Halloween!!!!!!

Happy Halloween!! Trick or treat time!! Here is Drew, in his fireman costume...Drew had his 6 year well-check today. He is 47 1/4 in. (almost 4 feet!) and 52 lbs., which is 80th/80th. Dr. Matt says our kids are always very consistent :) He's doing wonderfully, growing like a weed and doing everything a 6 year old should!

The adorable pink poodle, Katie:
And here's Chicken Little, Alex:A family picture:
First stop, Miss Susie's...you can see Alex in the back with the lollipop already in her mouth! She did not want to leave, she would have been happy to stay here all night and just keep taking Miss Susie's lollipops. She didn't even know Miss Susie put a free Frosty coupon in her bucket!
Alex and I met Jim Tressel!!!!! Oh wait, that's Bob the Neighbor, in a very good costume! The kids recognized him easily, even though he doesn't usually have gray hair! Alex was yelling "Hi Bob!" all the way down the street. One year he was Darth Vadar, and scared our kids! The beat up hockey player was a good one too!

Oh, and for anyone who may not know who Jim Tressel is (if that's possible)...I told you it was a good costume!

This year's pumpkins:

Here is the cat that I carved...Rich knocked off a piece that was between its tail and body before this picture...you can sort of see it in the picture above, the way it's supposed to be!

Rich's Jolly Roger:

And Drew's bat, I taped the pattern on the pumpkin for him, but he punched it out and put all the pegs in all by himself!!

Katie's 1st Day of Gymnastics

October 31st: Katie had her 1st day of gymnastics! She was so excited. Her friend, Norah, from school is in her class. She could barely wait until 11:30!


I had to watch from up above, I hope to get some better pictures next week when Rich is there with me. Here she is stretching, Norah is on her right.
Katie and Norah jumping away! Katie was very worn out after her first class!
This picture is too dark, but she is swinging on the bar, and she had to pull her toes up and touch the orange scarf, which she did several times!
And, back home! Katie had so much fun, she refused to take her gymnastics outfit off...she even wore it to the pediatrician's office for Drew's well-check! And she has asked about a million times if it is time to go back to gymnastics yet! I would say she definitely loved it!

Katie's Halloween Parade

Katie had her 1st preschool Halloween parade! She was the cutest little pink poodle ever!

And here are some pictures of Katie with her class...

The First Riverbox

It's a little bit difficult to explain what the riverboxes are, so I will just quote from the paper we were given: "The Dublin Arts Council's Riverbox project modeled after letterboxing and geocaching, commissioned six artists to create public art works placed discreetly in Dublin parks with access to the Scioto River. This project encourages and promotes community involvement in locating and investigating the boxes that reveal information about Dublin's history and environment." It was encouraged by his school that we visit 2 riverboxes in the fall, 2 in the winter, and 2 in the fall. So, here is our first visit, this one is the Big Turtle Riverbox located at Scioto Park (Leatherlips):


Here are Drew and Katie, by the turtle.

We visited this riverbox with our friends/neighbors, the Campagnis and the Magyars...backrow Drew, Vince C., and Casey M....then Katie...then Aiden M. and Brady M. in the front
In this picture, next to Drew is Vincent (they are in the same kinde class) and next to Katie is Aiden M., in the front is adorable little Brady M. and Anthony C. in the very front.

In the backyard...

October 19th: Just hanging out playing in the backyard, when it was discovered that out of nowhere, Drew can do the monkey bars! We don't know what happened, he turned 6 and now he's an expert at them...before he just sort of hung and dropped :) So, of course, he said we needed to get the video camera...so here is Drew, on the monkey bars:



And, not to be outdone, Katie on the monkey bars:



Alex has taken to a new style of swinging, so here she is "flying":



And just some cute pics of our little monkey trying to climb up to do the monkey bars too!

Spooktacular

It's Spooktacular time again! This is our 3rd year in a row going, the kids just love it. They mostly just love the bounce houses and slides, and getting in costumes, but it's always a lot of fun! Here we are heading there...



Here's a slideshow of the kids sliding and bouncing...

And here's a video of them bouncing away...



Okay, so I did try to let Alex go in one of the bouncy things with Drew and Katie and she was absolutely mortified that I would try to shove her in one of those things and leave her! Rich said it was like a little jail for babies...she definitely was NOT happy about it, poor little thing...
Drew and Katie in the straw maze...
Daddy, Drew, and Katie getting ready to enter the "spooky" forest! Not too spooky in broad daylight, not really spooky at all :)

Happy 6th Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Drew!!! Our baby boy is 6 years old, so hard to believe! His official party isn't until next weekend, but here he is with his birthday cake. He had a full day of school, came home to have the Footes and the Thompsons over for pizza and cake, and rush out the door to soccer practice! He's a busy little man!


Since it was his birthday week, Drew got to be Star of the Week at school. The best part of his week was that he got to choose whichever job he wanted, his favorite being the "calendar helper". He had to make a poster of pictures of things that told the other kids more about him, his family, and the things he loves to do, so here is his poster...I need to try to get a better picture of it now that he has brought it home again.

October 12th--our last day before heading home

It was a chilly morning, the breeze was so cool we decided to just walk along the beach and enjoy the morning without swimming.

Our last sunset, it was a beautiful evening and a gorgeous sunset! Absolutely perfect!

Drew and Katie posing beside the sand castle that Drew and Papaw built earlier that day. Drew was the only one not brave enough to swim with the jellyfish, he built a sand castle instead!

One last picture!

October 11th

For some reason, this day, we did not take many pictures! It was a day of relaxation and fun...we hit the beach in the morning, came in for lunch, and then went back out when it got a bit warmer after lunch! In the morning, it was pretty chilly, but we braved it anyway...Alex got a bit cold and when we came back in, she was pretty unhappy so she and I took a little time to veg to some Dora and eat a snack...Rich thought she looked so cute with her big bowl of cereal (the only plastic bowl in the house) and so he snapped some pics of her.

These are from the night before, but I thought I'd put them here anyway...Rich caught this funny picture of Alex playing with her straw...

So, after we all looked at the picture, and laughed, our little comedian recreated the scene for a picture of his own...Katie, refused to put the straw in her mouth...she has too much pride...crayons are okay though...

These are from the 10th also, but we saw dolphins every morning from our balcony. You may have to click on the picture to make it bigger, but if you look about halfway out in the water, you can see the fins. There were a few times when we saw the dolphins jump straight out of the water, but never when a camera was handy, of course!

October 10th--our first full day in Florida

We had a busy day this day! We went to the beach for the first time and got to get in the gulf:

After all that exciting beach play and swimming, we ate lunch and headed out to check out the Eden Gardens State Park:

Then, back to the beach for some more fun:

After the beach, we would head to the pool. Drew said he liked the pool more than the gulf, but we told him we didn't fly all this way for the pool! Here's the gang having fun...later this day, we bought innertubes for everyone and a beach ball, and they loved their innertubes, even Alex, who refused to get in one at our Dublin pool this summer! The pool was always warm, so even on the chillier mornings we could play in here!





Drew and Papaw soaking up some sun...or maybe just taking a break from all the swimming!





Nana and Alex in the pool.





There were butterflys everywhere, especially monarchs. They were heading south too! Carla, any of these look familiar? Senor Mariposa, is that you?