4 Miles

This weekend my brother came to town for a music convention and a friend's wedding.  He and my parents came down Friday night for an early celebration for my mom's birthday. Mainly it was an excuse for us to get together and go out to dinner!

The boys loved seeing Uncle Doug.

We had a good time eating out, eating cake and playing a game. Then it was time for them to go and the boys to go to bed.

Saturday wasn't as much fun, but we got the garage cleaned out! It was a warm day for October and a dirty, hot job…but we've admired the effects since thing. Amazing how dirty the garage can get, and how nice it can look.

Sunday afternoon was a nice time of rest, and fun watching the Colts return to their winning ways. Then I had to do a store run (we were out of the basics–bread, jelly, milk and frozen waffles) and the boys had a long bike ride…meaning we ended the day just as tired as before! 

Today, as we were driving around to Preschool and Bible Study, I was pointing out how the trees are really starting to turn beautiful colors. "Look at that tree and it's yellow leaves!" I said. Alex said "Oh NO!"  "Alex, it's ok, leaves are supposed to turn colors in fall. They turn colors and fall down." Alex replied, "It's not fall, it's morning!"

I just looked at the site and realized I have not written a THING so far this month of October (the whole week if it :-)). Wow! It's been a bit of a crazy week. Thursday morning I flew out to Dallas to attend the MOPS International Convention.  It was an interesting time. I got to attend some really good sessions and some ok sessions.  Last year the General Sessions were amazing times of praise and worship and then some really good speakers. The workshops were ranging from ok to good. This year the General Sessions were ok. They had a few good speakers but most of the time didn't feel that meaty. And the singing time was just ok–though I did enjoy seeing Plumb sing a few songs Sat. morning.  The workshops I attended were all very good though. I did enjoy spending time with my friends from MOPS and deepening those friendships.  It was odd to be back in Dallas but not out of the Bubble of the convention at the hotel. I was sad I couldn't meet up with any old friends.

Sunday I came home and we've been working on getting back into the groove of things. The house is a mess, laundry is waiting in piles to be folded and I forgot to get the one thing I need for my snack for Bible Study tomorrow. (Whipped cream–I'm taking an apple crisp I made earlier and froze, but a topping would be nice.)  Right now we're experiencing some nice weather and it's supposed to rain the next day or so, so I promised the boys we'd go to the park.  But I was regretting that choice this morning as I looked at all that needed to be done and the gloomy sky outside.

In the end, we did go. We went to a park that has a creek and trails to explore. The best part for the boys was going down to the creek and throwing things in the water.

Yes, they ended up going in the water. Will is wearing his "nocolures", something I got them when I was on my retreat at Spring Mill State Park. We were going exploring, so those were required, of course! Sadly, the only animals spotted were a chipmunk and a squirrel (two things we see at the house daily).

We found shells on the sand bar as well.  It was fun until Alex tripped in the water and got soaked, then it was time to come home. Now, to get back to those items on my To Do list!

Today was the first cool day of the fall, so I celebrated by making a pot roast (Oh do I love that meal!). It was part of some funny dinnertime conversations.

Alex: What’s this?
James: You don’t have to eat the pine needle.
Tina: It’s rosemary and you can eat it
Alex: I don’t want to eat the pine-mary.

Later in the meal…

Alex: I ate ALL my chicken.
Tina: It was beef.
Alex: BEEF!
James: You didn’t eat it all, you ate half, and I ate half. And if I eat it off my kids plate, the calories don’t count.
Alex: You can’t eat kids!

The boys have been playing football lately. They use their winter hats for helmets, and tend to run at each other or try to throw the ball to each other. (The hat being down = face mask)

It's not pretty when they collide–I had to tell them no tackling until Alex is 5 or until they have pads.

Game's over, he's done!

This weekend we celebrated my birthday at my parent's house.  The boys were quite excited to go to Grandma's house and I had a nice afternoon (James had to spend it working on the plumbing at our rental house…sadly not as nice for him).  Then we all went out to dinner, then came back for cake and ice cream. The boys were great help taking all the candles out.

And we ALL enjoyed the cake with yummy, gooey chocolate icing!

Alex, after James and Will went for a bike ride/run: "I very miss Daddy and Will" (in a pitful, sad voice).

* * *

Last night we were driving home from my parents house, rather late. It was dark out. At some point, Alex was looking at a book and he said "Will, do I have this upside down?" 

Tonight James took Will to his first football game…they went to our local High School's Friday night game. (The picture was taken with James' camera phone. They sat on the visitor side since most of the seats on the other side are reserved…this way they got to sit in the middle of the field and see more.)

I knew I'd have to come up with something to do with Alex to ease the sting of the pain, so we went for a walk to feed the fish and play at the park. He wasn't QUITE thrilled with it, but managed to have a good time. The title of the post was what he yelled at one point…made me smile!

The bread is some beer bread I made that didn't turn out right, so we froze it to share with the fish. (I know it looks like a rice crispy treat there.)

The fish were quite happy to see us.

This is to give you an idea of how dry it is here. I've never seen the lake so low (in the three summers we've been here) nor the floating dock so far down–normally that ramp is flat, not at such a slope. 

The blue tongue is from a sucker he had after supper. He was having fun with me taking his picture all the time.  He wasn't so happy to go to bed with Will still gone.

Will had a great time at the game. When they got home he told me how the news helicopter landed in the practice field and they took pictures of the game. And "One of the cheerleaders picked up the other one and threw her in the air and she landed on her FEET! While they were CHEERING! And she did summersaults over and over and over. And another one did them too!  And half time was LONG." and "It was good we got there early mom, so we could hear the Beginning Band." The band played a song and then the National Anthem before the game. He liked seeing them but thought half time was long and wanted to see more football James said. The fun thing we found out is they don't charge for kids below 1st grade, and it's only $5 for the adults, so we might go see another game. For that price it might not be so bad to take Alex and then have to leave. He REALLY wanted to go, but we thought he'd get bored pretty early. We'll see how it goes (they're half way through the season already and I won't pay to sit in bad weather!) … but he might surprise us. 

We have had some beautiful weather the last few weeks–cool at night, warm during the day. Last night the "mit-er-ologist" (as Will calls it, thanks to the Spanish accent from his preschool teacher– that is his job this week in class {I probably didn't spell it right, but just imagine meterolgist with a Spanish accient…I never would have thought about how it sounded until he tried to say it that exact same way and we can't convince him you say it any other way.} If you're curious what his job requires of him–from what I can figure out, he tells the class if it's sunny/rainy/cloudy or hot or cool.)  Anyway, the weather guy was saying the normal high is 70-75 this time of year. We've been getting into the mid-80s all week, with clear, sunny skies. It looks like we're going to get pay back next week and have colder than normal temps. While I'm looking forward to more normal fall-like weather, I'm trying to enjoy the nice weather as long as possible! I'll be wanting it in February and March and April and probably May! 

So, this morning I chose to ignore the laundry and cleaning that should be done and we went to the park all morning.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

In case you're wondering what he's on, there's another view of that rock structure below–Will was up top to turn on the water, then it flows down the rocks to the sand area below.

They started out digging a big trench, then used the sand the dug up to make a dam.

This one is for Aunt Heidi–Senior Picture pose!

We were making pictures for thank you notes. We're almost done with all of them–if you haven't gotten one yet, I promise it's on the way! 

One of Will's gifts was a cool roller painting set. He's loved using it, and it makes some cool pictures for the Thank You Notes.

Meanwhile, Alex used the stamping/stenciling set from Grandma Harbin. He liked to sqeeze it out more then really use the stencils.

And you can see, as most artists, he really gets into his work. I think Grandpa Miles was the lucky one chosen to get this masterpiece, for a late birthday card.  I hope the Thomas stickers the boys chose to put on it didn't ditract from the true quality of the work!