Preparing for Halloween

We love this time of year. The leaves are changing color. The weather is not sweltering humidity and we can leave the windows open. The footie pajamas come out. And we all eagerly anticipate Halloween.

This year Daniel helped me carve our pumpkin. He was very precise about where the eyebrows should be.

And, this year, we have the black cat to add to our Halloween decorations!

We went to a Halloween party today and Soph got to try out her costume.

Here are Sophia and Uncle Fred growling at each other. I think Fred was scared :-)

Sohpia has been practicing feeding herself. Here is her rice pudding face.

Eric and Dan had a good time this weekend at the Children's Museum.

Eric drove the ambulance.

They really enjoyed this new addition to the museum -- the mechanic shop. In fact, there were a number of boys (the girls were conspicuously absent) crawling ALL OVER that car. Even on top of it to get a better angle to work on the engines, windows, tires you name it. It looked like it was a lot of fun, but I did have to sit on the sideline with the dads and take pictures, so I couldn't join in.

Uncle Fred and his lovely wife Diane gave the kids inflatable furniture (thanks Alyssa for the donation!) It has become an instant hit in our house. Here are Sophia and Daniel enjoying their inflatable chair while reading a nighttime book (one of the finer Clifford classics).

Then, as often happens when two siblings attempt to share a book, a chair, anything, one of them looks at the other the "wrong way." (as Ken can attest)

And then it is on like Donkey Kong...

And, we leave you with this happy sound...

This one is for the grandparents...

I don't really have enough pics to post an entire blog entry here, but I thought you would want to see one of your grandchildren with enough hair before the age of 1 to actually wear a bow! No scotch tape! No magic tricks!

She is definitely the hit of the daycare with these bows. All the teachers crowd around her on the playground when we drop DanMan off. Soph is also eating ALL kinds of food now (burgers, cheerios, bananas, pancakes). It's hard to imagine she can chow down all that food with two little teeth, but man she packs it in!

This kids laugh hysterically when Magic (a/k/a our cat who thinks he is a dog) tries to eat our dinners. Argh.

Here is Fi wearing the hat that Aunt Lynne made her. It's actually quite jaunty... like a beret!

and of course, not to be outdone, Daniel wanted me to include this picture of him:

That Old Black Magic

Our family grew by one member last weekend. Last Saturday we adopted Magic from the Richmond SPCA. The SPCA is a great place to take a free field trip. Dan loves to get in the car and drive over there to see the cats and dogs, but we hadn't really looked seriously at adopting one. However, we both agreed it was time for Dan to have a pet so that he can learn what "gentle" means. His little sister has not been able to teach him this unfortunately.

As soon as they brought Magic into the room for us to look at we knew he was the one. I am NOT a cat person. However, Dan, Sophia and I have come to the conclusion that Magic is the bomb-diggity. He is gentle, brave, quick, and funny! He also lets Sophia swat at him and Daniel be loud and doesn't even bat an eye. We really lucked out.

And as you can tell, Mark thinks Magic is okay too...

Here is Magic surveying playtime. It is good.

Sophia has been moving all around the house. She has been low crawling everywhere. If you leave her for one moment she is across the house! At least she is keeping the floors polished!

This week she even crawled... to reach Magic.

And there has been lots of standing and pulling up as well.