Fun filled, action packed

Wow, what a weekend.

We took the kids to Memphis Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon. It was 24 hours of fun. We spent the afternoon/evening with Alicia's aunt and uncle who moved to Collierville (hope I spelled that right) over the summer. I'm not sure who had more fun, the kids or the great-aunt and uncle. It being the night with an extra hour the kids had an extra hour of playtime. They both seem to have taken to the time change pretty well. Both were exhausted by the time bedtime rolled around but they both slept decently for being in a strange place.

Sunday morning we headed over to the Memphis Zoo to meet a couple of Alicia's high-school friends and their kids. They served as wonderful tour guides for the visit. Eli and Joel hit it off. Both kids tell us their favorite part of the Zoo was the Pandas.

Well, enough of my yacking, onto the pictures.

They both enjoyed watching the pandas. They were in their day-rooms eating breakfast (or maybe a mid-morning snack) instead of outside but that was OK.


Emily decided to imitate Eli while watching some monkeys.


Too cute to not grab a picture of. Siblings strolling along holding hands. It didn't last long.


Trying to get a better view of the rhino.


Kicking back for a rest.

I think they were looking into the polar bear pool. They were sunning themselves instead of swimming though.


The three musketeers

Who needs animals. Matt and I considered just buying a pay-per-use binocular thing. We'd treat is as a time-share. Alternate houses. Then our wives reminded us we would have to transport it. Oh well...


The baby (1 year old) giraffe was cute.


Mesmerized by the alligator (or maybe crocodile, don't remember which)


A tired girl enjoying her lunch.

We failed....

Well, despite our best efforts we failed to take 500 pictures with our new camera in it's first month of ownership. We only managed to take 499. We'll try to better in the upcoming months.

Halloween was successful. The time change not occurring until a week later works out pretty well for folks with young kids. There was a gang of 8 kids (Eli being the oldest, Emily the youngest) working their way around the street before 6:30. It brought back memories of how Halloween was supposed to be. In recent years it's been rather sparse.

Anyway, onto what you all come to the blog for, pictures of the kids.

The pumpkins at night


The kids enjoyed sorting the candy


Ready to go


And the pumpkins during the day

Pumpkins

Halloween is almost upon us. And that means it's time to carve pumpkins. Emily decided her's needed to do a headstand, but she put the eyes, nose, and mouth in the right spots (assuming it is indeed doing a headstand).

I'm gonna have to slow down. You guys are going to start getting used to daily updates :).

Pumpkins make a pretty decent seat


For those that don't know, Emily is a tomato connoisseur. At least as long as they are grape tomatoes and in the box.


Putting the silver stripes on his costume.



Ewwww, slimy pumpkin.


Lid off...


Cleaning them out



Looking inside

Drawing on the face.


Punching a starting hole for the saw.


Pooh needed somewhere to sit while Eli played in the swing.


Guess that's enough for the evening, look for more tomorrow.

Catchup continuted

OK, this should get me caught up on pictures.

Emily is a big fan of the giant Pooh that Rachel gave Eli a few years ago. The thing is as big (or bigger) than she is.


If she can't talk someone into reading her a story (usually not a problem) she'll thumb through a book on her own.


Alicia and the kids hit the pumpkin patch. As usual they had a good time.


"I want that one"


Emily hauling her gourds around.


Alicia had gone inside to make dinner, Emily stood at the window saying "Mom, mom, mom".


Tinkertoys, the universal toy.





Ring around the rosie...




Emily was waving at a monkey


And here she's waving at some fish


Alicia made Eli some new dinosaur overalls.


Emily talked Paw-paw into reading her a book. Took lots of persuasion.


Eli talked Paw-paw's brother and his wife into helping him build a fort.


Sam modeling the top to Eli's Halloween costume. More pictures of that to come later.

Pictures, finally

I know, I know, I promised new pictures a month ago.

So here they are.

first, is there anything cuter than two kids playing together? OK, maybe playing in the street isn't best setting but you take what you can get.


Enjoying an ice-cream sandwich on a warm fall day. Alicia found these mini-sandwiches, Emily ate about 1/2 of hers and decided to swap it for some cheese.


Later she went for some grapes.


I think she was laughing a Whitney, not certain though.


Pig-tails and cheese, isn't she cute!


Eli's packed and ready to go for the trip to Oma and Opa's


Emily's making sure we don't forget her favorite books or bears.


On the way we stopped and visited with Ethan. He did very well sharing his toys. He even let Emily play with his balls, though he got rather protective about a few of them. All in all a good stop.


Ethan giving goodby hugs. Emily was more cooperative than Eli but....


Emily enjoyed the blowup punching bag


Deep in thought about a puzzle


Eli helped Oma clean out the fish pond.


Emily tried out the trike when Eli wasn't using it.


Emily found a crokay (sp?) ball. Glad she didn't drop it on her toe.


Eli and Opa constructing a lego plane.


Emily the center of attention.


She even let Ben hold her.