Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Das Vote

We're all decked out in red-white-and-blue today, and Ethan posted our "I voted" stickers on the door. It's hard to believe that when the presidential candidates tossed their hats in the ring, we didn't yet have a date to travel to meet Kola!!

I'll leave this non-partisan, since we have dear friends favoring different sides, but I had to throw in this voting story: I went to the polls with Kola in tow. Always wanting to know what's happening next, I told Kola to bring his Thomas book, we're going to vote and we might be in line for a little while. "Boat!!! What boat??" he repeated loudly as we were entering the polls. I explained, no, there's no boat, we're getting a piece of paper with names on them and we have to vote for people to do certain jobs. This was completely tuned out as he tried to flush out more info. on the boat. "Will it be a long line? Where's the water? What boat?" Luckily, there were cookies at the polls, so he wasn't completely disappointed. On the way back to the car he said, "no boat. vote. vote?" yes, vote.

;) b/s/e/k

Monday, November 3, 2008

Tricks and Treats!

The anti-vampire with friends


Dive in!


A smile and a treat from Shelley


An extra treat to have grandma and grandpa along


Pop rocks, straight up


Anyone see a tall frog and a short giraffe, with heavy bags in tow? Who could have asked for a better day of looting the neighborhood, with spectacular weather and grandma and grandpa along for the festivities? As if the day wasn't exciting enough, to have star celebs G&G come for T-or-T, bringing goody bags, hugs and smiles was like chocolate on chocolate. When Kola heard G&G were coming he shrieked, "I hope they bring their (trick-or-treat) bags!" Grandpa did manage to snatch a couple handfuls out of our bowl on the way out, but unlike my childhood experience, grandpa left the the kids' bags unraided. But a few hours later when the kids were asleep, I felt the need to uphold family tradition by making their bags a few ounces lighter...(oh how much can a few milk duds weigh?) Heard by our 7-year-old neighbor waving past our house at end of her T-or-T run, "Merry Christmas!" That summed it up and after a about an hour of tossing in their beds with visions of sugarplums and veins of sucrose, the boyz finally succumbed to sleep.

The next morning was like christmas with the rustling of wrappers and snapping of pop rocks in modified shot glasses. The kids assessed their haul, the squirrels munched on the pumpkins they'd knocked over, and Kola asked, "Can we do it again today??" and kept referring to T-or-T'ing as "the block party." The candy has prompted a new game, a variation of P.P. Petunia and monster, called M&M mice. I place a single M&M on the sectional, bookcase, ottoman or rug in our living room. The boys stalk it from the staircase and I hide in the kitchen, ready to pounce on them as they sneak down the stairs to steal the M&M. I'm thinking the energy we all expend in this game will help the M&M's follow the "zero calorie" celery diet (where the calories it has and the calories spent eating it are a wash.) The candy had also been a great incentive - Kola gets it for napping and for a dry night diaper. All of a sudden, he's napping religiously and dry every morning! As E's french teacher would say, "C'est bon." I say, c'est bon bon.

more soon, xoxo b/s/e/k