The last warm Monday

 Nothing like settling in with a cold one by the fire in your backyard.

 I wanted to get the garden cleaned up. And by the time it was done, it was dark and dinnertime. What to do?

 Hot dogs and s'mores and IBC--good thing we don't eat like this every day.

And Nathan, who refused to wear a jacket, quit it early and took refuge under his "crocodile comforter." I'm not sure where this name came from, but I gather it was in a book he read at preschool.

But I was glad to get some use out of our firepit before winter. We tried to have a fire during the summer and it was so hot no one would sit near it. We didn't have that problem this time.

Reading

I just read a beautiful contemplation of risk and faith and freedom and making choices to live your most meaningful life.

http://www.birdsofashmae.com/2012/10/risk.html

Happy Friday

Me: Well, Batman, what are you going to do now?

Batman (Nathan): I'm going to fight crimes.

Clara (plaintively): I not crimes!

The story of my sink.

A couple weeks ago our sink suddenly was draining really slowly. So, like all red-blooded Americans, we poured toxic chemicals down our sink and took care of the problem. Done and done.

But last week, it started draining slow again, and this time Drano did not solve the problem. I was thinking, we've been really careful to not let any food or anything go down the drains lately. And, if terrible poisons are not taking care of this, it must be really bad. But while Levi was at work and after a call to my home-maintenance consultant (read: my dad) I decided to become an amateur plumber. (Really, I had no idea it was so easy to just unscrew by hand the trap under the sink. Ridiculously easy.) Right away I could see the problem: 

 Yep, that's a rock. A rock. In the pipe under my sink. How?

We're not really sure, but we're thinking that something got caught down there, and over years and years the mineral deposits built up, until this thing was suddenly gumming up our drain. I'm just curious to see what it would have looked like before I started eroding it with drano.

 

Sharing the Spoils

 We're trying to keep a lid on sugar comas around here, so the Halloween candy is stored on top of the fridge. Where, of course, I can sample anything that looks good when I take a fancy to. One day after lunch the kids chose tootsie pops as a treat. Nathan quickly finished his--he's a sucker biter. Clara took a little longer, and then I found her giving Alice some licks. As I went to get the camera, Nathan decided he needed a piece of the action.

 What a nice sister to share.

They all three very nicely took turns with the sucker, Clara making sure that each got equal licking time. Until Nathan decided to bite it. The sucker didn't last too much longer after that.

Oh, and by the way, that baby is scooting. For a couple weeks now. She'll get up on her hands and knees and lurch forward a couple of inches, and then start the process over. She's trying to figure out how to move those hands, and she's getting pretty close. Sometimes she'll get up on her her hands and her feet, with her bum sticking way up in the air. It's kind of like she's showing off her tricks, but we're a pretty appreciative audience.

Halloween

 The Monday before Halloween is known as Pizza and Pumpkins. So while I went out for some last-minute visiting teaching (yeah, I have to keep up on that stuff now) Levi made some pizza.

 And after dinner came the pumpkins. Every year we go to a place in Hooper that you can pick your own pumpkins for $5 an armful. This year they were kind of puny, but we got two that were still carveable. Nathan wanted a bat and Clara wanted a princess. While I was hollowing out Clara's pumpkin Nathan went at his with the safety knife we had from last year's pumpkin-carving kit. The pumpkin was pretty soft from all our warm weather so he could actually carve it. I did the bat but on the other side of his pumpkin he wanted a face--a face which, after I got it done, he systematically dismantled with the safety knife. It was just a gaping hole when he had finished. But he left the bat symbol alone, so we had one side fit for display. Levi took over carving the princess pumpkin. His carving is a little more nuanced than mine, and his took a lot longer. Clara loved it.

 The kids were so antsy to get out trick-or-treating that we didn't get very good pictures.

 For instance, we forgot Batman's yellow utility belt. I especially like the small ballerina holding on to Batman's cape.

And Clara, whose leotard skirt is sticking out over her tutu, had a cute matching headband like Alice's. Which she broke promptly after wearing it for five minutes. It broke on the way to our first Halloween party.

This year it was really warm. I wore shorts while we took the kids trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, and then we headed to trick-or-treat the grandparents. The kids had fun showing off their costumes to a very appreciative audience, and they especially enjoyed the extra handfuls of candy doled out by doting grandmas and grandpas.

It was a Happy Halloween.

Salon Saturday

 After some more concentrated curiosity about the contents of my makeup bag, I decided to initiate Clara into the cult of beauty. Can you believe she's two and a half and has never had her nails painted? I stopped painting my nails years ago (maybe high school?) but I had some as a gift from a well-meaning visiting teacher. And, luckily, it was pink. Levi suggested if I painted mine it might cover up my ghastly toe, but no such luck. You think maybe he's tired of looking at it? (My toenail is black from where the edge of a dinner plate hit my toenail, before Labor Day. I'm starting to lose the nail now.)

 We also did Alice's toes. She was not happy about it as it meant she couldn't touch her toes for a while.

 Nathan wanted in on  the fun. Dad was not on board. We compromised with one thumbnail, and the toes on one foot. Which we said we'd remove strictly before church the next day, but of course that didn't happen.

She was so excited. And, once I got used to the feeling of polish on my nails, I kind of enjoyed it too. Watch out; I might get all girly now.