24

I have a new idea for the TV show 24; it's about spending 24 hours (over two days) in a van with four children and a hurricane.

Ha!

Really, the drive wasn't that bad, and could have been a whole lot worse. We drove in a *LOT* of rain, but you'll have to ask the two drivers how tiring and stressful that was; I spent all my time in the back placating children. They all did a really great job. We only watched Mary Poppins twice, the whining was surprisingly minimal, and even Gussie handled the car seat time well. We mostly stayed north of the coastal areas truly devastated by Sandy, but parts of Pennsylvania had very high winds so there was a stretch where we thought for a bit that we might have to stop and get a hotel until we could get gas; all the gas stations were either out of power or sold out! We eventually found one with gas (although they only had premium left so we had to buy it) and from then on we were fine.

We are staying in a condo right on the beach (thank you, Grandma!) so as soon as the sun came up this morning and the kids had a little breakfast, we headed out to the ocean. Catherine immediately ran down and wrote her name in the sand.

After I assured Michael that it was ok that the beach was covered in "green beans" (what he called the sea weed) he had a good time digging in the sand.



Then he fell down in the water and I believe there is now official enmity between him and the ocean.

Mary started collecting shells right away. She has been thinking about collecting shells for months.

Catherine was clearly super excited to see the ocean again; she spent a good 45 minutes just hopping and skipping around. But when I asked her if seeing the ocean was worth two days in the van, she said no.

I have to disagree. There is something inexplicably elevating about the sound of ocean waves on the beach, definitely worth two days in the van. And the fact that we're here for a week and get to see so many old friends makes it totally worth it!

Another One Bites The Dust

WARNING: This posts contains graphic pictures that may not be appropriate for those afraid of the dentist and/or tooth pain.

Remember a few posts ago when I mentioned noticing that one of Catherine's top front teeth was loose? It was really starting to bother her when she tried to eat, to the point that after whimpering through half of her breakfast Tuesday morning she declared she wasn't eating anything else until it fell out. But the tooth wasn't cooperating and by lunch she was hungry. She tried messing with the tooth with her finger and it started bleeding, which disturbed Catherine quite a bit, to the point that she declared the tooth was going to do what it was going to do and she wasn't going to touch it again.

But she was going to eat. About halfway through lunch I noticed her tooth looked like this:

And I was pretty convinced it was not going to survive lunch. But Catherine wasn't going to help it along. She just continued eating, seemingly not bothered when it started to poke forward.

And twist around.

Ok, maybe the twisting bothered her a little bit.

But she continued on and managed to finish lunch, at which point that poor tooth was literally hanging on by a thread. (When Catherine saw this picture, she yelled, "Eeewwwwww! That's disgusting!")

And still she refused to touch it. She cleaned up her dishes and went inside to read a book. It was probably an hour later that she called out from the couch, "Hey Mom, guess what? My tooth just fell out." It was a rather anti-climactic ending to the tooth saga that had endured for a couple days, so I guess it is fitting that I didn't manage to get an "after" picture until today:

The new tooth is already starting to poke its way down. Catherine was happy to be rid of the dangling tooth, but was oddly disappointed that missing a top one didn't result in her talking with a lisp.

My leaf blog. from catherine

 I went to my grandma's house and made A leaf pile. Look at me! I took 1 picture I liked . hehe grandma took that picture. 

Gussy looks so cute in this picture.

leaf piles are so fun to jump in.

Mary and leaves!

Mary and Michael are buried in leaves.

Now my blog is over.

Free Cat Making

I came back from a run to find this taped to a parking sign near our sidewalk:

It says (or at least means) "free cat making". If you follow the arrow you come to our front steps, where another sign lets you know you've arrived at the free cat making spot.

Free cat making involves choosing the color paper you want and your perfect size cat from the layered puzzle. Then you choose a pencil and trace your cat, fill in the eyes and nose, and give it a name.

Instruction is available, should you need it.

And your're on your way, having made a free cat.

I'm watching Catherine and Mary right now as they announce "Freeeeee cat making!" to every passerby. I think I'm the only one who has taken them up on their generous offer so far, but hopefully they'll have some interested parties before it's time to go in for dinner.

Leaping Leaves

Grandma and Grandpa have a pretty good yard for fall leaf jumping; not only does it have a good tree that drops many soft leaves and a hill to serve as a jumping ramp, but it also came with a grounds crew to keep the pile nice and high between jumps, so the kids didn't have to do any work at all (other than the running and jumping, of course).

 After some practice (and gaining a little confidence in the fall-breaking powers of their leaf pile) the girls starting showing some impressive ninja moves.

 Grandma got in on the action and showed them that throwing leaves is as much fun as landing in them.

And Uncle Tommy set up an "obstacle course" in which the kids had to jump over small leaf piles and power through clouds of swirling leaves in order to leap into the big pile.

Eventually the girls convinced Aunt Jena to jump in the pile with them. 

But they were not satisfied with the number of leaves she got on her from simply landing in the pile, so they helped her take care of that by throwing lots of leaves on her head.

They used their leaf-throwing skills on me too, but don't worry... that big handful of leaves I have is about to surprise them.

Drool on his chin, chili all over his face, leaves in his diaper... Michael Jr is having a good time.

I love this picture because Mary has a leaf in her teeth.

 Gussie mostly thought the leaves made a nice pillow.

We were glad for the leaf fun and for a quick visit with Aunt Jena and Uncle Tommy before they headed back to LA!

The B Playground

The other day it was sunny in the morning but supposed to rain in the afternoon/evening, so after school I told the kids we could take a quick trip down to the park to play in the leaves and on the playground before the weather turned. 

Four hours later we realized it was getting chilly and we'd missed lunch. Oops.

But we had a good time. It was super windy and the kids thought walking down the street through clouds of swirling leaves was about the funniest thing ever. Many a jogger and dog-walker stared and laughed at us squealing our way down the road.

Catherine rode her scooter the whole way, and decided she much preferred the asphalt paths in the park to the regular sidewalks that have cracks that are now hidden under leaves and are therefore a little difficult to navigate; a couple were big enough to send her flying off her scooter on our way to the park.

We played in some leaves and made our way over to our "B" playground, which is not as big as the ones by the fountain and has no swings, but they like the variety once in a while.

It's a nice climbing structure, and actually gets a little bit of sun.

Gussie mostly slept bundled up with me, but at some point he was awake for a bit after eating, so Catherine wanted to hold him for some pictures.

 I tried to get all four kids lined up on the slide. Eighteen pictures in less than 45 seconds, and this is the best one: "moo" faces. I really don't know how kid photographers with limited session times get anything at all.

Photos at the Park

Grandma wanted to get some pictures of the kids on Monday, and a beautiful morning plus bright fall foliage plus a great playground plus neat old houses and cabins should equal a very promising photo shoot. However we ended up adding excited, uncooperative kids and crummy light to the equation, so I don't know about Grandma, but I mostly got mediocre shots with funny faces. But we still had a great fun time at the playground with our friends Caleb and Daisy!

I'm not sure why I think this picture is so funny. I just love teensy tiny Daisy looking like she's ruler of all the playground.

In all of Catherine's pictures she looks like she's missing a tooth even though it's still hanging on in there.

This is how photographing Michael goes: I see him standing on a rock with a surprisingly un-busy background, but he notices as soon as I swing my camera his direction and flashes his "cheese" smile. Then he flies off the rock ne'er to be seen again (or at least not until he's slid down twenty more slides).

Gussie tried to cooperate. He played with Grandma for a while and let me get one picture with Catherine holding him.

And that's about it: crummy light and funny faces.

Maybe if we try again they'll take some of my advice about what clothes to wear for a nice picture for Grandma.

Or maybe not.