Happy Halloween!

Okay.  This was the weirdest pumpkin carving experience in my entire life.  Freaky.  The thing was a honeydew melon diguised as a pumpkin.  I swear.

Here's the whole story:

Of the two pumpkins in our patch, only one turned out to be carvable.  The other one had rotted out on the bottom.  So, I began the day by posing the kids with the non-nasty pumpkin.

The thing was a beast.  Heavy, heavy, heavy.  Made me wonder what the heck was inside.  We soon found out...

Completely solid.  Nothing but solid melon flesh.  Sweet, and not gucky at all, with only a few seeds here and there.  It took an ice cream scoop to hollow it out.

Solid.  I'm telling you.

I kind of accidentally scooped a big hole in the good side of the pumpkin, so we carved the flat, beige side. 

Finally, it was time for the main event.  Here you see Twister and the "Cat Police".  If Trevor's cat features look familiar, it's because they have served as polar bear features for both kids in the past.

We hit the road to meet up with some friends.

And, and hour or so later, there was some major sorting going on.

There was also a bit of sampling.  Giving out candy canes at Halloween?  Really?

It was a lovely, warm night, and we all went to bed happy.  Also happy was the Great Pumpkin, who made off with some serious chocolate tonight.

Pumpkins

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater could have kept two wives if he'd had these beauties.

They have one more day to soak up the sun before being gutted and butchered.

How our yard is looking these days

I haven't photographed our xeriscaped front yard since it was just a wee thing, so here it is (albeit overexposed):

It's getting rather jungly out there, but I love it.  The hummingbirds love it.  The butterflies are thrilled.  And bees.  Bees all over the place. 

A new (but long dreamed-of) addition this summer was the river:

We ran out of tumbled glass, and need to add some more eventually, but you get the idea – a water feature, without the water.  

Four eyes

How can I resist posting a picture of Trevor in my glasses?

Go Leafs!

My birthday maple lost the last of its little leaves this week.  It looks kind of pathetic now, but I suppose it's nice that my Californian tree is celebrating Autumn in solidarity with its Canadian cousins.

Climb

Clara's game today marked the ten zillionth time that Trevor had to hang around a soccer field for hours.  I'm so proud of the guy.  He always manages to find pinecones to build with, sticks to wield, or dirt to dig.  There are usually other siblings around, and they all have a fabulous time exploring each new location.  They've collected bugs, climbed trees, discovered a dead lizard, and, occasionally, even watched a teeny bit of soccer.

Today, Trevor was the only sibling in sight, but we lucked out and happened to be playing on a field with a giant play structure right beside it.  And there was a climbing wall on it.  Bingo.

By halftime, Trevi had scaled the equivalent of Denali.  Or at least a mountainish hill.

Knitting!!!!

Tonight, out of the blue, Clara pulled out her knitting supplies and asked me to teach her how to knit. I don't know how long ago it was that she received some yarn and needles in a cool little basket from Grammy (Christmas 2007?), and was thrilled to bits. The thrill was quickly gone, however, since Clara has a rather limited ability to accept imperfections in her work. So, the knitting stuff disappeared into the quagmire of her closet, never to be seen again. Until tonight. And, shock of shocks, Clara sat patiently as I did the casting on and knit a few rows for her to watch, then hand-over-handed with her for a bit. She didn't try to snatch it away and insist on doing it herself. She watched. She listened. And, before too long, she knit! Oh, naturally there were holes here and there, but –get this– she didn't freak out! She just asked for some help occasionally, which I happily gave her.

Clara worked away, tongue extended in concentration, row after row after row. Then, she paused and held up her handiwork for us to admire.
Without missing a beat, Trevi called out, "You knitted a Thneed!" (Awesome parent/teacher moment for me to see my child connect text to life, while simultaneously making a seriously funny joke!)

It didn't take long for Trevi to feel the need for Thneed (sorry, I couldn't resist). I dug out some more needles and yarn, knit him a few rows, then watched as he systematically destroyed the thing, while muttering things like, "Oh no, I dropped a stitch!" I'm not kidding.
This has been one of the most amazing and amusing nights in recent history.

It's Raining!

The meteorologists were right. A storm hit in the middle of the night, and we woke to a soggy world, and excitement about the first indoor recess of the school year! (the kids' excitement, not mine) :)
The irony of this posed shot in the dark morning was that Clara was eager to be photographed in her raincoat, only to later debate us half to death about why she shouldn't have to wear it to school. Children can make your brain hurt.

We skipped the turkey, and went straight to dessert

What a nice husband I have. He bought me a pumpkin pie, so we could pay proper homage to Canadian Thanksgiving. It was delicious. And we ate it on plates shaped like maple leaves.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Legs

Don't know if I've already mentioned that I'm the official photographer for Clara's team. The job doesn't require any special credentials or equipment; I just snap away on my regular little camera and see what I get.
What I get is a lot of blur and green. A ginormous THANK YOU to the inventors of digital photography, who have allowed me to take thousands of shots this season, and fish out a few decent images in which soccer is clearly the sport being played. Of course, there are countless times when the camera (and my hand) is too slow for those speedy little Energizer Bunnies on the field. Case in point:
It's not a paid gig, anyway. :)

Sister and Brother

I was just going through some photos from a few years back, and couldn't resist posting a few of my favorite sibling moments captured on film (can you still use that expression when it's digital?)
Now that we are in an oil and vinegar phase of sibling love, I'll have to be sure to document the torment and torture, just for the sake of balance.

Extinction

Trevi had to decide on a treasured object to bring to school tomorrow, and he decided on a Woolly Mammoth toy that is among his favorite stuffed animals. Part of his homework was to put Woolly Mammoth in a paper bag, and then write three clues to help his classmates guess what it was. Trevi wrote his clues:
1. It has a trunk.
2. It has tusks.
3. It has big ears.
After finishing, it suddenly occurred to him that his classmates would guess it was an elephant, so he asked me to help him come up with another clue. After an unfruitful brainstorming session, I finally just handed him the idea of telling the class that the thing was extinct.
Big mistake.

What followed was a solid hour of woe, as Trevi mourned the extinction of the Woolly Mammoth, and lamented the fact that he will never, ever see a real, live one. He was seriously sad. I even took pictures.
It was kind of heartbreaking to see this whole thing happen, even though earlier in the evening he had burst into tears when he heard us talking about replacing our broken microwave. If only we could peer into their little heads sometimes...

As Trevi worked through his feelings of loss regarding the Mammoth, he came out with some doozies. Among them were these (must be read tearfully for full effect):

"I wish I was already a scientist, because then I would already know about Woolly Mammoths being extinct, and you wouldn't have to tell me and make me sad!"
"At least I saw a Woolly Mammoth statue in the desert! Some people never even get to see that!"
"Do you think there's even a tiny chance that they might be able to find one that's hiding somewhere? The world is really big."
"But cats will never be extinct, right?"

When the bear's away, the cat will play?

Trevor has his much-anticipated turn as "Kinderbear of the Week" this week, and he got to bring home Gus, the class mascot. Gus's visit necessitated the construction of a house for him, complete with bed and bowling.

When Gus returned to school, though, his house was quickly claimed by a squatter:
I will refrain from rhyming off a list of cat puns here....

Thank goodness for recycled paper

Thirty short days as a Kindergartner, and all this boy wants to do is write. He can't seem to complete a regular task without infusing some writing into the middle of it. Last night, while getting ready for bed, Trevi ran out of his room, got a piece of paper, and started making a checklist of things to do each day. Then, he set about checking off all of the things he'd already done (which is, in my opinion, a great strategy for making quick progress on those pesky checklists). Here's a close-up and translation:
• Mummy gets lip balm (love this one – clearly he understands my addiction)
• Bed
• Homework
• Dinner
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Jammies
• Dinner (he realized he'd written this twice, and said, "That's because a healthy dinner is very important for a healthy body.")
• Brush
• Cookie

Then, when I walked in the room, he wrote some instructions for me:
"No Mummy" and "Don't peek"
He pointed frantically at his words as he told me that he just couldn't get his jammies on until his checklist was finished. It won't be long before he realizes that I have too much of a soft spot for emergent literacy to enforce bedtime when such a marvelous thing as a checklist is in the works.

And, the piece de resistance....a story! I drew the lines, and reminded him about spaces between words, but other than that, everything is 100% Trevor (as is clear from the plot):
"A clown goes to the store to buy a bum (yes, bum). He needs it for his circus tricks. Now he wants a toy train for the tricks. The end. By Trevor." Picture the devilish gleam in his eye as he wrote this. I can just imagine what was going through his little head....."Wow! Mummy's letting me get away with potty humor! All I have to do is write about it, instead of just saying it, and she doesn't stop me! Amazing!"

I love this stage so much. Phonetic spelling exists for the teeniest window of time, and then it is gone forever, turned into boring old conventional spelling. So forgive me if I blather on and on about it. It just makes me boundlessly happy. That and the fact that I had mint chocolate chip ice cream tonight. Does life get better than this?

Screen Time

I did it! In a few short hours, I managed to catch up on two months' worth of blogs! This was made possible by the fact that Trevi is at Grammy and Grampy's house, and sickie Clara has spent the morning curled up on the couch, happily watching an obscene amount of TV. But who doesn't like to watch too much TV when they're sick? I know I do.
Feel better soon, Honeybun!

Now that the blog is back on track, though, it's time to get my act together and get the house in order before I run out of weekend!

Giantish Pumpkins

Our pumpkin patch yielded two rather hefty pumpkins which, unfortunately, hit their prime a bit too soon, and rotted out with October still far off in the distance. At the moment, though, we've got a couple of decent-sized ones, whose timing looks about perfect to grace our porch on the 31st.
Giants, no, but they'll hold a candle just fine.