Halloween fun

Ronan saw this costume in a thrift store and it was love at first sight. He is constantly talking about China. So he said "Oh look it's a china man tai chen costume". Anything martial arts is called tai chen. He posed all night long. We spent the day with some friends at a halloween festival and did some trick or treating from local businesses. Then Greg and the boys hit up the nieghborhood for some trick or treating. Greg bought a 5 lb bag of candy and we only had 6 treaters. I was actually yelling out the door for people to "please come to our house, we have lots of candy." So I can't stay out of the candy bag and will gain a little more in the belly.

My daughter....dog

So our hound dog is needy, homely, and oh so sweet. She loves to pretend she is a little poodle and sit in my lap for some love. I hope she is done growing, because she weighs about 60 lbs now and if she gets any bigger, well no more lap sitting for pooch. Aren't these awesome looking pears? They spent the whole summer growing on the tree in the backyard and we couldn't wait to eat them. They are by far the worst tasting pears we have ever tasted!? If this was my house, that tree would be chopped down.

Another fun Saturday

I love the Library! Ours offers cultural passes that get us into many local places for free. This Saturday we tried out the Portland Children's Museum. I was thrilled to find out that they had a station where the kids could paint their own faces...Ronan and Charley did a fine job. Then we headed downtown to Voodoo donut. The boys LOVE to watch Man vs. food and one of the latest episodes showed the donut shop and so we had to go...or hear Ronan ask us every day. We waited in a very long line, which involved a poor homeless man shouting that he hoped we all died from swine flu...he must of really wanted a donut. Ronan chose a voodoo doll filled with raspberry blood and I had Charley choose a Memphis Mafia which was a sickly sweet banana fritter with peanut butter, chocolate and chocolate chips...they have some crazy combos if you are a donut lover. Greg hates donuts, but loves us enough to stand in line for one.

Salmon Homecoming

Yeah, the salmon are coming home.....too bad we don't have any of them in our freezer. The boys LOVE to eat salmon, so we brought them to a salmon homecoming at a local park. They had some naturalist folk there to explain how a salmon run goes. The boys loved it. So the fancy glasses are supposed to take the glare off the water so you can see better. We did a little hiking and saw lots of salmon hanging out, did a little climbing, tried on some mossy beards and interrupted some fisherman. I call that a great Saturday!

Freezing pumpkin patch fun

We joined the family for a pumpkin hunt this year. Who knew pumpkins picked out from the patch cost more than pumpkins at the grocery store? Greg won a pumpkin of our choice in a pumpkin throwing contest, so we picked out the biggest, roundest one we could find. The kids had fun climbing on the pumpkins and hauling them around in mini wheel barrels and I'm sure the farm owners loved it as well. We had a hay ride, then I tried my hardest to get a cute kid and dog picture at the patch and as you can see I was unsuccessful. The dog ran off and the boys get silly just to make me happy.

Fireplaces are for roasting

The fireplace in our new place is nice, but you have to sit directly in front of it to feel any heat, and the rest just gets sucked out the roof. So now our house often smells like a campfire, but it makes for some good marshmallow roasting!

Daddy's Birthday

For Greg's 30 something'th birthday, we were joined by some friends for a great pizza and beer dinner at a local pub. We had a great evening and Greg said the beer was good! Ronan got a hold of the camera and he said "Daddy will need a pizza and beer picture to remember" Thanks for dinner Earl!