a dozen barrettes in their hair.  That's why they both looked a little like the Olympic gymnasts.

Sonia smiled even though she was not a fan of the super loud noise made at the farm across the street at the demolished an old concrete driveway.  We thought it hilarious that someone who could make nearly as much noise on her own would be so sensitive to it coming from another source!

Ring around the rosie!

Gotta watch a little Huckle (Busytown Mysteries -- a huge favorite of these three) for some downtime.

I ran down to the basement to get something and when I turned to head back upstairs I found them waiting for me like this.  All those little feet just cracked me up.

More running -- this time in their superhero capes!  Super Sillious, Captain Chaos, and Batman (Peter refuses to be called any other superhero name) harassed the kitten more than actually saving anyone, but they looked good doing it.

Charlotte also decided her name was Captain Knucklebuckle.  I'd say that's fitting.

Go, Batman, go!

We took Sonia to nearby Bear Creek Park and had a blast.

Best seesaw ever!  Charlotte actually took this picture (under Daddy's guidance).

Saturday morning, we drove out to Stony Creek Park.  The wind was a little wild, but it was nice and sunny.

Uncle Corey tried to help Sonia cross the monkey bars, but they didn't get very far.  You can see the lake in the background.

The girls are getting so big!  To bad their jackets spoiled the effect of their matching outfits.

Daredevil Charlotte is getting good at climbing all sorts of different ladders.  There are a million different fun features to this playground and each time we go we discover something new!

Goofballs!

This seesaw gets lower marks than the one at Bear Creek Park, though.  It didn't handle differences in weight very well.

Sonia spun her mommy on this goofy thing.

And then, she spun Charlotte on this crazy cup thing.

Teamwork!  We swish the kids could be together for Halloween because they would be hilarious as the Wonder Pets.  Charlotte would be perfect as Linny, Sonia would be Ming Ming, and Peter is a natural as Tuck, of course.  Alas, I think my kids are headed toward Batman and Princess as their costumes this year.  Not sure what Sonia is planning.

There's a cool elevator feature that gently lowers a kid down and then rises back up for the next rider when the kid dismounts.  The kids think it's hilarious.

That afternoon, we headed out to Berkley to see Brad and Amanda.  We watched the Michigan State game, grilled brats, and watched the kids run around like crazy in the back yard.  Declan wasn't there, but little Harry entertained us all in his absence.  I didn't get any good pictures that afternoon other than this one of Harry as he went from kid to kid, begging for bites of their frosted brownies.  They fed him like a puppy and Harry loved it.

We packed a lot of fun into those two days.  Erin has all the photos of our quick trip to the Rochester Cider Mill, so watch for those on her blog.  Thanks for coming!  Come back for a longer stay next time, and we'll show you more of Rochester and Oakland Township!!