Catching Up

What a beautiful Fall weekend!

We've had a full one with very little homework (phew!) and we're ready to finish out the first quarter on Wednesday before taking a nice long Fall Break weekend.

I went on a county-wide historical field trip with the 4th grade classes on Friday.

It was a lot of fun, but I was worn out Friday evening!

Our friends recently moved into our neighborhood and they created a photography studio.

We attended the studio open house on Friday night.

Here is the outside of the invitation.

I'm already thinking about family photos (we're long overdue).

Yesterday we went to a street fair downtown in celebration of the opening of our new downtown grocery co-op.  The boys loved the caramel apples.

We've been making some fun Fall treats.

I've posted the details on our cooking blog - www.yallcomeeat.com



And my favorite time - we got to play at the park with our friends' new puppy Buster!

Isn't he adorable?

He's a Labradoodle (best name ever) and is 6 months old.

He is the best behaved dog and his fur is soooo soooo soft.

I want one.  Bad.

The boys are not used to dogs, which is so odd because when they were very little we had two big dogs that they rough-housed with.

Thomas loved Buster though.

Brennan had a great time walking him around the park.

 Happy Fall Y'all!

Go Colts!

On Sunday we took the boys to their first Colts game.

This was our first game in the new stadium and our friends' first game as well.

Brennan, Thomas, Tom

 Not sure why but the first half of these photos are tinted blue.

The stadium doesn't look that large from the outside, but it was enormous once we got in.

Jackie, Matt, and Tom



The Big Kids

Jackie, Matt, and Tom are from England and enjoyed their first pro football game.

Stinkers

We arrived early enough to have lunch (mmmm nachos) and see the stadium.

Wow - huge.

The weather was gorgeous.

The roof was partially retracted and we had seats facing the Indy skyline.

Many trips up and down the stairs for snacks and restrooms.

Hey look!  Brennan was actually watching and following the game!

No hiding under coats, blocking out the sun, playing DS (that much) during this game!

(These Chiefs fans weren't happy in the first half, but they were very happy in the second half when they took the game.)

But my big boy was caught red-handed with that Blackberry.

Brennan couldn't get over the skyline.

He thought it was a painting at first.

After the game we headed to Kabuto for some delicious Japanese cooked right in front of us.

The boys loved all the fires, egg tricks, and zucchini tosses. 

A beautiful day with friends!

Goodbye, Dragon

A little over a year ago we welcomed Dragon to the family.  Thomas really wanted a betta fish and he earned it.  This was his and Dad's project and Thomas took great care of him.

We had to say goodbye to Dragon last Friday and Thomas was very, very sad.  He takes after me in almost every way and he was thoroughly upset.  He couldn't even sleep so he slept with me and finally drifted off.  Poor sweet boy. 

Goodbye Dragon - we really enjoyed having a pet again!

photos from September 2010

Take Them a Meal

Are you familiar with the website Take Them a Meal? 

This might be old news to all of you, but I am new to the site and think it's fantastic.

I wanted to share it with those of you who may not yet know about it.

If you ever need to organize meals for a family, this is the site to use.

You send friends a link to the meal coordination you've set up and that's it!

Friends will sign up to take a meal and the website sends them a reminder a couple of days before their day.

The family receiving the meals can check to see which nights a meal is expected so they can plan ahead.

And the site is free.  Perfect.

This is a sample schedule.

If you want a certain day you just click on Take and fill in the detail of what you'll be taking.

If you're the organizer, it's a very simple process to set up a schedule and send the link to those you think might be able to help a family in need.

The website has a number of links to help you think of meals to take, it includes recipes, and frequently asked questions.

A family in our church is going through cancer treatments right now.

A church member set up the schedule and sent it out.

Within 3 days they had the entire monthly schedule filled in.

I signed up for last night and typed in that I was taking fish and vegetables.

Then I found out one of the family members can't eat fish, so I went back to the schedule to figure out what else to make.

It was great to see the full schedule so I didn't duplicate.

Wouldn't want to eat lasagna 3 nights in a row!

I wish I had known about this website a few months ago when I was coordinating meals for a local family.  But, now I do and will be using it!

Have you ever used Take Them a Meal?

all photos from the takethemameal.com website



Catching Up with September

I can't believe we're already into October. 

I realize I still have my Summer blog banner up.  Oops!  I'll get to that soon.

Here are a few things I wanted to share from the last couple of weeks.

This kiddo kills me.

Every morning he listens to a local radio station's "Impossible Question of the Day".

He loves calling in to try to win the prize pack of the day (when he should be getting ready for school).

So far, no luck.

He's really like me.  I won basketball tickets by trying to be the 10th caller for an entire Saturday.

Our paper recently started doing daily deals.

I have only purchased one so far - $10 for a bouquet of flowers at my favorite local florist.

This is the bouquet Brennan and I picked out.

Gorgeous isn't it?!  And for only $10!

I was also the August winner-of-the-month.

They have a drawing of all the people who ordered one of the daily deals and I was chosen for August - $100!  That was so exciting.  What wasn't as exciting was the fact that when I picked up my check they took a photo for future marketing of the daily deals promotion.  I gingerly open the paper each morning hoping not to see myself in there holding up my check!

Thomas has now joined our Youth Group at church.

There are about 40-50 youth and they have a blast.

He goes every Sunday evening and suddenly seems so grown up.

The Youth sang last Sunday and Thomas joined them.

This is during practice before the service - you can't see Thomas behind our choir director.

iPhone photo

I was driving home from school Friday morning and saw this beautiful hot air balloon flying over our neighborhood!

Finally, I am excited to see this Documentary about the puppeteer behind Elmo - Kevin Clash.

My mom and I saw Kevin Clash speak at the National Book Fair in Washington, D.C. in 2006.

He was incredible.  The young children present were very confused when he would speak in Elmo's voice. 

If you're reading this in email, click on the link to the blog so you can watch the 2 minute trailer.

October brings swim team, tennis lessons, school picture day, lots of quarter-end exams, a Colts game, a Halloween party, a couple of important family birthdays, and a trip to Orlando!

Happy Fall Y'all!

Our First Big Ten Game

We had a GREAT time on Saturday at the IU vs. Penn State game.

Our friends Mike and Mary organized the tailgating/football party and we were excited to see some college football.

While we've been to many, many SEC games we have never made it to a Big Ten game.

We're 45 minutes from Bloomington - we really should do this more often.

We got to the tailgating area early and it was chilly!

But we got a great spot for our 3 vehicles and set up our food and drinks.

Some of us (Miss Mary) were really, really cold.

The boys entertained themselves with these walnuts they found.

They also immediately found the cookies, cakes, and banana breads that Miss Mary and Miss Susan brought.

Go IU!





There were a lot of noticeable differences between this game and a typical SEC football game and I have to share them here.

We arrived 3 hours before kick-off and got a prime tailgating spot without having to pay a booster club one of our salaries.  It was pretty unbelievable.

That designated tailgating area was really nice with great people all around us - all a 3 minute walk to the stadium.  awesome

I purchased all of our tickets online, having never been to the stadium.  I was concerned we were going to have bad seats.

Because the IU stadium is smaller than most of the SEC stadiums we've been to, it turns out there wasn't a bad seat - and they were really affordable.  The kids' tickets were only $5.

Look at that sky.  It turned out to be a warm, beautiful Fall day!

There was a lot of school spirit and we learned some of the cheers but it was super laid back compared to SEC rivalries.  I'm sure it's different at a Michigan vs. Michigan State game, but this was completely civilized. 

Although we must say it was odd not to hear a single cowbell or a "Go to Hell Ole Miss" the entire day.

There are 100 members in the IU band.  Thomas enjoyed watching the Trumpets.

David pointed out the band left their hats in the letters IU.

Oh and I have to show you the lines to the restroom 2 minutes before half-time.

And the concession stand right next to it had a 3 minute wait.

Do Hoosiers not need popcorn?



Then the boys took over the camera for awhile and I got some interesting shots.

Though Thomas did get some good action shots.

And a photo of this guy.

Who woke up Sunday with the right half of his face sunburned.

The field is called The Quarry.  There are a number of limestone mines around Bloomington.

Besides the opportunity to tailgate and enjoy football with friends, here is the reason we're taking the boys to more sporting events these days.  See them?  The sun was too bright to see their Nintendo DS screens so they had to hide.under.their.coats to play.

We restricted the DS's quite a bit during the game, because COME ON!

I missed my chance to snap a photo of the State/UGA score (probably a good thing).

That's the biggest Flag on the Play sign I've ever seen.

It was also cool to see Penn State's Joe Paterno coach his 700th college game at age 83!!

Unbelievable!

While IU didn't win it was still a ton of fun.

College Football rocks (even outside the SEC!)