Happy Halloween... take two!

If at first you don't succeed, try again using Firefox (see the previous post.) I don't know what it is, but if I can't load things using Explorer, Firefox usually comes through for me. So you don't have to wait on my Halloween pics after all!

One thing I have learned is that the more kids you have the harder it gets to have them all looking at the camera at the same time...

First Jenna looks away...

then Olivia blinks her eyes...

and then Olivia looks away. Oh well, you get the point.

And for our Halloween characters we have Sleeping Beauty,

a jedi knight,

and a bumble bee!

And the prize for the best "treat" in the candy bucket goes to...

Our dentist for giving all the kids toothbrushes AND a bag of candy. And as my childhood dentist had posted in his office "Brush only those teeth you wish to keep!" (especially after Halloween!)

Sweet dreams everyone!

Happy Halloween!!

Okay, so after 15 or so frustrating attempts to load my halloween pictures to blogger, all I have to show is one picture. I guess everybody else is trying to load their equally cute halloween pics tonight. Well, I can't wait on a server to catch up to the demand because I have a very early morning tomorrow, so my teaser picture is Jenna...

demonstrating what our kids looked like this evening after eating a healthy portion of their Halloween candy.

(More Halloween pictures to follow.)

Blog catch-up

I guess I am busier here than I was in AZ, either that or not as motivated lately. Anyway, I have caught up with my blog and have a bunch of new posts to catch you up on our lives. The only thing these posts lack is details about the latest change in our house. We pulled Robby out of the public school to homeschool. This is not necessarily a permanent change, but for now it will remain this way for the duration of this school year. We have been homeschooling for two weeks and things have been going great! It was a much needed change. There were some significant reasons that we made this change, but I am not going to detail them on the blog. If you are curious, please feel free to ask me.

Our sleeping princess

Or rather, one of our sleeping princesses...

Kids are pretty sweet when they're asleep, aren't they?

A trip to Indy to visit the museum

On the last day of my parent's visit we decided to go to Indy to check out the really cool Children's Museum there. Some people say it is the best children's museum in the nation (there you go, yet another reason to come visit us!) Well... I still haven't seen it! Yup, we got there and it was closed! Just our luck to arrive on a Monday when they have it closed for construction.

We were a little bummed, but we decided to check out the Indiana State Museum as our alternate. It was nice, and had some fun features, but I must admit that it was a bit of a let down after anticipating the fun were going to have at the children's museum.

First random fact, they Indiana has a totem pole. Or at least that's what they call this large Indiana sculpture.

Chap really liked the pre-historic Indiana exhibit complete with a giant lobster thing overhead.
And here are my two, not-so-happy indians and their wigwam.

On the way out of the exhibit, there was this very nice grandmotherly lady who had a small stand of "Grandma's toys" for the children to try out. It had old-fashioned toys like a 3-D picture viewer that was a precursor to the View Master toys we have today.

Even Olivia got to try out a wooden chain toy!

Chap discovered he is great at the cup and ball game.

Jenna figured, if Chap can do this so can I!

About the best thing that was at the museum was the exhibit on Chocolate! They did have chocolate there to eat ... for a price. It was interesting to read about the history of Chocolate. Interestingly, cacao beans were once used as currency by the Aztecs. Since I can be a chocoholic, I can see why!

One of my pretty cute girls!

Some days your kids are just especially cute and you can't help but want to take a picture of them. You know what I mean. Jenna was having one of those days...

Ow-ow-owoooooooo

At the end of our first day with Grandma and Grandpa we took them to howl with the wolves near our house. No, they aren't wild. As you can see from the picture they are behind a fence. There is a park near our house where they study wolves, and every Friday and Saturday night they do a presentation called Howl Night. These wolves are used to humans, and the people who work with them actually go in the enclosure. In fact the trainers are treated almost like one of the pack right down to wolfy kisses on the lips! (Yuck!) During the presentation the trainers invite the spectators to howl and when we all start howling the wolves start howling with us. Hence this blurry picture of one howling...

Since they were on the other side of a fence all I really got were great pictures of a fence, although this one above was the best shot I got.

So, if you come to visit during the right season you might be lucky enough to take a trip with us over to howl with the wolves!

The Colors

In the afternoon of our first day with Grandma and Grandpa we went over to a local botanical garden to take a walk on one of the trails and enjoy the beauty of the first colors of fall. I must admit that I am enjoying the chance to see the fall colors transform the landscape around here. My favorite are the very red leaves, especially when the tree is still mostly green and one side is lit up with red. It makes the trees look like they are on fire. Very cool!

Photographer Chap took this one for us.

I just love the burst of color in the upper canopy.

Beautiful!

We had a very enjoyable stroll.

This is all very different from where we were living (isn't it Andra?!)

Little Jenna leads the way!

The brilliant colors have made the oncoming colder weather a little more bearable.

Grandpa and Grandma Visit

Two weeks ago, my parents came for a short visit, and we had a fun few days showing them around our new home town. The first day they were here we took them over to the University to check out an interesting paper airplane exhibit. At first when Robby told me about the paper airplane exhibit I thought that he meant ones that could really fly, but apparently not. Instead they were different artist creations, and they were all suspended from the ceiling with little strings. This was the one we all liked best... Robby and my mom called it the grasshopper.

Since Robby had a picture with Grandma and Grandpa, Jenna decided that she had to have one, too!

Then we went to another exhibit at the university that was about faces. Jenna added her own rendering of her face to the wall.

Pumpkin Patch

Earlier this month Jenna, Olivia, and I took a trip to a local pumpkin patch with our weekly playgroup pals. It was a cool fall day (I've been getting a real taste of what I am in for this winter, let's just say that it doesn't look good when I'm already freezing and we're only in October! Can't we just skip to spring?)

Jenna really liked the hay ride that we got from the parking lot over to the pumpkin patch.

This place was a genuine pumpkin patch, where you go out and cut your pumpkin straight from the vine. Because there were so many in our group we couldn't pick pumpkins bigger than the pie pumpkins. They were free, so we didn't complain!

But, we did admire the big ones.

As a bonus, Jenna got a funny looking gourd that she proudly pointed out was shaped like a "J" when turned upside down!

This my "proof that Olivia and I were really there" picture.

Jenna Today

As I was getting in the car after strapping her in she exclaimed, "An ostrich just flew off their roof!" (Refering to the roof next door.)

"Oh really!" I replied.

"Yeah!"

Feast of the Hunter's Moon

A week ago Saturday, we had a chance to experience Indiana History in real life. Not to far from where we live, there is a yearly festival called "Feast of the Hunter's Moon." It is a "re-creation of the annual fall gathering of the French and Native Americans which took place at Fort Ouiatenon, a fur-trading outpost in the mid - 1700s." The Feast kind of reminded me of the Renaissance Festival I used to go to as a kid, just a different time period. Here's what we saw when we arrived...

"Thousands of participants re-enact this event creating a feast for your senses. Smell the wood smoke, hear the report of the rifles, savor authentic food and more." (quoted from the website) The field was covered in tents and people dressed in 1700s attire.

Olivia's not sure what to think!

Jenna was thrilled to feed the goats that day. (I just had a flash back to one of her earlier experiences with farm animals. We took her to Dugan's Dairy and she freaked out when the pig tried to greet her. See post here.)

We thought this was a pretty cute sight!

I like the part about "Children Chastised."

And here's our own little Davie Crocket, complete with his own bottle of authentic root beer.

We stopped to rest in the shade and Dad thought he would close his eyes, but Jenna insisted he couldn't sleep!

While I was watching Jenna attack Dad, Olivia tried to make a getaway!

One demonstration that Little Robby was fascinated by was the blacksmith, so we let him watch while we walked around the corner and bought...

bonnets!

For both our girls!

What sweet prairie girls we have!

This was the way to travel in style in the 1700s.

Little Robby was riveted to spot where he sat watching the blacksmith. We finally had to insist it was time to go before he conceded, but before we left we did buy a large dinner triangle made by this blacksmith to remember him by. Now I have a great way to call my chillins to supper!