October--Birthdays, Canning, and Ghosts, Oh My!

Hi all,

Laura may not be in a position to post today (let's just say there was some illness and throwing up involved--probably because the peach nectar we made earlier was so good that she decided to have too much), so I thought I'd just have a quick post with the montage we finished yesterday.

We apparently haven't done a montage since the beginning of the month and my birthday on the third. I thought Laura's birthday cupcakes were quite original. Also, if anyone's interested in how I did the water balloon inside the air balloon, I'll make a tutorial :) I have ideas on how I'd make a water balloon inside an air ballon inside a water balloon, but I'm not sure I could pull that off.

Occasionally Ethan and Gabe will play together in really funny ways, so I decided to get some footage of them playing over the gap in the table (hence the shakiness). I'm afraid I missed some of the funniest things they said/did, but this should give you an idea.

Here's a funny thing Ethan said the other day. I had just finished asking him what he did to make Gabe cry:

Ethan: "I hit him on the head."

Me: "Was that a good thing or a bad thing?"

Ethan: "It was a bad thing."

Me: "Why?"

Ethan: "Because it made him cry...and you are big people."

And here's one from Gabe. We've been trying to work on both of their pronunciation recently:

Laura: "Gabe, say 'avocado.'"

Gabe: "Atado"

Laura, enunciating: "Avocado"

Gabe: "Motorcycle"(pronounced in his own way, of course)

Hmmm, we'll have to work on that.

The kids were getting in the Halloween spirit by being ghosts. Actually, they do that all the time, but we encourage it more around Halloween, I guess?

A few days ago, Melissa/her family, Stephen/Shawna, and Laura/me/the boys decided to have a picnic dinner get-together at a park. We had a lot of fun. What doesn't appear on the video is the frisbee and the basketball (which Liam and Zoe participated in and did quite well, I thought). Also the delicious cake because this was in part an October birthday celebration. My birthday as well as Zoe's, and Shawna's birthdays all happened this month.

Anyway, everything else is going well. enjoy!

End of September

We meant to post this earlier.  It's just another montage of the regular stuff we've been doing around here. We've (I've) been horrible at taking pictures, probably because we don't have as many free hands as we used to.  We've also just plain forgotten to take the camera with us on many outings and so the phone camera has had to suffice --which accounts for the poor quality of some of the pictures.  In fact last weekend we went to our nephew's baptism, had family visit us, and blessed Logan, and except for the pictures my in-laws took, we didn't manage to get pictures of any of it. Luckily Richard's dad recorded some of the action as Richard and his brother had fun juggling after the baptism (and no, they are not juggling with the green tomatoes you see in the forefront of the video, in case you thought that, like I did). 

Although we still have fun playing the usual indoor games such as "boofer cushion" (which has evolved some as you can see) we have also made an effort to get out and enjoy the last of the summer weather --which I'm surprised lasted as long as it did. I think it's what they call an Indian Summer, although I'm not sure why.  Today was actually the first day that it kind of felt like fall because it's been cold and rainy.   

A few weeks ago, we went for a picnic and Richard and the boys found a cool tree to climb. That was also our first fishing trip at the nearby lake as well (again no pictures). We've actually gone fishing one other time, and as usual, neither ended in success. In fact, the last outing ended in a snag and a lost lure, and eventually in the breaking of our only pole.  Yeah, we're pretty much a disgrace to my family.  I think the kids enjoyed it though.  Of course, we had to keep them away from where the fishing was happening since their idea of fishing is merely a opportunity to throw rocks into the water. Richard has also been making use of the tennis courts that are near us to wear out the kids before bedtime. We went together one of the times taking the baby with us, and the kids had fun pushing the stroller around one court while we hit a few balls back and forth in the other.  It was a great set up :).  

Anyway, here's our newest montage.