Fall

Today started off cold and rainy. By afternoon it was cold and sunny.

The maple tree out front is the last to turn and the last to start dropping its leaves. Wayne and Cole managed to scrape together a couple of piles for leaf jumping. I think this picture is funny.
It may look like Cole is break-dancing, but really he's just getting up from, or falling into, his pile of leaves.
Heather was taking her nap so she missed out on all the fun.

Last Halloween Grammie gave the kids this arts and crafts project. We didn't get around to making it last year, but this year Wayne rediscovered it while he was getting all the Halloween decorations out of the storage room.

We put it all together and we agree that ours looks even better than the picture on the package!

Those of you non-dog-lovers might want to stop here. Bye. Have a nice day. See ya later.

For the rest of you, here are a few things that Spike likes to do in his spare time. (By the way, see his ears? They both went up. He's a German Shepherd!) He seems to like Wes and Cole's shoes the best. Probably because they have the most interesting aroma.

Dig a hole to hide his rubber squeaky bone.

Play an indoor version of "Find Wayne" and smother him with kisses when he does find Wayne. (yuck, even I don't like dog kisses)

And wait, wait, wait by the parlor door for the kids to get up in the morning.
I promise, Heather will make an appearance next time.

Lap Dog

For the dog lovers out there:

This morning Heather threw her arms around Spike's neck and said, "He's my bwover, Mommy. He is." Here they are watching Curious George together while her human brothers slept in - until 7:30.

Bbbbrrrrrrrr.......

It's cold here.

I think these bees were too cold to move on these sunflowers. The sunflowers are the last things standing in the garden. Heather said, "I love the sunny flowers, Mommy. I do. I love them."
We pulled out all the pumpkins. This picture was taken about a week ago. We let the pumpkins sit on the picnic table soaking up the sun and now they are much more orange than you see here.
The kids are very excited. They can't wait to carve.

Sophia came over and she and Heather tried on costumes.

This picture (below) was taken today and it was COLD outside. Heather is showing you a butterfly that she caught. The other day when it was warm and sunny, Brian came to cut the hay. Afterward there were hundreds of these little yellow butterflies fluttering all over the field. They were very pretty. Wayne and Cole had tried to catch some, but they were quick and impossible to catch. Today, Heather found this one, like the bees too cold to move, in what's left of the garden. She was quite pleased with herself. "I caught a buttersly, Mommy. I did. I caught one." She is almost 3 now and has reached that stage of talking nonstop, even if it means repeating herself often. Whenever she makes a statement, she follows it with an affirmation. "It's not dead yet, Mommy. The buttersly is still alive. It is, Mommy." (Well it was still alive until Spike ate it, but we won't go into that.)

"The darling mispronunciations of childhood!--dear me, there's no music that can touch it; and how one grieves when it wastes away and dissolves into correctness, knowing it will never visit his bereaved ear again."- Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

All Sales are Final

The i's are dotted, the t's are crossed. The papers are signed. On Friday, September 25th it all became official.

Joanie sold her house in the village...
and bought our "old" house on Drew Place...
which in turn, allowed us to buy Martha's big house - at a bargain price. Thank you Martha and thank you to everyone else in the family for all of your help, support, and patience in this matter. We feel very lucky and blessed to have such a beautiful home. Thank you, thank you, thank you, all very much.
In more run-of-the-mill news, the kindergarten class took a field trip to an apple orchard in Enosburg Falls on Friday.

I thought Heather was eating one apple, until I noticed several nibbled apples around her feet. Turns out she was taking one or two bites out of many different apples. Oh well. Maybe the orchard owners will think a little raccoon got into the falls.

The kindergarten class. That's Cole in the red hat. It was a really cold day.

From the orchard, we went on to a nearby farm where the kids got to milk a cow and see some really cute calves.

This one was interested in the flowers on Heather's hat.

Then the farmer lady took us for a walk through a very manure spotted pasture to see some of the jersey cows. Jerseys have a higher butterfat content to their milk. She sells her milk and cream to Ben and Jerry's. It's amazing how much commotion a group of kindergartners can make. These ladies were happy to watch us go so they could get back to their quiet afternoon.

When we got back to the farmhouse, we made some butter by shaking cream in this jar

Here's Heather with her two new best friends, Alayni on the left and Erika on the right. Heather loved all the attention she got from these two girls, although she does look a little zombie-ish here because this typically would be her naptime. She got a turn to shake the jar.

Then they got a chance to taste the butter on crackers.

Cole liked the butter, Heather did not. I think we all would have preferred some Ben and Jerry's.

Misc.

I found some random pictures in my camera and thought I'd just throw them on here. First, Wayne's birthday. You saw that we went to Winnie's World on the weekend, but when his actual birthday rolled around, I felt like we should still do a little something. Ben hadn't been able to come to WW, so we invited him over after school for dinner and cake. Joanie also came. Wayne enjoyed opening his gifts and cards.

Heather helped blow out his candle.

Then, last weekend, Grammie came to Glover for the Perron Reunion. She brought a wonderful spaghetti dinner for Friday night. In this picture, Wayne and Heather are helping her make a fruit salad. Sorry, no pics of the Perron Reunion - this was the last one I took before my batteries died. Gotta get new rechargables.

You've met Wayne and Cole's friends, Dante and Fintan. Here's their older sister, Sophia. Heather pronounces her name, syl-PHEE-a, like a cross between Sylvia and Sophia. Sophia knows how to make lots of things, like this head garland made from pipe cleaners and construction paper flowers.

Here's a closer look, below. Sophia is 9 years old, and very handy in the kitchen. See those eggs in the background? This picture was taken earlier in the day on Wayne's birthday. I asked her if she wanted to help me make Wayne's cake and she pretty much single handedly did it on her own. I just got out the ingredients and measuring cups and away she went. Knew all about the kitchen aid and everything. The cake came out GREAT. Sophia is home schooled and so is able to come over once a week lately to be a "mother's helper" and spend some time with Heather now that both Wayne and Cole are in school. Heather loves her.

And here is Spike with his ears that can't make up their mind whether to go up like a real German Shepherd or flop down like a Lab. Looks like they're going to compromise with one up and one down. He's very smart. He's learned to sit, lay down, sort of stay, find Wayne, and we're working on heel. He'll be 3 months old in a week and a half. Right now, he's snoring on the floor beside my feet.

Early dismissal at Glover School today. I don't really know why.

The Basement Singers Act III

Took Heather to Barton Library for storytime today and used their high speed to upload this third and final video of the Basement Singers. Enjoy!

Start Your Engines

Wayne's birthday isn't until Tuesday, but we celebrated yesterday, Saturday. We went to a place called "Winnie's World." It's every 8 year old boy's dream come true. Here's why:
Above, Wayne and Dante pull out onto the race track. Below, Jericho, a 2nd grade friend and classmate of Wayne's gets belted up and ready to go.

Fintan, too young to ride alone, teams up with Joanie for some speed.

Cole, also too young to ride alone, co-pilots with me. I just want to add here that I believe there was something wrong with the steering on our car and it seemed to be running out of gas and that is the only reason we lost the race and the only people we managed to pass were Joanie and Fintan.

There was some serious driving going on out there on that race track. Luckily, we were the only ones on it at the time.

Afterwards, a round of miniature golf. Dante plays real golf with his Dad, so he's pretty good and really competitive.

We ended up breaking into two groups. Wes took Cole and Fintan and played the back 9, while Joanie and I stayed with the older boys, so I don't have as many pictures of C and F. Here's Jericho going for a bogie.

Joanie keeps score. At one point she remarked, "This is just like being at school again."

Wayne gets a birdie. (I'm really just making this up. I really have no idea what any of that stuff means, but Dante kept throwing these terms around and I'm just trying to sound like I learned something.)

Oooh, it looks serious.

Finally, after what seemed like hours and hours of miniature golf, it was time for cake. Wayne wanted a monster truck on his cake, so we ordered one of those edible cake images.
I tried to get pictures of Wayne opening his gifts, but the crowd was too thick. After gifts, the older boys took one more go cart race and then, thankfully, it was time to go home.

Hope you guys all had fun. Thanks for all your help Joanie.

Happy Birthday Wayne!