Good Day

This is my favorite thing to see.  (We're at Moe's.)

Storytime!

We are at Barnes & Noble for storytime, with Danielle and Sabine.  I'm glad we came.  This is fun!

When You Wish Upon A Keyboard...

We are working on our wishlists, but mostly G's. You can find it here. Whether or not you think it tacky to make a wishlist, it is practical. We'll try in the next couple weeks to come up with stuff for the older of us, but we're easy. Okay, I'm easy - I love everything from funky jewelry and antique brooches to yarn, old movies, and board games... Matthew, on the other hand, well, he needs clothes but wants nothing, unless it's something Georgia doesn't sell on Sundays.

Okay, now it's your turn. Tell us what you want!

Good Meat

I think lunchmeat tastes so much better when it's wrapped in paper. There's something so satisfying about unwrapping it, like you're opening a present. A yummy present of meaty goodness.

This is the best way to view Clone Wars.  And life.  I love blogging from the comfy chair.  I may never get up again.

Drivin' And Bloggin'

We used to do audio blogging from our phone, a long time ago, but now we're going to attempt this a new way from our phone.  I may even figure out how to include a photo.  It would be cool to post from the top of a mountain or some such craziness.  Well, if this works, I can say goodbye to boredom in the car (as a passenger, of course!).

p.s. It worked! Woot!

Family Time

Since G's behavior has started to reflect our stress levels lately (and the tougher the discipline, the worse it gets), we have been making an effort to give him extra love, extra attention, and extra fun. Today, for example, after school he had a doctor appointment. He knew that he was going to get shots. So on the way there, we stopped at Walgreens so he could watch Mommy get a flu shot first and see that it isn't a big deal. We took his special blanket, his pillow, and Charkie, as well as lots of food, snacks, juice, and toys, with us to the doc so he would have every comfort. We even brought his stamp pad and "smile chart", along with his Very Big Prize Blackarachnia for him to earn with his bravery. It helped that he got to do hearing and vision tests, which were very fun for him. By the time we left, he was thanking me for bringing him to the doctor (did I mention he got 4 shots, including the painful flu shot?). He loves Dr. Barfield!

From there, we went to Goldberg's Deli for bagels, and then to Cumberland Mall, to kill time before tutoring. It was a very special treat for Chip to go tutor with me, because it's usually too late for him and he misses playing with Christian. They are good buddies, and they played great together today.

G even got to eat Moe's for dinner, which is his favorite. Since he's never up late anymore, he was so excited by all of the lights and being able to see inside all of the businesses on the way home. It was adorable. He got a bath at home, and we had just enough time to play two games of Cariboo (M 1, G 1, P 0).

This kind, gentle approach definitely works better than anything else. He's been super great this week.

My Store - Shameless Plug

I just want to let you know where my little online store is, in case you or someone you know might enjoy my yarny creations. It's here.

Also, you can now become a "follower" of our blog by clicking the link you see on the left that says "Follow this blog." Easy, right?!

Grief, Hard Work, and Celebration

This past week has been extremely difficult for us.

First: Matt's beautiful grandmother Eileen Kranz, passed on yesterday afternoon. Not only has she been more dear to Matt than can be expressed in words, and not only did she share a good deal in raising him to be the person he is, but she also was admired and loved by me, her granddaughter by marriage, and by her great-grandson. I will let Matt write more about this when he sees fit, because I think this is his story to tell, or not tell. But I will say that we will miss her on Earth very much, and we will work hard to replace the sadness in our hearts with loving and lasting memories.

Second: My yarn partner abruptly quit our little venture three days before our craft show, so I had to rush to complete more items, get together all of the marketing stuff like tags and business cards, gather supplies and props, print patterns to sell, and other things in only 3 days. I haven't talked said much about this to our friends, because they know her too and I don't want to act inappropriately, but it's a very odd situation and one that I did not provoke. I'm trying to remain tactful about everything, but I can't help but feel angry, even as I'm trying to let go of the anger. We will have to explain to G that he will no longer be able to play with these friends of his, but what do we say? I just wish that whatever she's going through didn't have to involve the kids. Anyway, facing this craft fair as a sole vendor was one of the scariest things I've done in a long, long time. It was also a heck of a lot of work, but I'm extremely proud that I was able to face the challenge and still keep my wits about me. I would not have been able to do this without the nonstop and unquestioning help of my beautiful husband, my mom being at our beck and call and basically taking care of G for 4 days straight, and the support of my amazing friends. But today, I faced my fear, didn't make a fool of myself, and completed my goal. It feels really good.

This one found a really great home!

Skye needs an adjustment. But check out her new awesome 'do!

Joel is better at flying airplanes than Christophers.

The view from my table. Well, more like from above my table...

After the craft fair, we watched Michigan finally win a game!

This evening, we were invited to a Clue dinner party at our neighbors' house, so we dressed as Mrs. Peacock and Mr. Green. If you look closely, you can see I'm slipping a wrench into my purse. I don't think Mr. Green noticed, do you? Also, check out the question mark baked into our dinner. Fran is a terrific chef!

Not bad for a minister and a widow, eh?

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The scariest thing about Halloween was the voting line!

We're trying small photos today (except for the enormous Ben 10 image - sorry about that), in order to cut down the time it takes your computer to load this page. You can still click on each photo to see a larger version, as usual. We will have a lot of photos today, so we'll see if this helps.

VOTING

We Baracked the vote yesterday, and it turned out to be an all-day affair. It took us about 3 hours, 30 minutes. G was a complete angel the entire time, and we were proud that it seemed that everyone within an hour wait of us complimented us on his behavior. People two barricade lines over were leaning over, and we heard people even farther back talking to each other about him and how they couldn't believe a kid that age would be sitting so calmly. If only he always acted so well, life would be so much easier! Here are some pics from the line. You can see that nearly everyone had something to read or, in my case, crochet. The yellow pages are sample ballots. We did not hear a single cross word; everyone seemed to be happy to be there, and nobody complained about the line even once. We were all probably just happy we wouldn't be in the even longer wait come Tuesday.

HALLOWEEN

Gabriel had a really great time on Halloween. The turn out in the neighborhood seemed to be a good bit smaller than last year, but attendance in our house was much higher. Madeline, Zillah, and Iggy came over with Rebecca and Kirk to trick or treat with us. Along the way we met up with Gabriel's friend Drew from down the block and we had a lot of fun getting our candy. As you can see, Patty dressed up as Ben Tennyson's cousin, Gwen, and Matt was their friend and fellow alien fighter Kevin Levin. We made the first two images larger to compare our pose with that of the real Ben, Gwen, and Kevin.

This is Joe. Gabriel's class weighed, carved, and named him. It was a great class project. We got to bring him home, because we'd donated the pumpkin. We were so excited to bring him home and think he had a fun Halloween with us.

This is Gabriel's jack-o-lantern. Even though he was Ben 10, he still loves his Transformers!

Some houses were scarier than others. This one belongs to a "baby nurse," as she called herself.

Gabriel got a lot of really great candy (most of which he probably won't be allowed to ever eat!), but most of all enjoyed his special Halloween treats of Echo Echo (one of the aliens that Ben Tennyson can change into) from Bunnut, his transforming calculator from Bun, and his spooky Halloween bouncy balls from Mommy and Daddy. After the kids slipped into nice, carbo-crash enduced sleeps, the adults checked out the Checkwood's new Wii purchase: Guitar Hero World Tour, which comes complete with drums and a microphone. We got the band back together again and had a great time until the wii (ha ha) hours of the morning. We love Halloween!