Wow! We have been busy little bees lately! So much to report!

First I’ll cover some random fun things. Last week Mom stopped by to take Katy for a walk. It’s one of her favorite things to do, and with one of her very favorite people. They just went around the block because we were expecting some friends to stop by. Mom let Katy name her fish (now known as Pet Fish) so they have that close connection, too.

Allen stayed home and played with some shoes. He loves to bring us a shoe and insist on having it put on his foot. Sometimes it’s one of his, but it’s often one of the other family members. When he finds my slip-on sandals, he just puts them on his arms. The funniest thing is when he is wearing rain boots or Katy’s pink cowgirl boots.

Another fun thing we did was kidnap Peter from work and have a picnic in the park. Katy kept insisting that we needed a picnic blanket to have a picnic, but we “made do” with a picnic table. Unfortunately for me, she had a call of nature of the “plop plop” variety and now she claims to have gone potty in the woods. We were the only ones in the park, but it was still a little awkward. These pictures are from a park trip after Peter left work one day last week. The weather was a little cooler and we were loving it!

We were doing some fall cleaning on Katy’s closet and I had her try on some clothes to see if they fit. Since she was putting on cute little outfits, I had to snap photos, of course. And Allen was sporting the softest, sweetest little bull dog shirt that said “Tough” on the front. When he was posing, he actually stuck out his bottom lip like a little bull dog, himself. And we captured his Disney Pixar “Car” shoes that he loves so much. I was so busy editing photos from the wedding, but I just couldn’t pass up a mini photo shoot with the munchkins.

One night after Juice McGoose had gone to bed, Katy was talking to Peter about Christmas. She was very excited about Santa bringing her presents for Jesus’ birthday. He tried to distract her by reminding my bird about Halloween. It really backfired because I ended up showing her pictures from every Halloween that she has dressed up for since birth. She then insisted on finding a new costume for herself right away. The dress up stuff is stored in Allen’s room so we had to grab items from Katy’s room. We came up with a cowgirl outfit, and Allen kicked around the house in those boots for several days.

For Labor Day Peter and I took the kids out for some fun at Chick-a-lay and then to see all the “animals” at Gander Mountain. They loved seeing wolves, giraffes, bears, ducks…they just didn’t know that the animals were stuffed. Next we farmed out the hoodlums to visit their various grandparents while we got some stuff done. Then we had Mom, Warren & Marjean return our midgets and join us for some steaks – yum! It takes a lot to make us have people over lately.

Finally….drum roll, please….Katy has started going to pre-school! She started last Tuesday with an open house in her class room. Peter surprised us by coming home from work and driving us to school for Miss Bird’s big day. She has been asking for school now for weeks. It didn’t let her down. There were pet birds, toys galore, a sand pit, snacks, hopscotch, dollies, blocks, books and a two-story loft. She didn’t really try to make friends, but she and Allen ran from one fun spot to another in their excitement. She dropped strawberries into our lemonade cups and Allen was happiest when he was slinging sand with a beach toy shovel.

That night I gave Allen a hair trim and bribed him to hold still with a sucker. It didn’t really work all that well, but he looked too cute!

For Katy’s second day at school she did an hour by herself and had no problems, whatsoever! Allen and I waited for her in the office where he demolished a muffin, some banana bread and emptied out a huge bag of plastic Easter eggs. When we picked Katy up her teacher gave us rave reviews about Katy’s painting and play-dough skills. Afterward we played on the fabulous school playground and then joined Mom for lunch at Red Lobster to celebrate. It may sound great but Katy dragged me to the potty twice while we were there, and the second time it was for a long visit. A woman joined us in the next stall with some serious business of her own. I didn’t think it could get worse until Katy leaned down and looked at the woman’s shoes. She got excited and announced that she saw Daddy’s shoes so it must be Daddy sitting next to us! I almost died.

This Saturday we had to cancel out of both a birthday party and a play date. Bummer. The kids have had runny noses and a cough so I don’t we didn’t want to spread anything. We did head over last night to Jerry & Kathy’s house to watch the game. They fed us delicious fajitas and let us play with all their adorable animals. Rico played tag with Katy. And Kathy showed her how to bottle-feed a baby squirrel and then keep it warm in your shirt. Katy has been stuffing things down her shirt today and claiming it’s a baby “blossom” which is how she says the word possum. There was also some cuddle time with Kathy’s possum, who is no longer a baby. The kids were in love! If Grammy & Papa would have been willing to hold a critter, I’m sure they would have enjoyed a lap full of Big Juice or Katybird, too!

Here they are on the way out the door for church today. When we came home it was great to have a yummy casserole, macaroni salad and crisped spinach balls. Scrumptious! Compliments of Mom! And the kitties were on high alert, perched on Katy's bed.

OK, I think I’m finally caught up on my blogging. I told Peter I wouldn’t hog the computer for long and this has taken hours to do. Poor Pedro! He’ll never believe me again.