It's the most wonderful time of the year.....HALLOWEEN!

We had a crazy Halloween this year!
For the first time we told the kids they had to make their costumes out of whatever they could find in the house. I didn't have high hopes for this years fun factor, boy, was I wrong! At our annual church Halloween party Julia won Funniest Costume and Allen brought home the Jar of M and M's after guessing the closest to the actual amount, which was 507. Allen's guess, 472. Jacob's guess,365.

Jora has been talking for months about being Cinderella and that was easy, Jacob pulled together an impressive ninja costume and Julia's award winning costume....well, who can guess who Julia dressed up as?? Julia told us who she wanted to be this year but we thought it would blow over. It didn't. On Halloween, she chose her own costume, every piece of it. I'll be watching the comments for a correct answer! Here we have a picture of Julia and her prized golden pumpkin! She may never let us throw it away, after all, she won it! (Though she did relent and turn it into a Jack-o-lantern.Here is the Sunday morning picture of the kids and their Halloween haul.

Teeth Cleaning

The day after Jacob's birthday found us all in the dentist office for Jacob and Julia's teeth cleaning. It was the first ever time for Julia and, of course, Mom was alot more nervous than Julia was. We have an amazing pediatric dentist who has darling hygienists and when they came to the waiting room Julia held Jacob's hand and walked right back with them. Allen and Jo and I stayed in the waiting room for a bit to let them get settled and then we went back to see how it was going. When Julia was finished she slid off the chair like it was a slide and I asked her how it was and she said, in her slightly annoyed tone...."It was fine! Mom!" Then she wanted to pick out her new toothbrush.
The photo is Julia in the dentist chair, holding the timer for her flouride treatment and wearing the sunglasses all the kids get to wear. For her cleaning she chose Chocolate flavored paste and happily reported NO CAVITIES.
Jacob had bubble gum flavored tooth cleaning and also reported NO CAVITIES! The doctor is amazed at how many permanent teeth Jacob has, something about molars. But they all have great teeth and next summer Joey can get her first tooth cleaning, too.

Jacob hits the double digits.

Jacob had a great birthday this year. Over the last summer he discovered Bakugan and so we had a Bakugan theme birthday. Bakugan are clever little toys that look like large plastic marbles but when they are rolled across their magnetic cards they pop open into fantastical creatures. You can see some close up on the cake. Allen and Julia designed Jacob's cake together this year. The girls were all about "time to eat the cake!" they then proceeded to pick off all the skittles and not really eat much of the actual cake at all. They really enjoyed the skittles though.














Jacob loves his Bakugan strategy game and was very pleased with his Bumblebee Transformer.

Happy Birthday Jake!

Labor Day, a great day off, unless you're a parent?

Alligator wrestling on Labor Day....Nothing like it!

Ahh, turtle love and Emu pecks.

Jacob practicing his cow feeding skills for our upcoming trip to Scotland....in my dreams.

Jora directing Allen's attempt to get her picture with the camel....bossy.

We decided to celebrate our labor day this year with a trip to Living Treasures Animal Park in Donegal, PA about an hour east of Pittsburgh. We haven't been there since Julia was two and Labor Day was a lovely, cool rainy day this year. We all loaded in the car and played "I spy" for an hour then loaded up with our feed bags and out into the park. We saw sleeping wolves, baby bears, crazy prairie dogs, lots of camels, ponies, donkeys, goats by the millions and baby llamas.

Joey was everyone's monkey. Very successfully so!

Since we were only 20 minutes away from Ohiopyle we ran up there and walked by the river for a few minutes. I caved and let the kids take their shoes off and less than two seconds later Julia was wet from her waist down. Not Kidding. Jora was right there with her. So we made our traditional naked ride through the drive thru at Dairy Queen to get our Ice Cream and back home to Pittsburgh.

FINISHED

Allen finished my picture!!! Yay for ALLEN!

This is on the big wall in my kitchen that has no window. It has taken him some time but I knew he could do it. I LOVE IT! and Allen.

Finally Father's Day!

Allen and Jacob finally found the right night to enjoy half of Allen's father's day gift. A night at PNC park with the Pittsburgh Pirates! They have two more tickets to use and have already picked the next date. The stadium is about fifteen minutes from our house. I drove them downtown and dropped them off where they could easily walk across the river and into the stadium. It is a beautiful view from the stadium Jacob met the pirate mascot, they ate hot dogs and watched good baseball, what more do boys need in life?

Part two....The drive home

(Another shot of dancing...)

Sunday morning we broke camp and decided to take a more scenic (longer) route home. After breakfast in pajamas we loaded up the car and headed to Taughannock Falls State Park We drove to the overlook and Allen was delighted and gibbering something about "glacial valley's", "shearing", and excitedly perusing the information board while I tried to keep the girls from climbing to the top of the retaining walls for better views. Jacob immediately zeroed in on the little people down near the base of the falls and started lobbying to go on that hike.

We found the trail head not much further down the road, paid our seven dollars to park and hiked 3/4 of a mile to see the base of the falls. Jo was the first to burn out and she and I turned back just before the end because she wouldn't walk further and if we didn't seperate her and Julia, there would have been some serious mutiny coming from the older girl who was told she could continue walking. I headed back with Jo on my shoulders and Allen said they would certainly catch up with us before we hit the trailhead. I took the keys, just in case. (We beat them back to the car by more than fifteen minutes)

The weather was very hot, 97 degrees and humid as all get out. The hike precipitated several discussions with Jake and Julie about rules. Posted in many spots along the trail were signs telling you to stay on the main trail. So every time a group of people passed by walking up the middle of the river we had to talk again about following basic rules and why we do and why a lot of people don't..... I got really tired of that subject in 3/4 of a mile.

The rest of the day was driving along a very boring highway 86. The road was pretty crappy and the scenery was hills on both sides, covered with trees, for almost four hours. yeehaw.

We made it back home and were happy to see our kitties and sleep near an air conditioner.

Oh, the HUMIDITY....part one.

We took our first camping trip of this year last weekend. For one night. We are lame.

Lameness aside, we had a really fun two day trip. We drove five and a half hours to the Finger Lake region of upstate New York to see Matt Lamana and Mandi Lyon get married. Matt and Allen work together at the Carnegie and have jogged together on the beach in Tokyo, so, of course, we had to go.

The kids were so close to perfect on the trip we were afraid we might loose one or two of them to translation before we got home. They slept and amused each other for the entire trip. There was only a moment or two of sibling disdain/irritation.

We left Saturday morning and drove to Lake Erie for lunch. The older kids took a break and walked a bit with Allen while Jo and I made sandwiches, ate cookies and took our own walk.

It turns out that this particular spot of beach was covered with the most amazing collection of rocks perfect for skipping! Jacob came back to the car with two pocketsfull and had to unload them in the trunk because his shorts kept falling down. Julia came back with wet sneakers, I was happy with that, belive me, it might have been much, MUCH, worse.

We arrived at our campground at Sampson State Park just after four in the afternoon. We quickly unloaded the car and set up the tent. Changed our clothes and headed to the Buttonwood Vinyard for the wedding. It was an outdoor wedding with dinner and festivities afterwards. Matt and Mandi we gracious enough to invite children. We really appreciate that.

The vinyard was lovely and here are some photos of the grounds, the vines, the pond (filled with fish) and the ceremony.

It was about 93 degrees and the humidity was killer. We were right on Cayuga Lake. The ceremony was at 6:00 P.M.. Afterward we had a delicious dinner of BBQ ribs and chicken, the most delicious roasted portabello mushrooms, and "Ice Age 2" wedding cake. The girls were pretty excited about their name cards and it turns out, Jacob is really good with a Hula Hoop!

After dinner was dancing and everyone cut the rug. I almost couldn't get Jake to dance but I finally introduced him to the Hitch dance..you know, step, step, elbows at your sides, snapping your fingers.....go rent the movie.

So we all danced and finally at 9:45 we all admitted exhaustion and went back to the campground and bed. Thankfully we had electricity at the camground and had brought a fan. It saved the night for us!

Peach pickin', pig peeping, Pittsburgh

We went to Simmons Farm today outside Pittsburgh for some peach picking. They will still be available to pick for a couple of weeks. The kids really enjoyed the excursion as they have never seen a peach tree. They really loved the pickin' part.




The peach orchard was just above the apple orchard.


















A view of the lower apple orchard and the PA countryside.


A few pictures of Goat and Pig harassment, not legal in all states...That was as close as they ever got to the pig.