Halloween Eve II

I predicted it last Halloween Eve and it's true. Penelope will likely be a leopard this year.

This is a long and tragic tale of the toddler who would not wear the super fantastic lion costume her great-aunt Sandy spent two weeks making, not to mention driving it to Illinois, so that Carolyn's Dorothy, complete with Toto and ruby-red slippers, could have some company. Penelope is on my list, although I'm including a picture of Carolyn so you can see the scope of this costume.

While today is not actually Halloween, Carolyn had her party at school (pictured below with her class. How cute!)and we're going downtown (uptown) Normal tonight for the business trick or treating while picking up our CSA veggies from farmer Henry. Only three more weeks after tonight. I am so sad.

So here are some preview pictures. If you want to see what Penelope will look like, just look at last year's pictures of Carolyn, who was a kitty cat, not a leopard.

I've certainly gotten my money's out of Carolyn's $40 Gymboree-jumper/cheetah costume.

The wrath of cable

I'm in the kitchen making a feast. For who? Well my 90-pound Aunt Sandy. Anyhow, I'm in the midst of making the frosting for my one-day-to-be-famous butter cream frosting cake (OK, it's a Cook's Illustrated recipe, but it'll be famous in my family with its POUND AND A HALF of butter) when I hear laughing in the living room

What? The girls aren't trying to murder each other. I let it go... Turns out, Carolyn had found her new favorite show on our cable-accessible television — America's Funniest Home Videos. The LOVE it. I don't so much mind the laughter, but I kind of cringe at the-applause.

Earlier today, I put a dress on Carolyn my mother-in-law got her a few weeks ago. Carolyn's dress shoes had outgrown her (she complained about them the last time she wore a dress) so I got out these shoes I bought last Spring at Meijer. They were originally $22, but I got two pair for $5 (buy one pair, get the other free, or something like that) and I had kind of forgotten what they looked like, only that they were brown.

Tell me these shoes weren't made for this dress... Amazing.



Also, here's a picture of Penelope. I just told my mom today that I'm ready to cut her hair, but when I see pictures of her, I just don't know if I can do it.

People are stupid

The family and I went to this fall festival over the weekend at a nearby nature preserve. The preserve is pretty rockin', but the festival was kind of lame. They did have a country band, which was fun, but it was about 80 degrees outside, much too warm to enjoy hot cider.

Anyhow, while we were listening to a band, Steve found some liter. It was ORGANIC chocolate bars, wrapped in a plastic bag and thrown to the ground. If you're going to go through the trouble of buying organic dove bars, shouldn't you at least pick up your trash??

I've been photo deficient lately, so here's a picture of the girls riding the wagon to the festival. Also, here's an older pic of Jeremiah during his last visit. We totally miss him.

Oh so busy

I just can't get caught up. On top of the kids and cooking and school and work and traveling (thankfully over now) and oh-how-I-hate-you laundry, Steve and I went and got cable.
So now I'm forced to catch up on three missing years of the Comedy Channel. Did you know South Park is still funny?
We've been without cable for about three years now, and frankly, I'm a little disappointed it's back. For one, not having cable gave us this great "oh, we're so sophisticated we don't need television" one-up over other people. And two, we don't use cable to give us access to the history channel or book review channel or anything even mildly intellectual.
No. I like the Soap Network. And music videos. Basically anything where hot people are prancing around saying stupid things. That's my idea of prime entertainment.
So we've gone from pretension to jaw-dropping morons in one-fell swoop.
But I will say this for paid television. It's so much clearer than the little rabbit ears on top of the TV. I can't tell you how many times it took me the better part of a first half to get an acceptable view of a football game.
So there you have it. If you call me in the next few weeks and I don't answer the phone, know that I'm catching up on the new reality show where some woman named tequila tries to find true love with a straight man or a lesbian woman. Seriously, you can't get that on network.

Get off my boat

Carolyn is so funny. Today, she told off a popular, cute high school boy, and he took it...

We were at the playground and Carolyn decided a portion of the playground, only accessible by bridge, was her boat. We were fishing and eating and having a lovely day on the water when Penelope wandered off.

Cute high school boy wanders on. He and his friends (they were all meeting at the playground for track or something) were swinging on the playground equipment and landed on the boat.

Carolyn, walking across the bridge stops. She looks him in the eye and said, clear as day, "Get off my boat."

And he did. I love that.

Back to Blog

Yes, it's been a while since blogging. But my life has just been crazy the last few months. First the back and forth to Michigan for dad's illness and then his memorial, which is the saddest freakin' thing I'd ever seen. Then, a few days home before heading to Vegas where some old friend and I pretended to be 22 again. And now home, again, where work and girls and school and house are waiting for attention. AND, Penny's sick.

So... blogging? Not so important.

But, for the sake of historical preservation, let's go through a few girl things.

* Carolyn won't pull the stopper out of the bathtub until she takes out the number "1" because she's scared it'll go down with the water.

* Penelope sings ALL the time and can climb almost everything Carolyn can.

* Carolyn can ride a tricycle. Pretty well.

* Penelope loves to pretend she's a lion.

* We finally got cable. Cable!!!!

That's all for now. We won't be leaving Illinois for the next 8, 9, hmmm... years? So please come see us. We have cable!
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