Golfin'

Ok, not really, but Abby was having a lot more fun rolling down the hills on the golf course than
the golfers looked like they were having.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Fuzzy head

There is just no way to keep it down.

Turkey Art

As excitement for the holiday builds, Abby has been really into turkey art projects. Here she is posing with a few we did this week.

Deer!

Our new house has a much more wooded setting than our place in Falls Church, and we have been graced with frequent visitors in the backyard, including chipmunks, fox, woodchucks, and deer. A band of 5 deer have been chasing each other around the yards in our neighborhood all month, but this young deer appeared alone and, rather than just racing through, stopped and grazed in the yard for about 20 minutes. Benji and Abby were both fascinated by his presence (you probably can't make it out in the picture, but he has tiny antler buds):

Winter has arrived

After a very mild fall with many days in the 80s, the cold weather has hit like a ton of bricks. Benji does not seem to care for his snowsuit overmuch:




So, for the time being we have switched to a hat and warm sweatshirt. Not that he loves the hat, either:



For Abby, the cold, dry weather means static electricity. Check out what happens when she plays too close to the fuzzy blankets on the couch:

Tea Time

Last weekend, Abby decided that she really wanted to have a tea party (this may be due to our repeated readings of "The Best Tea Party Ever"). We spent the morning gathering up ingredients, and then she invited Julia and Maisie over to the house. The girls made popovers, cookie cutter tea sandwiches, and fruit caterpillars on skewers. I think the best part for Abby was drinking juice out of her tea set.




After tea was done, the girls ran downstairs to burn off all the sugar they consumed:

Body Art

Abby decided it was the perfect time to pull out her body crayons yesterday. She wanted me to draw bracelets, rings, a heart, and knee people on her hands and legs, and then insisted that she put the same on me. The first part of that sounded better than the second. Here's how it turned out....

Little Liberace

This is Benji's new favorite activity.

The Teacher

We are trying to get Benji accustomed to eating some finger foods, but he has not really taken to it at all (unless you call gagging an act of enjoyment). Trying to help her little brother, Abby spent much of the dinner hour "modeling" how to eat sweet potato chunks for Benji. He did not make any progress on the eating front, but he sure thought that Abby was funny.

Bathtime

Although Benji used to love baths, they have now turned into a major trauma for him. Notice the red eyes and tear streaks running down his face.

Time to Give Thanks

With less than two weeks until Thanksgiving, we decided it was finally time to break out the decorations. Abby dove into this task with relish. Her favorite are these throw pillows, but she was also quite taken with discovering her own old artwork.

The cupcakes

In a fit of insanity, I decided that my last official act as Abby's soccer coach should be to make "soccer ball" cupcakes for the kids' last game. As is typical, this was a lot more work than I thought it would be and consumed much of last night. Here is how they came out:



Ok, not a work of art, but kids love cupcakes. Unfortunately, I might have wanted to spend some of the time checking the weather report. Here is what it looked like this morning:



That's pouring rain, in case you can't tell. Needless to say, the game was canceled. Anyone want a cupcake?

All ready for winter

Stymied by my refusal to buy her snow boots for the mild Charlottesville winter, Abby decided to fashion some of her own from waffle blocks. Here she is modeling them for the camera.

Teeth

Here we have a photo of the ever-elusive first teeth. These appeared magically in Benji's mouth last weekend. Normally, he will fight to the death anyone who tries to get a good look at them. Luckily, he got distracted by an interesting bit of dust and I was able to get this shot.

My dress up doll

Having a little brother is fun. You can dress him up however you want and he won't complain! Here is a shot that Kevin captured yesterday while home with both kids. Abby thought Benji looked just beautiful in her headband.

Miss Manners

As a surprise yesterday, I picked up Abby from school and took her out for ice cream. Here she is displaying the technique that daddy taught her for "finishing up" her sundae (also works for cereal and soup). I am pretty sure that Emily Post is turning over in her grave, but Abby was pretty pleased with herself. Note the chocolate smudges between her eyebrows and on the bridge of her nose.

Prunes!

After a slow start on solid foods, Benji has taken up the task with gusto. Here he is eating his absolutely favorite food.

The promised land

We're back after a very fun weekend at the Cohen's house in Arlington. For Abby, one of the highlights of these visits is sleeping in the same room as mommy and daddy. In her mind, it is a very short step from there to the highly coveted parental bed. We spent almost the entire evening telling her that she could not sleep in the bed with us. At 4:40am, I got up to feed Benji and stayed out of the room with him until after 6. When I returned, this is the scene that I found. I won't cast aspersions on any family member's willpower or lack thereof; you can draw your own conclusions.....

Gas!

On our way out of town, we were thrilled to see that gas had gone under $2 in the greater Charlottesville area. On the drive up to D.C., we saw it as low as $1.92. Not that I am rubbing it in the face of our California friends....

It's like we never moved

We're headed back to D.C. for the second weekend in a row for a blitz visit with friends in and around the district. Now that the baby boom is upon us, its so much fun to see "the next generation" having fun together.

Going to the Theater

Abby in her fancy dress for her class trip to the Paramount Theater.

Ready to crawl?

Benji seems to have mastered the art of moving....backwards. Today for the first time he got up on his hands and knees and seemed to be trying to move forward. But then he fell flat.



He's got a few months to go before he reaches the point where Abby crawled, but Kevin is starting to fear that "the era of doom," i.e. a crawling baby, will soon be upon us.

Trying this out

After much goading (hi Rich!), we are going to give this blog thing a try. For those of you who know (a) how much I love my mass picture emails and (b) how much I hate techno-thingies, this may seem like a bold move. Fear not, I will probably quit in a week. Stay tuned (or not) for the first post.