I can wag my tail like Chunk.

Happy Halloween! So my little lion was terrified by R2D2 (A fabulous home-made costume, by the way) who was across the street. Almost so much so that he would not put his own costume on. But as kids started coming to our door, I think the idea of dressing up was not so weird. Eventually we got the costume on, took the requisite photos (I will upload them soon) and out the door we went. And soon his mantra was, "Let's get more candy!" Wyatt was super scared by a boy wearing a mask behind a bush, who knew enough not to jump out at a 3 year old, but just the fact that he was there, sent Wyatt screaming. And by the man under the table. I thought we were going to have a sleepless night, but I suppose an hour of walking around the neighborhood was enough to tire out even the fiercest of lions.

One of my favorite comments of the evening was when Wyatt realized he had a tail. "Look, my tail is wagging like Chunk's"

Here is a photo of Cousin Chunk:

Oliver is famous.

Check out the picture on the sidebar of coolmompicks.com...There is cute little Oliver on his blanket.

The sewing machine failed me.

I am on a mad dash to finish the costumes.
Lion-check, done. (thank goodness.)
Fish- designed, cut out, scales sewn... waaaa waaa. OK, no problem, I can whip it up tomorrow night while we watch the world series.

Not to be...my trusty sewing machine stops doing that magic thing it does and will not stitch. I clean, I fuss, I talk to it nicely, I talk to it with a little more anger, I get mad. We have a deadline. Oh you know that, huh? Humph! Fine.

The fish gets handstiched.

Trick-or-Treating on Oct 30th?

So I have this very tight time table of costume making laid out for myself. Last night, I am relaxing and sewing and Todd says, "You know Trick-or-Treating is on Thursday night, don't you?" I say, "No that is the 30th, Halloween is on Friday." Todd says, "Yes, but Trick-or-treating is on Thursday, I saw it in the paper."

What is this all about? I have never heard of declaring a date for a holiday. So goofy. And one day less to make my boys into a lion and goldfish!

The little primrose that could.

I bought this primrose to have on the table for Wyatt's Baptism a couple of years ago. Since then it has almost died, a few times. Most recently, when I put it outside in the garden this summer, some mean beetles invaded. I rescued it in the nick of time and look, it is in bloom again! I promise to keep you warm and well watered over the winter.

Letterboxing

We went letterboxing over the weekend. It was a lot of fun, a little arts and crafts and a little hiking enjoying the beautiful autumn day. Letterboxing is like a treasure hunt with directions. The treasure is a rubber stamp that the finder inks up and stamps in their own log book and then you leave your signature stamp in the log book. The letterboxing hunt we went on was a series based on "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", which was great because Wyatt was able to anticipate what was coming next. Oliver had his first ride on my back and slept most of the ride.

And this gal was wandering around the nature center getting exercise. She was so amazing and prehistoric looking.

What a (toothy) grin.

Oliver got his first tooth Friday!

Bottles bottles everywhere, but not a drop to drink.

I am a breastfeeding mom, but I work. So the routine is supposed to go like this, I pump at work and the baby drinks my milk from the day before, repeat. Simple, right? Not so simple when the baby refuses any feeding mechanism besides me. We have tried all sort of bottles: Avent, Born Free, Platex, Dr. Browns, Nuk, Evenflo, Avent Sippy Cup, Nuk Sippy Cup, Straws, Cups…
Luckily we have a very patient, loving caregiver for our stubborn little man who is willing to work with us. She has tried all sorts of feeding mechanisms, positions, locations, mediums (mixing with cereals) and nada. Oliver gave us hope last week when he ate 11 oz, but then he was quite determined not to drink the next day. The thing that gets me is we now know he can eat out of a bottle, but as the La Leche League representative said, he is making a choice and we have to respect it. So our nights have been spent eating and my days have been spent sleepy…



And I thought I would just be worrying about leaching BPA. So Sleepy…
Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Pumpkins!

Life is good when there are pumpkins to harvest at the end of the season.

A Tri.

I participated in a group triathlon on Saturday. Instead of swimming in the Susquehanna, I kayaked (as did everyone else). Our team was composed of current and former DuPonters and our name: Scientists Spanning the Seasons was shortened to SSS by the race officials, humf. I had a great team and in the end we finished 2nd in the mixed category, to a team of 4 people (2 people canoed in a racing canoe...does that seem fair???)

A Baptism

We had Oliver baptized over the weekend. Isn’t he sweet?
Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate with us.

And the cake we had to celebrate was, beautiful and totally amazing.
(made by Susan Lamb in Ulster, PA)