And...Monster, Monster, Monster

Lily's ballet class learned a special dance to the "Monster Mash" this week. Here, the teacher is encouraging them to "Monster! Monster!" It was pretty darn cute.

Halloween Party

Lily's friend Avery and her family invited us to the Halloween Party at their country club. Wolfgang's favorite part was the cupcake decorating.



Avery's dad has a much stronger back than I do. I could never fend off spiderman and Darth Vader at the same time!













The girls are hard at work, gluing feathers to their pumpkins. That *is* the traditional way to make a jack-o-lantern, right?


Practicing his "innocent" look. Don't believe him. (Wolfgang, incidentally, went as a fireman stripper. he has already stripped by this photo)

One of these things is Not like the others.

This is Wolfgang's "Creative Movement" class. Notice how all of the kids are wearing turtlenecks, sweaters, and cords? It was about 40 degrees and pouring rain that day. We're working on getting Wolfgang to wear more clothes, but aren't having all that much progress.He's a man with his own plan.
Whee!

Wolfgang Help!

Wolfie doesn't like to sleep alone. While Erich was out of town, I would have to run out of bed to do a chore or two, and then hop back in bed to get him back to sleep every 15 minutes or so. One night, I just couldn't take it anymore, so I got him up while I finished the dishes and laundry. I put him in charge of stirring the apple butter in the slow cooker. He looks pleased, no? That white stuff all down his shirt is sugar. mmmmmm.....sugar....

ZooBoo!

"Holy Crap, it's Tom Knight!"

We just hadn't had enough excitement after the Scarecrow Jubilee, so we got in the care and drove to Syracuse to go to the Zoo Boo. It was really cold, so I didn't let the kids dress up in costume. I think they were happy to be warm.

Lily's not so sure about that dude in the penguin suit.

This "ride" cracked me up. They loaded the kids onto a wooden "pirate ship" and then the "pirates" rocked it back and forth while yelling "Yo Ho!" Lily seemed a little stunned by the experience.

Wolfgang at Platform 9 3/4
Expelliarmus!

Lily finally stood still long enough for a photo.

The kids insisted on staying until the very end (we had planned to leave at 7:30), so we didn't leave Syracuse until about 9 pm. The kids all fell asleep on the ride back, and I delivered Greta to her parents at about 10:30 pm. They were surprisingly gracious about my having kept their one year old out until 10 on a Saturday night!

Now I just have to figure out how to occupy them for the rest of the time that Erich is in China...

Scarecrow Jubilee

Yesterday afternoon ,the Children's Garden held the Scarecrow Jubilee. Being suckers for a free event, we went and made ourselves a scarecrow.



Lily and her friend Julia show off their scarecrows. Ours now lives next to the deck, and creeps me out when I see it out of the corner of my eye.

Pumpkin Jam

The Ithaca Children's Garden held their annual Pumpkin Jam on Friday night (it makes me so hungry to type pumpkin jam). We took the kids to carve pumpkins, drink cider, and listen to music.



Lily and her friend Zachary show off their jack o'lanterns

Can she lift it? hmmm...

Greta was a big fan of the pumpkin - Deeelicious!

Sanding the Bench

Lily's preschool has some outdoor furniture that needs a little TLC. We brought the bench home to sand it. The kids at the preschool are painting it, and then I'll coat it in polyurethane so that it can live outside again.
You can't tell from the photo, but he's wearing his Bob the Builder underpants.







Who says you can't work in the nude? It's not like we live next to a church or anything.

oh, wait...

Apple Picking

A couple of weeks ago, I took Lily, Wolfgang and Greta to Indian Creek Orchard to pick apples. The mutsus are on special - 35 cents/pound! They helped me pick about two bushels.

Lily's New Sewing Machine

We bought Lily a sewing machine for her birthday, since she's shown a lot of interest. She had already sewn a few things by hand, but really wanted a machine. This is an old Singer clone that we retrofitted with a hand wheel. With the hand control, the machine is safe enough for her to use, and she has enough control that she can sew with reasonable accuracy. In this photo, she's wearing a dress that she made herself on the machine.










Erich did have to do a little work on the machine to get the motor out and the hand wheel in. As you can see, he had a lot of help!