Thanksgiving trip

We had a great time in Michigan.
The first thing George and Dean did was to build a snowman. The snow angels didn't turn out too well, though.












Here's George playing with firefighter legos at Bob & Denise's. He had a great time.


















Charlotte asks for water and drinks it.



Charlotte & her first cousin once removed Paul had a great time.


In Lansing, Dean and the kids went to bed and I went out carousing -- here I am with Bonnie and Hanno after the dance.

We visited Jane & Demitris the next day. We were there for 9 hours !!!! and the kids had a great time.

Sparky entertained Charlotte for quite a while.


On the way out of town we stopped at Elderly Instruments and visited with Cynthia Bridge.


Back in Hopkins we found the usual gang in the kitchen.



All the cousins prepare for an early Christmas.



George and Charlotte had a good time visiting the Krum's dairy farm. George drove the tractor -- on a road!



Then the real snow came.......

Thanks, Aunt Barb & Uncle Bob!

Mouse Lawn Guys

This is George's drawing of the many bags of grass clippings cut by the mouse lawn guys. Their truck is in the upper corner. Then you see the many many bags (they look like olives to me). The little dots are the mouse footprints. Some of the bags are so small that one mouse can carry them but some of the bags are so big that it takes many mice working together to carry them.

In the lower part of the picture you can see all the grass that they have cut.

Charlotte's new pants

These pants (shown on a reluctant model) are made from Wooly Wonder's perfection pants pattern. Instead of a tie at the waist, I used I-cord with a strand of round elastic run up the middle. The I-cord is knotted at the ends. It stretches enough for me (or Charlotte) to pull them on or off, and then is tight enough to keep them on. The yarn is Rowan's Magpie, a heavy worsted.


Most of the time she loves these pants.

Halloween 2005

Cynthia, George and Charlotte went to a Halloween party while Dean was out of town. We're dressed as Teletubbies. George is Po, Charlotte is Laa-Laa, and I'm Dipsy.

Charlotte's favorite parts of the party were the cats....

.... and the Scooby Doo movie! All three kids were pretty tired.



On Halloween night George really liked handing out the candy. If there weren't any people at the door, he would run out into the lawn, calling, "Come to our house! Lots of candy!"



Here's Tinky Winky!







Charlotte loved my Dipsy hat.


Well, we tried to get the whole family together for a picture, but George wouldn't put on his costume. Charlotte's holding a Po doll as a stand-in. George took the picture.

Happy Halloween!

Getting ready for Halloween (and other October pursuits)

Dean is very unsure about this, but George is delighted! Aunt Kathy sent us four teletubby costumes -- thanks!

When you can dress yourself, every day is Halloween. Note mismatched socks and pants on backwards. Oh, and her shoes are wildly different sizes.

Charlotte picked these out herself.



It may be mid October, but it's still plenty warm here. We had about 25 people over on Monday.


George fell asleep in the midst of it all -- most unlike him. He turned out to have a mild stomach bug; I hope he didn't pass it on to others.


I found this praying mantis on the zinnias outside our front door. It's eating a skipper (a tiny butterfly). It took about two days for it to eat the skipper, then it disappeared.

October -- the month of birthdays

For Aunt Kathy's birthday (10/2) we had cupcakes. George and I put on the frosting and sprinkles.


George and Charlotte blew out the candles.


The next day was Grandma Hougen's birthday (10/3). We frosted more cupcakes.

For Aunt Jing's birthday (10/6) we had brownie cake.

For Patrick's birthday (10/7) we had more brownie cake, this time with homemade ice cream.

And for Amy's birthday (10/9), we had banana chiffon cake.

Still to come -- Aunt Nancy (10/20) and Charlotte (10/24, with a party on the 22nd).

Odds and Ends

George is signing "grumpy."


What's he doing here? We never quite figured that out.


Sometimes dressing yourself is hard.


George wanted to dress Charlotte up.


Here he displays the results.

National Night Out

Last night was National Night Out . We had an ice cream social for our neighbors that was lots of fun.

The tall guy is our beat officer. The man in the white shirt is our city council member, and the woman next to him is our next door neighbor.


The woman on the left and the man in white (Lida & Jack) live across the street. The woman in black is the mother of the two little boys, Sam & Clay, and of a 7 week old daughter (being held by her father, who is almost invisible behind Jack).


Clay shared his bike with Charlotte, but grudgingly.


Sam was more generous with his battery-powered motorcycle. I just pushed Charlotte; fortunately her feet didn't reach the pedals.

It took George a while to get the hang of the controls but he loved it.



Charlotte helped pull -- Sam and Clay wanted to go faster!


Here George takes a turn pulling. This wagon was Dean's when he was little.