Mom & I made a one day trip to Ikea in Dallas on Monday. I bought bookshelves, lamps and some organizational stuff for my new office. We also took a bunch of pictures for our weekly scavenger hunt on Flickr.com

Mark has made the first major step to moving to Little Rock. He & Mom have been here about a week now. It looks like he'll be working with the kids at Easter Seals. Brandon is thrilled to have his Uncle here.


















I had thrown away this box and Brandon went and pulled it out of the recycling bin. He was so amused at putting it over his legs. He just kept laughing & laughing... Funny how kids love boxes...same as the cats!


















Jennifer was over for dinner the other night. She'd just had her hair cut & had the stylist straighten it for her, just for a change. Isn't it gorgeous??? However - I think I like her curls better.


















Here's Nick laying out the bacon for breakfast last weekend. It's always such a pain to fry it on the stovetop. He discovered that baking it in the over is much easier & the results are great. I made swedish pancakes to go with the bacon...It was a yummy breakfast.

Exercise you brain while helping donate rice to those in need.
Check out this addictive vocbulary game.
Amy sent it via e-mail & she's right - it's addictive.

I accumlated 600 grains of rice and had a vocabulary level ranging from 38-41.
I think I was at 39 when I made myself stop.

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

FAQs
If FreeRice has the rice to give, why not give it all away right now?
FreeRice is not sitting on a pile of rice―you are earning it 10 grains at a time. Here is how it works. When you play the game, advertisements appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these advertisements is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.
Who distributes the donated rice?
The rice is distributed by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). The World Food Program is the world’s largest food aid agency, working with over 1,000 other organizations in over 75 countries. In addition to providing food, the World Food Program helps hungry people to become self-reliant so that they escape hunger for good. Wherever possible, the World Food Program buys food locally to support local farmers and the local economy. We encourage you to visit the United Nations World Food Program to learn more about their successful approach to ending hunger.

Hello Exersaucer!!! We pulled the exersaucer down from the attic this past week. Laedyn loves it. She's not scared of all the little spinning thing on it in the least. When Brandon first got into it as a baby, he was very cautious & not quite sure he liked all the moving parts. Laedyn is very interested & was reaching for them right away. Maybe she's more accustomed to sudden loud noises and things whizzing around unexpectedly since she watches Brandon cavorting all the time...

Check out Laedyn's Cleveland Browns outfit. Isn't it cute? Too bad they lost today...

PEAS - Yummy!!!! Laedyn tried her first food besides rice cereal a couple of days ago. She did a great job - ate every last bite. She kept grabbing the spoon & guiding it into her mouth.

Brandon calls them Smooshed Peas. I steamed some frozen ones & then threw them in the blender on the "liquify" setting. We all tried a bite. It's 10 thousand times better than the baby food peas they sell in a jar. Nick was the only one who didn't like it - he thought the flavor was fine, but the texture bothered him. I told him to think of it as Pea Pudding... The rest of the batch is now in the freezer frozen into individual servings - in an ice cube tray. I think we might try cauliflower next.

Fall Foliage in my front yard ... One of my crepe myrtles has burst into gorgeous color in the past couple of days. Oddly enough, the other one is still green. They do this in the spring too. One blooms much sooner than the other.

Check out the link to The House Fairy in my link list. She's Santa Claus' sister & checks to make sure kids are keeping their rooms clean. If they are she'll occasionally leave a note or prize or something. If they're not, she leaves a bit of fairy dust (glitter) to let them know Santa will be getting a report that their room wasn't picked up. We've introduced her to Brandon & it works pretty well.

Mom & Dad drove down with the airsteam this week in preparation for Mark's big move. We went out to Maumelle Park to have dinner with them on Tuesday night. It was cold outside, but the boys went out to have a bonfire while the girls stayed inside. It wasn't long until the boys saw the folly of being outside & came back into warm up!
Jennifer came out to visit too. She's been making fabulous progress on a new diet program, so she didn't join us for dinner. Dad made a new chicken recipe that involves those French's fried onion things. Brandon loved it so much he ate TWO helpings - every last crumb. We also had noodles (Stroganoff I think) and peas. Laedyn watched all the proceedings from her Bumbo seat. Don't worry, my leg was in front of it so there was no danger of her toppling off onto the floor...(yes we've heard about the recall)
Papa was entertaining the kids ... successfully at that!
Mamo brought along a couple of books. Brandon was happy to let Papa read to him ...and he was quick to add his 2 cents to the story.After storytime, we needed to get ready to go home. Laedyn needed a change, so Nick had to crawl under the table to get past everyone. Brandon thought it was pretty funny. Any of you who have been in the Airstream know how crowded it can get. Nick managed to get out eventually, Laedyn got a clean diaper AND her jammies, and we subsequently headed back to the house. Brandon ended up sleeping in his clothes that night - it was close to 10pm by the time we got home & we didn't have the heart to wake him up. The next night he asked if he could sleep in his clothes again! Silly boy.

Trick or Treat! We took Brandon the green ghost to Rich & Regina's house to go trick or treating with Jackson the ninja. The boys had a blast! I've never seen so much candy - it was rather excessive. Brandon's bag got so heavy after doing just one street he had to unload into a grocery bag before heading back out to do another street.

I thought these luminaries looked nice lining someone's sidewalk.

The boys did a great job of saying "trick or treat" and thanking all the nice folks handing out candy. As the night wore on, Brandon became more & more creative. Nick said he even told some people he loved them! He told other people "sweet dreams" and "don't let the bed bugs bite" ... That boy is NOT shy!

Here's Rich holding Jackson's cousin Luke. Luke goes to the same daycare/preschool as Brandon & Laedyn.


Laedyn stayed at the house with the grown-ups handing out candy. She slept thru most of the evening in her stroller.

Brandon's preschool had their Halloween party last week and all the kids dressed up & had their pictures taken. They were all really cute. After pictures, all the kids sat down to have thier party food which, unsurprisingly, contained bright orange cheese puffs. They make it to EVERY preschool party - even most of the private birthday parties. In addition, all the kids got a goody bag to bring home - full of candy & Halloween themed trinkets. Brandon got a mini glow-in-the-dark rubber mummy ducky. Cute.

Kaleb's Daddy brought this skeleton head in a ball. It moved around & made noise (talked maybe???). The kids were fascinated of course.

Meet the Green Ghost...Brandon & I had a little photo shoot in the preschool playground before their Halloween Party started. He thought he was a pretty scary ghost ... Charming ghost...
Silly ghost...


Hard to find ghost ...

Last Sunday Nick & I painted my new office. The green was a touch mintier than the paint chip, but it's not too far off that I felt compelled to go back to Home Depot & complain.

Boo at the Zoo 2007

Laedyn is a Harlequin - with a cuddle bunny to keep her company... Once we got into the zoo & the sun set, she fell sound asleep and stayed that way until we got home.

Nick is Nick from the late 80's, early 90's - well except for the hat & Tattoos...yes that's an authentic Danzig t-shirt. Some of those who knew us back in the day might recognize it since it was in the regular rotation for quite some time. He says he got it at Record Revolution in Coventry. Now it resides way up in the top corner of the closet as a momento (or a halloween costume). The jeans...acid washed. Possibly from when he was in high school. We wondered if people thought this was his normal look...He's actullay considering getting the tattoos for real - NOT. Hahahahaha
Brandon is a Green Ghost - his choice. I bought green hairspray and face paint. He did OK with the hairspray, but didn't have much patience for the face paint. Up close you can see the tear streaks down one of his cheeks. Poor thing...
I took Brandon thru a "fun house maze" for the kids. At first he wasn't too sure about approaching this spider. I told him not to worry, that it was pretend. Thereafter, he informed all the other kids that it was just pretend. Jennifer found this highly amusing...I just wore a halloween shirt, some heavy eye make up (Brandon kept asking me to close my eyes so he could look at it), and a bit of glitter. Of course, I'm BEHIND the camera, so you'll have to do without photographic evidence...maybe another time. Instead, you can enjoy some group shots of the rest of the family!

Here are the final shots from our trip to the zoo last weekend with Tyrus. They were getting set up for Boo at the Zoo which is going on now thru Halloween. (We actually went this last Saturday with Jennifer & her sister, brother-in-law & nephew. I haven't even downloaded those pictures yet!!!) How is it that I am always a week behind posting my pictures? Starting one's own business tends to take over everything else it seems...Oh & making TWO Hallowwen costumes without Mom & Mark here to help.The zoo has a new exhibit of Rainbow Lorikeets. We just happened to be there while they were being fed & got to hold up little cups of nectar for the birds to eat. Tyrus had to hold Brandon up - & Brandon is not very light anymore. Luckily there isn't much nectar in the cup, so it didn't go on for too long. The exhibit was pretty cool - check it out next time you're at the zoo. Laedyn enjoyed riding in her stroller even thought she can't see much from down there. Here's a really good one of Tyrus. He wasn't expecting me to get a picture at that moment...we were having lunch in the new cafe. They did a really nice job with the renovations.Check out the HUGE leaves! Their size isn't obvious in a picture unless there's a person there to compare them to. Nick, as usual, is my most reliable,if not entirely willing, model...I thought this picture turned out great, even though Tyrus is posing as a tough kid. I guess that's his cool look or something. He & Brandon were both laughing until I did the picture countdown...