Park

The best photos are unposed candids.


This photo was posed. Bleh. And I wanted Mary in there too. As usually she was attacking me yelling "you! you!" because she wanted to see pictures of "you" (herself). I told her to go give her brother a hug. The following was the result.









Our original purpose for going to the park was leaf collecting. So we did that, too.

Most people would delete this photo. I like it.

Mary helped Thomas collect leaves, too.









Really, he must have liked it down there. Normally he hates being on his back and would squirm onto his tummy and either crawl away or push up to a sit. But he just laid there until Mary and I were done with leaves.

Then, after a break to play with four dogs who arrived in the park to play ("doggie! leaves!") Mary showed off some of her new skills on the jungle gym. I must say, I was pretty surprised.

A Skirt for the Whole Family

I couldn't get her to sit still or pose. She just wanted to look at the pictures on the camera. But here is Mary's new skirt.

It all started with this:

Dad's pants, salvaged from the charity bag.

Cut off the legs. I did it about 2 or 3 inches below the crotch. Then...


... cut off the crotch!

Come on, admit it. You've always wanted to do that.


Turn skirt inside out and pin crotch pieces together, front and back.


Attempt to distract your toddler from repeatedly climbing on the table by giving her your keys and wallet.


Now sew a straight line from the existing seam down to your new hem. Do this front and back.


Hem the bottom to desired length. I left it long (well, long for a toddler).


Et voila! The skirt in this form will be a nice short sexy skirt on your average 38-inch waisted man or woman.

What's that? You want to make it smaller?


I cut two holes on the inside waistband on either side of the zipper and fed the elastic through there (actually, I fed a piece of ribbon through first, then pinned it to the elastic and yanked the elastic through.

Now, before I cut and sewed the elastic on, I tested out a longer piece on myself. Fit great! I modeled it for Scott. He liked the leg. And HE's the one who pointed out that it would fit him just fine, too. And with the elastic with button holes, like they make for kids' adjustable waist pants, you could easily achieve this. They just didn't have that at the store I went to.

All done!

Good Morning, Daddy!

We miss you.

I Am a Horrible Babysitter and Mean Auntie

Sorry, Dorian!

Obligatory Pumpkin Patch Photos

Warning: I think my kids are insanely cute and I had a hard time paring down the pictures from our Sunday trip to the Laity Pumpkin Patch. And sorry, Mary, but your brother doesn't move as much and, thus, gets better photos taken of him. So that's why he got top billing.


Is it possible to get two kids looking and smiling at the camera at the same time? Hey Thomas! Look at Mummy. *chorus of ridiculous, embarrassing, attention-getting sounds*


Nope, not possible.

Mary hated it up there anyway.

We proceeded into an abyss of pumpkins. Mary thought it was neat. Wanting to get a portrait of my beautiful, graceful daughter with a pumpkin, I enticed her back with an irresistible request.

"Kiss the pumpkin, Mary!"


Well that didn't work. And shortly after, she tripped on a pumpkin vine and fell flat on her tummy.


Thomas became fussy. His malady was easily cured by a cookie.


But he wanted to know what his sister was doing.


She was trying to get lost in the pumpkin abyss again.

Hey, Mary, come sit with Thomas.


But Thomas is no fun.


She didn't fall. She wanted to lie down in the mud. Seriously.

Now when we first arrived we made the mistake of walking through the barn first, where Mary spotted a cow. Through most of the pumpkin patch she was inquiring "Cow? Cow?" We told her we should see the cow again later. She wasn't impressed when we walked through the mystery forest, which is really just a grove of trees with an amazing number of cut out wood figures from Disney, dinosaurs, fairy tales, zoo animals, and gnomes.









Thomas didn't really care about the mystery forest. He got another cookie. Finally we returned to the barn, where Mary parked herself in front of the cow.






"Cow!"


Eventually she was convinced to say byebye to the cow and visit the ducks, chickens, goats and sheep, too. The sheep were scary.

Yeah, I know, the pics suck in there.

On our way out, we looked for a better pumpkin as we discovered a hole in ours. Mary liked these little ones.


The photo needs to be cropped, really.

It was a good, tiring excursion that zonked the kids out for two good longs naps when we got home.