Brogan's first Haircut!

Business up front, party in the back! Heck, I couldn't cut off his pretty baby curls.

Before his haircut...

Girl Style

Audrey enjoying her Hat and Gloves. We went shopping - always a favorite for the girls! Not so much for the boys!

Happy Halloween!

Audrey as the Corpse Bride. She is getting ready for her big birthday party at Chuck E Cheese this weekend by having a practice run at a friend's house!

Will he ever sleep through the night?

Brogan WAS sleeping through the night, I swear - a few months ago. He's 17 1/2 month's now and he hasn't slept through the night for at least 7 months!

I know he's not hungry. The past 7 month's he wakes up, I lay down and nurse him and after 2 minutes he is asleep again - for an hour. So night after night, every hour on the hour it seems, this kid wakes up and nurses for 2 minutes and goes back to sleep.

Well this kid has teeth now! I'm tired. I want to sleep all night. I don't want teeth marks on my boobs anymore.

So here's the new approach - Brogan "wakes up"/stirs or sleep walks or thrashes or whatever it is that he does. I hold him in my arms and shush, rock, pat him back to sleep with no nursing. For a week we have done this. Guess what - after that first week, he is sleeping through the night!

Hooray!

Mighty Mini Avalanche?

"No..", Dusty says, "Corn dog Mayhem!". Oh do I ever know what he's talking about.

With a freezer full of kid food; Popsicles, Corn dogs, chicken nuggets and more, I can envision the freezer avalanche and everything sliding out all over the floor!

Dusty and I just laugh. Those are the consequences of having kids!

Sadly, the refrigerator is just as full - and there's hardly room for a coke or a beer. Grownups are reduced to snacking on string cheese and drinking capri sun. We love our kids.

Camp Corey Fall Festival

We went to a local pumpkin patch Saturday morning and had the pumpkin pancake breakfast, went on a hay ride and wandered through the corn maze.

Then Audrey and Dusty took a wheelbarrow out to pick pumpkins while Brogan and I stayed under cover (it was raining a bit). Brogan is hard enough to hold onto and hold an umbrella at the same time! He was done being in his stroller.

Saturday also happened to be a record breaking day for rain - but we were brave! Interestingly it stopped raining hard when we got there and didn't start up again till after we left!

Here’s where we went:

http://www.campkorey.org/FallFestival-Cornmaze.html it’s a cool place!

Audrey carving her pumpkin! Her first!

All of the pumpkins together... Spooky! Audrey's is the Kitty.

Trebuche

Commonly known as the Pumpkin Hurl! So much fun for a family and wow the weather couldn't be better either. Our little family really had a good time. It was just amazing!

The Tre Barbaric

The Gourdinator

This is a great time for families. There were food vendors so no one went hungry. There were also wonderful displays of wool weaving and yarn spinning. I think Audrey just liked seeing the dogs that accompanied the people - it was hard to keep her away from those dogs for sure. She has a kind heart and animals can sense it - whether mommy approves or not. Hmmm, it's tiresome. I am trying to teach her good manners - every day.

Audrey is in the first grade and she is having a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. Her first offiical birthday party with invitations and classmates. I'm excited too, and I just hope I have the energy to get through it! Wow.

What ya doin' Brogan?

Looking at all my books mom!

Life is hard

Another one of my favorites from the '80s. Hey everyone knows you can't buy happiness no matter what you do... can't take a taxi cab to timbuk 2.

Sorry folks it's a full moon tonight:

Love you all... Eva

Good 'ol 80's

Halloween in India?

My dear friend Ritesh and his family (Sandhiya and Daksh) are on a plane to India as I write this.

Ritesh and Daksh

I've been trying to get Ritesh hired on at my company since about a month or two after I met him. He's such a talented developer. He also became one of my very closest friends.

Of course Ritesh is a fellow biker, so we seem to have the same attitude/soul/belief/forgiveness... whatever you want to call it. I sure do think the world of him.

So - I KNOW Ritesh loves halloween. A few of us were outside (smoking) and teasing Ritesh a bit about Halloween in India. One of his friends (Manish) said that he would be stoned in the street if he went trick or treating there (this is some kind of native saying ok?). I said maybe the people would be very confused about a beggar man dressed in weird clothes going from house to house asking for candy. Ritesh laughed.

It's really been a hard road for me since I found out that my company wouldn't be keeping Ritesh on. He is really awesome and we need more people like him. The economy, the times - it all sucks and we are all happy to just have jobs at the moment, right?

I will miss Ritesh, his beautiful wife and his son. They are such good friends. I hope to go visit India, and I know we will at least keep in touch.