And We're Back.

RIP.
Our five year old refurbished Kodak Easy-Share camera has died. It has served us well and taken over 6000 pictures. We have ordered a new camera (decided to just get an updated model - why mess with a good thing?) and are eagerly awaiting its arrival.
We've been lost the past couple weeks without an easily accessible way to document all the wonderfully cute and terribly obnoxious things that our children do. But on Thursday, Jim got a new blackberry-thingy for work that takes pictures, so we've been using that. Too bad it too us until this morning to realize that it took pictures! Duh.
We had a very nice day today. The weather cooperated (unlike yesterday) and we had a lot of fun and got a lot of stuff done. By noon we had dinner in the crock pot, had been to church, had the whole yard raked, saved a baby snake (YUCK), made some bread, carved pumpkins and done some laundry.

We rested and watched football and played outside this afternoon. When we put naps and exercise time in there, it was a full day - but a day that we were able to take at a comfortable pace. I am learning (slowly) that I get so much more done if I don't try to get everything done. Too bad it took me thirty years to begin figuring it out. Oh, well.

Sammy is downright chatty. We can't always understand everything he says (or even half of what he says), but he's verbose. It may be sign language that we've taught him, but he's too cute and he talks with his hands - it's like he's a blond haired, blue eyed little Italian man! The most wonderful thing is when he stops whatever he's doing, totally unprompted, and runs over and gives Jim or me the biggest hug. He'll say "Yuv you," and then run away and go back to what he was doing. It's enough to bring me to tears. I love my Sama-Lama-Ding-Dong!!! =-)



Caroline continues to keep us laughing. She keeps us on her toes with what she wears and what comes out of her mouth, like telling Ria that "My Mama took a shower this morning to get clean, but she needs to use Smooth-Away on her legs." Good times. =-)

And now it's time to listen to the ALCS. I know it's the shtick, but the Yankees broadcast is getting harder and harder to take. And keep in mind, I say this as a person born and raised in Upstate New York (but living in the heart of Red Sox Nation). All the nicknames are getting cornier and Suzyn Waldman says things that are so obvious that I just want to throw the radio out the window. If I imagine John Sterling as Harry Doyle (thanks for the suggestion, Jim) it makes the games so much more fun.
I think I got spoiled listening to the Dodger's broadcasts. To paraphrase my father, Scully could do the play-by-play on a funeral and make it a joy to listen to. I was rooting for the Dodgers just so I could keep listening to him.
Here's to November baseball.

Bake on Saturday.

Well, it may not be the way the old saying goes (I can't remember), but we've been very busy this morning.
We've made wheat bread and banana bread.
And now the kids are doing a special morning edition of bathies.
Can you guess why?!?



Now that there is a new little baby at daycare, Caroline has taken more to pretending that she is a baby.
This his how we found her last weekend in her new "cradle".



After watching the moon landing yesterday morning, the kids had a box out and were blasting into outer space.

Kid-isms

Sammy -

First, to set up the funny, Sammy does this thing that he calls "strongman" where he grunts and flexes his arms like Lou Ferrigno and his face gets red from straining...

Sammy: "Strongman!" [face turns red, flexes arms]
Dada: "Strongman!" [Dada's voice strains, flexes arms Hulk Hogan style, face turns red]
Sammy: [points to Dada, a questioning look on his face] "Poopin?"

~~~

Caroline: [during dinner one night this week] "Juice makes my elbows strong!" [flexes her arms, mom and dad keel over laughing]

Everybody Jump on Mama!