November tomatoes

Our tomato plant continues to go nuts. We've gotten great tomatoes all summer/fall long from this one plant.I roasted these and made fresh spaghetti sauce for tonight's dinner. Yum. It's coming down this weekend, though. Time to plant something else in it's place for our winter garden.

Happy Halloween!

What a big day! We went to two 'fall festival' parties and trick or treating around the neighborhood. The kids had a blast. I'm glad that Hayden was able to enjoy trick or treating this year. (Last year he hid under his bed!) Both kids scored a ton of "good" candy and shared with Mom and Dad. Thanks H & A.

Hook 'em.

My mom took the kids and I to the pumpkin patch yesterday (pics to come). We stopped by a little "statue park" on the way home to let the kids run around and play. Hayden occupied his time by climbing trees, not at all interested in the massive statues. Finally he came to me and said, "Mom, what's wrong with these animals? Are they dehydrated?". I thought that was funny. I have to hand it to him, they do look creepy close up.

Birthday theme

A happy, happy birthday to Grandpa today! We hope you've had a good day today, G.

On the subject of birthday's, I have a funny story. Okay--not really funny, but a family birthday story that has been ongoing for 3 months. Here it goes:
Hayden (and Aubin) love "PBS kids" cartoons. Every morning between "Curious George" and the highly annoying "Sid the Science kid" programs, our local station puts up a monthly birthday list consisting of "kids club" members names. Hayden is fascinated by this. This past August, we paid up our "kids club" dues to have his name put on the screen, but missed the deadline. (They said they'd put him on September's list.) It was SO SAD!!! Every morning, little Hayden would watch the scroll for his name and slump over in disappointment. September came, and they forgot about us again. Boo hoo! Sad little Hayden was pitiful frowning at the screen with "Feliz cumpleanos" playing (September was a Spanish birthday theme.) FINALLY, we got on in October and WOW! What luck. It's a Jumbo-tron theme for October! He has jumped up and down in pure 5 year old euphoria every morning for the past 28 days.
So rgmsr, we hope you have a super jumbo-tron kind of day today.

Slideshow

we had a good time, but it really made me miss all of our cousins.

Happy thoughts first.

Hayden and Aubin have a new baby cousin as of this week. Congratulations Aunt K. and family!

Ugh. I promised no more 'bummer blogging'. I'll keep it short.
Sick kids this week...Hayden has strep, and Aubin a funky breathing thing (I'll spare you the long details). Slide show of Thomas adventures tomorrow....honest.

Cinders and ashes, it's Thomas!

We had a good time this weekend. The weather was lovely....mid 70's. The train ride was pleasant, not too crowded since it was way out in the boonies. (Last year in Austin we would have been packed in like sardines!) Here are two of my favorite pictures from the weekend. I'll post a little slide show of more photos tonight or tomorrow. Before I leave you this evening, I have to mention that Rick FINALLY got that $2.50 chicken fried steak. Yes! We dropped by my hospital on the way home for lunch!! Rick begged, so I reluctantly agreed. RELUCTANTLY agreed, because it's just plain weird to go to a hospital for something like that. BUT I've got to say I'M GLAD WE DID! He was right!!!! It was fantastic. I had the pork loin, 2 sides and lemon pie for $4-ish. Did I mention that we dined by a rock waterfall and flower garden? Amazing.