Early Ho! Ho! Ho!

We're refraining from getting much into Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but for fun I took the kids to Lowe's to see the inflatables (that won't make an appearance in our lawn), lawn ornaments (ditto), and other Christmas items. Most impressive to the kids was the dancing Santa.

Henry's Third Birthday

We have another 3-Year-Old in the house! We celebrated Henry's third birthday on Saturday with a little cake & presents with Grandpa Doug, Grandma Paulette & Grandma Gates.
Henry's been having a real good stretch. He's communicating well, he's been super silly, you should hear him count (!), and even when he's being pouty and defiant, he's showing us that he's acting his age.
On Saturday evening Jenn and I went to Fleming's for dinner and had two really, really good meals. (It helped that we had a gift card.) It had been a while since we'd had a date-nite, and we were thankful that the Grandparents were willing to keep the kids for the evening.

Last night the snow started.This morning, the kids woke up and surprisingly didn't bother Jenn or me much, but instead congregated in Lydia's room. Henry went to the potty without my telling him, and Lincoln got some underpants for him. And then I heard Lincoln excitedly say, "We have to go tell Daddy!!!"

The kids ran into our room and screamed, "Snow!!!" and continued to run to different windows and see the snow outside. This is going to be a fun winter, and an especially fun Christmas time.

Fall Photos

Yesterday was the first Wednesday I've been off of work in a while, so I took Lincoln to school, and then went to Bob Evans with Lydia and Henry. We had a fun breakfast together, sampling sausage, bacon, eggs, fruit, yogurt, pancakes, biscuits & home fries. Guess what? The kids didn't remember to ask for a morning snack between breakfast and lunch.

Lincoln was a bit disappointed that the didn't get to go for breakfast, so Jenn took him shopping for a winter coat after school, and then they went to dinner at… Bob Evans!

Meanwhile, I took the little ones to Little Meadow for some photos...

Halloween 2013

Our big Halloween/Birthday Party was this past weekend, and it was a lot of fun.  Jenn put *hours* into planning it, the kids were psyched for weeks leading up to it, and aside from the sick buy working its way, one by one, through our family, things came off pretty well.

Easing Into Fall

We have a 3 Year Old in the house now.  Lydia's Birthday started with her receiving her Birthday Balloon, looking at it with a surprised look for about 4 seconds, then looking at me skeptically and saying, "When can I have my cake?"

Jenn told her that the big cake is coming for the combined Birthday/Halloween Party and that we were going to have Dirt Pudding.  The kids were not impressed, and they complained all day saying the weren't going to eat dirt.  When Jenn pointed out that there would be worms and rocks in it, that didn't seem to help.  Henry remained skeptical until he saw everyone else eat the worms first.
Lydia popped her Birthday Balloon about 90 minutes after receiving it, and then when Grandma Paulette brought over another Birthday Balloon before dinner, Lydia popped that one in about 15 minutes. 
Last Saturday we went to Dussell Farm to get some pumpkins and other fall things.  That's become somewhat of a family tradition, but at this stage of life, spending much time there is a challenge.
As we like to do every now and then, we took a walk at the Beaver Pond last evening while Jenn ran 6.1 miles.
Big plans are in the works for the Birthday/Halloween Party.  Our house is in the process of transforming into a kid-friendly Halloween fun zone, and you should see the menu that Jenn is planning!  It's gonna be a fun one.

Jenn's 1/2 Marathon, the Towpath 1/2 Marathon, was officially postponed.  She ran a 1/2 that Sunday anyway, and then got sick on Monday.  So after several days of not feeling well and not running, she's back at the training and doing pretty well.  It's been rescheduled for early November, and there only ought to be a difference of about 30 degrees in temperature.

Me, I've been running about 10 miles a week lately.  I've never been a runner, and Jenn and I make a decent pair, at least as far as starting out is concerned.  She's the big-time distance runner now, easily pounding out 6 to 10 miles at a time.  I've been going 3 to 4 a pop, and sometimes with Gretel.  So who knows?  Maybe we'll run a 1/2 or Full together sometime in the future...