Pauleys looking serious

Yes, a photo essay. I am very nearly out of words to write about this family unless someone barfs or requires a trip to the ER tonight.  I was cleaning up the camera from our trip and noticed a recurring theme. 

 

The 'Pondering' gene runs strong in this crew. 

Just to clarify, Reina can look serious but during this trip she didn't stay in one place long enough for me to take a picture of said serious-ness.  Unless she was asleep.  The one thing she was serious about was performing surgery on her cousin.  While she had him trapped, she removed several vital organs, gave him a thousand shots and bandaged his limbs. All while wearing a tiara, of course. 

School lunches

As a kindergartner, Will picks hot lunch a few times a week.  One of our morning rituals is to check out the menu online (technology!) and he carefully considers the options before deciding on which entree or a cold lunch made by Dad.  Will puts a lot of thought into his lunch decisions.  Earlier in the Fall, he had already figured out his likes (nachos - "it's chips and then they put a lot of cheese on it!" and breakfast for lunch) and his dislikes ('that stuff with rice').   The menu is basically the same core items but they change up the side dishes.  Since we are now almost in the fourth month of school (!), Will's pretty familiar with all of the choices.  That's why he surprised me this morning by wanting to have hamburgers from today's menu.  During the other weeks, he's turned up his cute little nose to burgers.  When I picked him up from school today, I asked him how he liked the hamburger.  He told me that it was really good, and it even had meat in it!  I'm so glad.    

Seventeen pictures of Thanksgiving weekend

On Wednesday, the four of us piled into the car and we headed out for Omaha to visit the Nebraska Pauleys.   The bazillion-hour car ride didn't go as badly as I had anticipated.  No one threw up, threw a giant tantrum or threw anything out of the window.  We didn't have to stop every 45 minutes and before we knew it, we were in Omaha.  My pictures from the weekend loaded backwards so instead of restarting everything, we'll just start at the very end..... 

Reina and I at a restaurant in Ogallala a few hours from home last night.  I include two pictures as proof of how hard it is to capture any of us with a normal pose. 

C'mon Reina, just look at Daddy!

Glenn and Will at the same restaurant and with the same dilemma. 

Before we left for home yesterday, we spent a few hours at the Durham Western Heritage Museum. It's a pretty neat museum housed inside the old Union Depot in Omaha. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of the inside of the Depot - it's a really neat restored Art Deco room - you feel like you are taking a step back in time.

 

This is a fuzzy picture but I had to include it for the look on Reina's face. She looks like she's off on a grand adventure.  This is a streetcar inside the museum. 

Inside a Pullman car with cousins.  And a 5-yr old who doesn't want his picture taken.

And more cousins and aunt and uncle.  

And 3-yr olds who don't want their picture taken. 

Santa was at the museum and Will had a list a mile long for him.  Reina had a few things on her list but she whispered them to Santa so some things were lost in translation.  We do know she wants a magic wand.  A real one, thank you very much. 

On Friday, some of us woke up early and did a little Black Friday shopping.  It wasn't too crazy and we did find some good bargains.  It's ironic that I can't get up at 6:30 a.m. to jog most days, but I can jump out of bed to face crowded stores and crazy shoppers on a vacation day... mysteries of life.  So after shopping and lunch, the whole gang headed to the zoo in Omaha. 

Reina swinging from a vine.  She liked the monkeys and wanted me to pretend that she was a baby monkey while we walked around the zoo.  I don't have to stretch my imagination too much with that one.  I usually think of her as a spider/howler/chimp most days....

I don't know why Glenn's the one looking freaked out here.  I'm the one who refused to go across the rope bridge and I'm taking this picture from the safety of solid ground after I took the solid-ground shortcut around the bridge.  It's very Indiana Jones Temple of Doom, without the human sacrifices and crocodile infested waters below.  Cute guy though. 

The zoo is pretty neat but one of the highlights was definitely the aquarium.  The fish swim on both sides of you and above your head and it's hard not to get a little freaked out when there's a 6-foot shark swimming directly at you, even with a big pane of glass in between.  Reina was captivated by the aquarium and we had to drag her out of there.  But not before she had some face time with a turtle. 

Sharks and fish and all sorts of ocean creatures.  Eeek.  

Aquarium girl.  At the sea horse tank, one of the zookeepers was wearing scuba gear and cleaning the inside of the tank.  Reina was fascinated by the "deep sea diver" and she could've watched the tank being cleaned all day.  She finally got up the nerve to give the zookeeper a shy wave and she happily received one in return.  Thanks "deep sea diver" for making her day. 

Alright, we've made it backward to Thanksgiving Day.  We had a delicious meal that was mostly made by the Omaha Pauleys. I did manage to make two pies that were pretty good - and I remembered sugar this year.  Yeah!  We stuffed ourselves with really good turkey and all of the trimmings.

Again, it's hard to get everyone looking in the same direction... or not holding giant pieces of turkey in front of their faces, Will. 

Happy Thanksgiving 2012!

The Pauleys pulled out all sorts of toys and distractions for the younger set.  Will was fascinated with big cousin Ben's Lego collection.  Reina was focused on the tiaras and jewels and fun dress-up clothes that were at her disposal. I thought she had a regal, flapper, 1920's vibe going on here.  She also got her hands on a toy medical kit and handed out medicine and injections to everyone.  We are also pretty sure that she performed anesthetic-free surgery on poor big cousin Ben but he lived to tell the tale. 

We had a great trip and a happy Thanksgiving.  Back home today, we are looking forward to the holiday season. 

Reinish, part 2

Today, we came out of a store around lunchtime and we could smell something yummy cooking in the air.  Reina said that something smelled good and then she told me, "I want body chew for dinner." I was stumped.  Body chew.  I asked her what she wanted for dinner again and she told me it smelled like body chew and she likes body chew because it tastes good.  Aha.  It smelled like someone was barbecuing.  Body chew = barbecue.  You've got to be on your toes around here.

Reinish

I've written before about how Reina speaks her own language.   As she gets older, her pronunciation is getting clearer and most of us can understand her.  There are still a few phrases that we have to ask her to repeat and as you can imagine, she's not very patient with us.  "MOMMY, I SAID, ARE BATS REAL?"  (I couldn't tell if she was asking if they were 'wild' or 'wool.')  But what makes me giggle the most is her full-steam-ahead approach to pronouncing new words even if she has no idea how to pronounce it.  Tonight at dinner, we were talking about animals that we see at the zoo and I told a story about a chimpanzee.  This chimpanzee (or maybe it was a gorilla?) would steal the keys from the zookeepers and let himself and the other primates out at night.   Naturally, both kids had about a thousand questions about said chimpanzee.  Reina couldn't remember what kind of animal it was so she blurted out, "What was that pandacheese doing?"  Close enough, kiddo.  Close enough. 

Football!

Glenn and I attended the Broncos game today.  They won!  The Broncos beat the Chargers and while the end was a little scarier than it needed to be, it was a fun game and we had a great time.  The only other two Broncos games that Glenn has been to have ended in the big L, so it was nice to break that streak this time.  The Chargers are probably my most hated team, so I enjoyed the W, too.  The kiddos spent the day with Grandma H (Pop-pop is on a trip) and wore her out with coloring, snack-eating and cartoons.  Luckily, they also wore themselves out and fell asleep in the car on the way home and stayed that way even as we carried them up the stairs and plopped them into bed.  That's definitey the sign of a good day. 

I could blog tonight but I think I'll take up knitting again instead

I am seriously running out of things to write about and I can't imagine that sentence is anymore exciting to read than it is to write.  We had a nice relatively normal Saturday.  The kids had basketball practice this morning.  Will's team scrimmaged with another 5-6 yr old team and it was chaos.  Pure and total chaos.  The game looks like some combination of football and basketball with a few soccer kicks thrown in.  There's also a lot of kids on the ground, inexplicably, and someone left the floor crying about every 5 minutes.  The coaches are just wanting them to work on the fundamentals like passing and shooting the basket.  Dribbling is apparently not a fundamental at this point because there's very little of it.  I spent most of the time giggling and trying to sound encouraging instead of screeching "Shoot the balllllll Will!"

After basketball, we wrapped elk meat (yep, it's that time of year) and put away laundry.  Exciting times around here!  Then we went to a birthday party at the same place that Reina had her birthday party this year.  The last place that Glenn was before his elbow started to hurt and the Great Big Giant Scary Thing of 2012 happened.  We joked about it at the party but I've been a little on edge today thinking about that weekend in February.  But I just asked him how he's feeling and the report is good. 

After the birthday party, Will and Aunt Vicky went on a date and Reina went home to nap. You can imagine how well that went over. Reina will get her date on a different day - the movie was a little too scary for the 3-yr old set. 

So back to the knitting topic.  I haven't knit much in the past year and I'm feeling the twitch to get the needles and yarn back out again.  I found a cute pattern for a cat hat (wonder who that's for?) and I'm going to go look through my giant pile of yarn in the guest room closet and see if I can find something that works.  Stay tuned. 

Hodge Podge

I had to travel for work yesterday and had a little mini-break from chores and parental responsibility. I don't have to travel often, which I'm glad about, but a night here and there is nice.  It helps that both kids will happily talk to me on the phone so I can hear about their days, and the litany of complaints and concerns that they'd like to report to management.

When I came home tonight, Will and I tackled the next level of Angry Birds Star Wars.  It's a bit of an obsession around here, and not just for the 5-yr old.  We pushed bedtime back a bit tonight so that we could get to the next level.  Hey, he's learning strategy or something, right?

I told Glenn that I had to stay up and blog.  He said I could go to bed and blob.  I think I'll follow his advice.

Brave

I took Reina in for a blood draw today.  She's been running a low grade fever for a while now and the doctor just wanted to rule out any weird infections.  I had to take Reina to the lab at the hospital for the  work-up.  As we pulled up in the parking lot, Reina asked "is this Daddy's hospital?"  The events of last winter still linger with all of us.

So Reina had blood drawn when she was 2 before her tonsil surgery and she surprised everyone in the lab by not making a peep when the needle stuck her arm.  Well this time wasn't any different.  The technician told her that she didn't have to watch if she didn't want to but she politely told him "I want to watch you!" and that's exactly what she did.  I can't even watch it.

Afterwards, she picked out a toy.  She remembered that from last time, too.  On the way out, I told her that I was very proud of how brave she was and what a big girl she is.   But really Reina, can you please just be a little afraid of needles and things piercing your skin?  Just a tiny bit?   Please?

Well, shoot.

So I missed yesterday's post but I'm determined to NOT let this NaBloPoMo thing go flying out the window.  I missed yesterday's post for basically good reasons.  1) I had actual work 'work' to do... big report that's hanging over my head and keeping me up at night.  2) I had to spend several minutes speculating with Glenn as to whether or not Will was coming down with the flu because a) we haven't taken him to get a flu shot yet and b) he was really droopy, lethargic and mildly feverish and 3) I really had to watch a tv show I like at 9:00 p.m. and 4) I've almost completely run out of things to blog about.  Truly, I don't know what else to write about this month and it's only the 14th.  I've covered Reina's impishness, Will's kindergartnerness, Glenn's glennness and dressed up the dogs in costumes.  Short of detailing my love for pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, I'm not sure what else to write about. 

In the meantime, back to the influenza question.  I've been wanting to get the kids all flu shot-ted up but every time we've had some time one of them, or one of us, has been running a fever.  So it may or may not be too late.  Will actually seems to be feeling better tonight so we'll see.  I'm already so tired of this year's cold and flu season.

Tonight, Reina and I attended a literacy event at our local high school.  Will was supposed to come with me because it was designed for elementary aged school kids but he was still on the couch, so Reina came with me and pretended to be a kindergartner. She fit right in too.  She strutted around and did the activities and picked out her free book. She also posed with the cheerleaders and looked a little too natural waving around those pom-poms.  Not sure how I feel about that but we'll tackle that issue in a few more years. 

Seven Years

Seven years ago today, Glenn and I were married here in Cheyenne.  Just like today, it was a windy, blustery day.  We were engaged in June and picked November because we didn't want to wait until the following summer and we didn't want to deal with severe winter weather for our guests if we waited any later.  So November 12 it was.  Because of Veteran's day that year, it was a 3-day weekend and I was so grateful for all of the out-of-town friends and family who made the trip.  The details of the day  have started to fade but I remember feeling equal parts nervous, queasy, excited and loved.  We had an early afternoon ceremony and a reception that followed.  We drove home in a decorated car and the best man's wife and I opened wedding presents while Glenn and the two best men watched hunting videos.  A few days later, we took a short honeymoon to Santa Fe and and a few months after that, we flew to Greece for a week.  Since that day in November, Glenn and I have shared a lot of adventures. Our lives look a little different than they did seven years ago but I wouldn't have it any other way.  Here's to another, let's say.... 57 years!  Happy anniversary sweetie!

The weekend

This blogging every day is hard.  By the end of the month, you'll probably be reading my grocery list.    But here's a quick recap of the weekend.  Basketball practice yesterday morning was fun for kids and parents alike.  The 8:45 start time kills any ability to sleep in but frankly, that never happens anyway.  We bought both kids their own basketballs to practice at home and Will insisted on going outside this afternoon to work on his dribbling.  It was about 25 degrees. Brrrrrr.  Reina finds it hard to dribble while also holding on to a purse.

We helped some friends move yesterday.  Reina sat in the basement and ate pizza.  She also serenaded some of the movers with the latest Taylor Swift song.  Will ate pizza and then sat in the car playing Angry Birds Star Wars.  Yes, earlier in the week, two of Will's worlds collided when I downloaded the newly released ABSW.  It combines two of his current obsessions, AB and all things Star Wars.  Even I can admit that it's pretty fun.

Last night we went to a friends' housewarming party.  It was a lot of fun and the kids tired themselves out.  I was talking to another parent about kid-related trips to the ER and I had just said something along the lines of "we haven't taken either kid to the ER in quite a while..." when Will came screaming down the stairs (literally) after slamming his finger in the door.  There was a little bit of blood and a lot of drama but it didn't appear to be broken and he's fine today so it was only a partial jinx.

Today was the coldest day of the season.  With the windchill it's -1 right now.  So it was a lot of indoor activities, besides the quick basketball practice.  Vicky and I hosted a little party for some friends. We watched a lot of football (Broncos!!!) and had a nice day. The best part?  Tomorrow is a holiday (thank you Veteran's!) and we get to extend this weekend a little bit longer.

Basketball

Sorry for the poor quality pictures but basketball practice was at 8:45 this morning and we barely got out of the house on time and the "we" didn't include my camera.  Today was the first day of basketball practice for both Will and Reina.  That's right, ladies and gentleman, Reina is playing a team sport.  She did really well.  There are only two girls on the team and the other one was too shy to really practice but Reina hung in there.  Her brother did go "help" her from time to time. 

Familiar with the saying, "There's no 'I' in team?"  Well there are plenty of I's in 3- and 4-yr old basketball.  Whichever basketball they touched first in practice, became their very own ball, to be parted with under only the most dire of circumstances.  So passing it to each other and drills were a bit difficult.  It was really fun to watch though.  Reina tried hard and even made a basket!  As we were getting ready this morning, she was running around without pants on (per usual) and I told her that she had to wear pants to basketball, plus it was only about 30 degrees outside. She paused for a moment and then told Glenn and I both that she'd had a note from the Basketball Girls and that Basketball Girls didn't need to wear pants.  It's hard not to giggle when she comes up with stuff like that and I'll worry later about how easy it is for her to ahem, embellish the truth.  As you can see, she wore pants.

I didn't get any decent pictures of Will's practice which took place after Reina's but suffice it to say that I spent the rest of the morning wondering how I'd look on tv when the camera pans around to me in the stands at the Nat'l Championship game, wearing my son's jersey, probably crying, and definitely cheering loudly when he sinks the winning free-throw.  Am I planning too far ahead?  Well, at the very least, he seems to really like basketball.  He played hard in practice, made a few baskets and most importantly, paid attention to the coach.  For now, that's all we need. 

The little blonde one

The posts this week have been Will-heavy and that's not to say that Reina hasn't been busy, exhausting and incredibly entertaining. She's been running a low-grade fever all week and I'm slightly bothered by it. We've all been battling viruses and such over the last several weeks and it just seems to linger on.  But where another person, say Will, would want to rest and lounge around while not feeling well, Reina prefers to power ahead and maybe eradicate the virus from her body by sheer force of will.  So that's fun for everyone, as you can imagine. 

She also prefers to never wear pants. 

But at the end of the day, she's a sweet girl and so stinkin' smart.  It's been a long week and my brain is tired so I can't think of too many anecdotes right now but suffice it to say that she continually surprises us with what she knows.  She and I were driving by Will's school today, while he was there.  Reina gazed at the school wistfully and said, "I just really wish that was my school."  I'm not sure there has ever been a 3-yr old more ready to tackle kindergarten. 

All I can say is, "Watch out kindergarten."

Broncos!

We have some crazy Broncos fans in this house. 

Okay, really I'm the only crazy one but I'm working on the rest of them.  Glenn will watch games with me - unless I tell him he has to go someplace else because the team was winning while he wasn't watching the game and now they are losing because he's sitting on the couch - and the kids will be playing in the den and periodically asking me which team is the 'bad guys.'  If it's an afternoon game, Reina is usually napping and so I can't yell and scream at the tv which I guess is best for everyone.  If it's a late night game, Will will ask me in the morning if the Broncos won and he'll give me a high five if the answer is "yes!"  He'll even wear the orange and blue shirt to school, even though it features nary a Lego character, sword or a ninja on it.  But for now, I'm still the only one who is irrationally happy for the rest of the day when the game ends in a W and sulks for hours when it doesn't.  For now. 

Monkey bars and other milestones

Glenn was under the weather this morning so I dropped kiddos off at school.  I hung out with Will on the playground before the bell rang because he wanted to show me what he could do on the monkey bars.  At he beginning of the school year, he wanted badly to be able cross them by himself but he couldn't quite do it.  Well, today he scrambled back and forth across the bars like a, well .....monkey.  It is so neat to see him work on something by himself and master it.  This whole year has been one big milestone for Will.  Leaving Montessori, kindergarten, all the growing up that he's doing, it is one thing after another for this kid.  Reading is just around the corner.  His writing is getting clearer and most importantly, his enthusiasm for writing and reading are increasing.  He lectures Reina on what sounds each letter makes and corrects her pronunciation of 'Barack Obama.'  (Reina had asked me "who's broccoli bama?").  After watching The Great Monkey Bars Routine of 2012, I told Will that I had to go to work and that I'd see him after school. He jumped down from the playground equipment and said, "Don't forget to give me a hug before you go.". My heart melted.  I may not know  everything about little boys, but I'm pretty sure my days of getting a hug on the playground are limited.  I'll take them while I can get them. 

Election Night

Don't worry, this post won't include any long political speeches, thoughts on health care, musings or rants about either party.  This is politics-free zone.  But I did want to record for posterity that Will knew about the election today and had opinions about the outcome.  I dropped him off at school today and on the way there we talked about how today was an important day because people were voting for the president.  I asked Will if he knew what the President's name was and he did - thank you Kindergarten!  So we talked about the election for a little while and I explained that people might be picking a different President today, or not.  Then Will became pretty worried about what the President would do if he's not the President anymore.  "But what will he do???"  I told him that the President would find lots of other stuff to do but we'd just have to wait and see how the election went.  Then I tried to explain what voting means and didn't do a great job of it and then it was time to be dropped off at school.  So we have a future concerned voter in our midst, even if he's not as concerned about the hot issues as he about Presidential unemployment. 

Sometimes when we are really bored....

We put shirts on the dogs.  Or in this case, dog.  Poor Tootsie, she's so patient with our shenanigans and much to well-mannered to throw a fit about being stuffed in a 5-yr old's shirts.  But she also spent the rest of the evening (in a huff?) upstairs, avoiding me and anymore bright ideas I might have had to entertain the younger set. 

A bunch of Halloween pictures

If I'm going to be able to do this whole one-blog-post-a-day thing then I'm going to have to space it out. I could be wierd and post just one of these pictures a day for the next week but that feels like cheating.  So here's Halloween day and night in all of it's Oct 31 glory. 

First, we had a bit of a problem because Reina got to wear her costume to school but Will didn't.  I guess if was in charge of 24 5- and 6-yr olds, I wouldn't want costumes either! 

Meow!  Reina is sporting a new pair of ears from the party the previous Friday because the old pair never made it home from said party and Grandma and Grandpa Pauley had to help find a new set when I was stuck at home with sick Will.  They did well. 

So Will's party started at 8:30 a.m. and Reina's at 9:00 a.m. so Glenn and I went to school with Will and helped for a few minutes and then I dashed over to Reina's school for party #2.  Will's class work kicky little spider hats and feasted on a bunch of Halloween-themed goodies.  My favorite were pieces of ham rolled around a sliced dill pickle that looked like a finger.  Creepy and savory! 

Two shots of the spider hat because I love the gruesome face he drew.  I'll talk about Will's parent/teacher conference later this week but here's a preview.  Apparently he loves to draw and would draw all day if that met the curriculum guidelines. 

Okay, back at Montessori in time for the costume parade!  Reina with Dora, Merida and Broncos running back #27, Knowshon Moreno! 

Dora snacking on witches' brew which was a tasty combination of marshmallows, candy corn, m&m's, fritos, bugles, pretzels and a bunch of stuff that made me happy she was at school all day and not burning off that energy in our house. 

After work and after a very quick dinner, we put the costumes on, fixed the cat whiskers and headed out again. 

"Can't I just eat candy right now?"



As you can see, Reina was a little unsure of Ninja Pop-pop but Will was ready to battle. 



So now Halloween is over for another year.  We have the pictures, the memories and the costumes to remind us.  Oh, and the candy.  We have lots and lots of candy. 

Saturdays

The last several Saturdays have been a blur of activity. Will has had football for the the last 6 Saturdays (except for the mornings it was raining or he was sick) plus we usually do a lot of chores, run errands, I jog, birthday parties, Glenn hunting, etc.  Long boring story short, it's been busy.  Today wasn't really any different regarding the amount of stuff we packed in, but it was definitely pretty fun.

1.  I ran a 10k race.  I was supposed to run another half marathon but the bronchitis from a few weeks ago scratched than off the list.  So I ran the 10k and surprisingly beat my time this summer by a minute.  Glenn and the kids were cheering me on at the finish and Will wanted to run across the finish line with me- I briefly (selfishly) thought "he might slow me down!" but then I remembered that I'm not making any money at this and grabbed his hand and pulled him along for the last few yards.

2.  After the race, we had brunch with my sister and bro-in-law.  He ran the half marathon and the kids had fun cheering "Go Uncle Matt" at the finish line. We had a great meal and I used the excuse that I ran for an hour to buy just about one of everything in the bakery attached to the restaurant.

3.  We dropped the kids off with the Pauley grandparents for a few hours and ran a couple of kid-free errands.  It was lovely.

4.  We came back to the grandparents house and watched most of the first half of the Wyoming game which was surprisingly entertaining. It was the annual Border War with CSU and both teams have had a forgettable season but the Pokes prevailed and in my mind, the season is somewhat salvaged by beating the sheep.  Will wore his UW shirt all day and clearly that helped affect the outcome of the game.

5.  Reina never napped and while she hung in there bravely for most of the afternoon, I eventually sent her over the edge by asking if she'd finished her yogurt and the resulting "but I'm not tiredddddddddd" wails meant it was time to head home.

Everyone is now fast asleep - even the "I'm not tired" one and I'm so excited that I might get an extra hour of sleep in the morning.  Okay, who am I kidding.  Realistically, the extra hour just gives us a slightly better chance to get to church on time tomorrow.  We'll see.

Not Darth Vader but still scary

I'll post pictures of Halloween this weekend but I have to relate a quick Reina story for today's post.  Before we trick-or-treated in our neighborhood, I took the kids in the car for a few stops around town.  We saw Ninja Pop-pop at Aunt Vicky's house and then headed to a nearby neighborhood for a few stops at friends' houses.  At Heather's house, we stopped for a quick visit and the kids decided to ring the bell at the house next door. Now Heather's neighbors are pretty serious about Halloween.  The yard was decorated with tombstones, skeletons, and a giant inflatable headless-horseman-giant-carriage thing.  Even better, the neighbors answered the door in full costume,  she as Medusa and he as a guy turning to stone (gray makeup down one side of his face).  Cool costumes!  So Will and Jackson come bouncing back down the sidewalk but no Reina.  I give her a minute and then call out her name.  A little voice from the porch calls out "I can't!"  So I jog through the yard and find her on the porch, too scared to make it back through the yard and too scared to look at the friendly Medusa/stone people neighbors. They were super nice by the way, apologetically telling me, "we didn't mean to scare her!" Reina even got a full-sized candy bar!  So I picked her up and carried her back to the non-scary house on the block.  With all her attitude and bravado that we see on a daily basis, times like these remind me that she's still a 3-yr old who needs a little help getting back through a Halloween yard.

Here we go - NaBloPoMo

It's National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) and I'm going to try to write a little something every day.  I've never participated before and frankly I don't know if I can do it, but I'm going to give it a try this year.  I've been feeling guilty about my lack of posts this year and I like to write about our crazy family,  so here we go!  Today's entry is Halloween-related but the focus is not the kids - that's a longer post for the weekend.  We'll just let this picture speak for itself.  

Pop-pop takes his Halloween pretty seriously.  Will was delighted and immediately started battling Ninja Pop-pop with karate chops and samurai swords.  Reina was cautious but determined not to be scared of the 'inja.'  Big, BIG hit!