Spooktacular!

Finally! Some great weather for trick-or-treating! I've dragged Emilyn out in the rain, freezing temperatures... you name it. But this was just right. 65, breezy and cloudy... Just like Halloween night should be! The kids were perfectly comfortable in their costumes... Not too hot, not too cold.


Still, there was not a lot of activity in the neighborhood... Lots of people are ready to give out candy, but not a lot of kids stop by. So, Emilyn and Allen got a giant haul of treats, and we still have a bunch left over ourselves.

Allen was on foot for the first half of our haunt 'n' jaunt... But he does flit slowly and randomly, just like any good bumblebee. So, we got the stroller for the second leg, and that went much more quickly.

We made it to Mrs. Lupo's house... That's usually our far point. And we were back by 8:20 or so, with a large load of candy and some tired feet. Click here to see the whole spooky story.

"A cement mixer," and other scary things

Look what Allen made out of his breakfast food! He said it's a cement mixer, and darned if it doesn't look like one!

Also Tuesday, we tricked out the house for treats... I finished my boneyard... Looks suitably creepy, yes? All our other Halloween faves posed for pics... still life, don't you know... Check it all out here.

"White broccoli" and other wonders

Allen had a nice lunch at the Thai place... Daddy introduced him to some magical stuff -- white broccoli! He also had baby corn, which he loves, and "clear soup." And then, when we got home, he stood still and smiled for a picture!!! Yay!



Click here to see more.

It's Emilyn's World, again

So, Emilyn got a fancy pink Kodak digital camera for her birthday, from Grandma... Now's your chance to see the world through her eyes! She loves to play, and create, and crack herself up. She took this thought-provoking photo (above) and many more excellent ones, plus a couple of hilarious videos. So, she deserves her own chunk of the Web to share her vision. It'll always be there, so make a bookmark: www.dropshots.com/emilyn1024. And there's a permanent link on the left of our blog here, too, under "Sites to visit." When you go, please be sure to leave Emilyn a comment on the pictures you like best!

Hartman family hilarity

We all got our cameras fired up today (for example, I think Steve took this classic shot) ... Some fun with pumpkins, some nice family portraits. To see more, click here.

Back to the pumpkin farm

So nice, we had to do it twice! Now that Pete and London and Cecilia were here, we had to head back to Thies Farm for more pumpkin fun. Yes, that means another tractor ride for Allen! Oh, yeah. It doesn't get any better than that. To see the whole story, click here.

Fun at the fall party

Crafts and games and snacks... What more could you ask for from a fall party!? Emilyn had fun Friday with the whole third-grade gang... and Mommy was glad to be there and help out. To see it all, including videos of some of the games, click here.

"Iss a boo five!"

Oh, it's that time of child-rearing again... When Emilyn was this age, her vocabulary was good n' advanced, just right for arguing with Mommy and Daddy. "I'm not being const-a-dict-owy!" she would insist. One of her favorites was, "The sky is not blue!"

With Allen, it's the numbers on the refrigerator. He'll pull off a 2, run over to you with that "Just go ahead and mess with me; I'm 2" look on his face and say, challengingly: "Iss a boo five!" (He knows it's a 2. But he's got it upside-down, and that way, it kind of looks a little like a backwards 5.)

In this situation, there is no right answer. He's 2, and if you tell him he's wrong, he'll just yell louder and win. This must be what toddlers like about this gambit. Because he totally initiates this. It's a pint-sized power trip. So funny. Just wait until he learns his most important lesson: Mommy and Daddy are always right!

Happy birthday, Emilyn!

She's 9, if you can believe it! She's getting to be a very grown-up girl!

We brought Cosmic Brownies to share with her friends at school... You can see photos and video here.

She got some great stuff for her birthday this year (all pretty grown-up, too!)... A digital camera from Grandma; a magnetic calendar from Aunt Ellen; some spending cash from Aunt Jackie and Steve; a "High School Musical" DVD game from Aunt Amy, Brian, Wyatt and Will; a birthday haiku and Borders gift card from Lacey; a bookmark-making kit and stationery from Kathy; and, from Daddy, Mommy and Allen: some books, a Quizmo quiz game, and two decorate-it-yourself tea mugs. (If there's anything I forgot... I'm sorry!)

We had cake with Aunt Amy, Aunt Jackie and Wyatt. Later (Nov. 8) comes a sleepover party for her and some friends.

Happy birthday, Weeto! We hope you had a special day.

Vine wrap-up

It was time, today, to decide that the vine had run its course. So we harvested its questionable bounty, and then ripped it out of the flower bed and threw it in a heap on the driveway.

We got about 20 total of these little green things... Near as we can tell, they're some kind of gourd. Not gnarly like the cool ones you see at the store, but kind of smooth, green and plain.

Anyway, the reign of vine has ended after four months.

Bohemian rhapsody

Nasdar, everybody! Saturday was also the day for kolache and knedlicke! Roast pork and goulash! Oompah and accordions! It was homecoming at the American Czech Educational Center in south St. Louis. We saw a little bit of the band and ate a lot of the knedlicke. Daddy drank some fancy Bohemian beers. Czech it all out here! (At the end, after the photos from Trick or Trunk.)

Oui, oui. Buzz, buzz.

It's Trick or Trunk, Year Two!


Gotta get up nice and early to get ready for Trick or Trunk. Sorrento Springs holds the event every October... The kids get to dress up and parade around the neighborhood, led by our friendly neighborhood police officer in his squad car! This year, Allen got to march... and guess who won a "best costume" prize? Check it all out here.

Smiling faces, blurry bodies

They're blurry because they're moving! Friday was my day to run a Brownies meeting, and Olivia's mom and I did the "Girl Sport" try-it. Try-its are what they do to earn badges. Olivia has cerebral palsy, and she and her mom talked about stretching our muscles and why it's important... Then Emilyn and I showed the girls some different games with balloons and beanbags. We practiced throwing, catching, hitting and kicking. Everyone seemed to have a really good time.

Emilyn in... "Community Connection"!

What a great time we had in tonight's musical! Emilyn was involved in so many different parts of the show, and we got video of all of it. She's asleep now, but maybe tomorrow I'll have her write about how she felt to be doing all those great things on stage. For now, click here to enjoy the show!

Wacky Tacky Day

Yep, Emilyn outdid herself on this Wacky Tacky Day... I like the socks and slippers best. Considering she was pretty sick the night before, I have to hand it to her: She never once said she didn't want to go to school on Friday. That's what a little wacky-tacky fun can do!

At the pumpkin farm

After our stunning success in the leaf pile, I figured the pumpkin farm would be a fall photographer's dream! Well, that turned out to NOT really be the case.

This one is funny! I call it "The Sick and the Reluctant."

Anyway, that's pretty much the tale. Allen wouldn't stay still for pictures, and Emilyn was way too sick and in no mood for posing. Bad nose and eyes day. Cold, or allergies? She's like Daddy, and we just never know anymore.

But, we got some good pictures... Go here to see.

Fun in the leaf pile

Looks like we're not getting any color this year... But brown and crunchy can still be fun!

A vine mystery

While Allen was raking outside, he knocked one of our mystery fruits off the vine. He called it his "little green pumpkin."

We studied its visible properties. We decided it was green, with light green stripes, and smooth, and cool. Then, he wanted to go inside and cut it open. (Have I mentioned lately how much he reminds me of Grampy?)

A funny thing happened: Mommy could NOT hack that thing open! I even tried my cleaver!

Allen had a solution: "You can cut it with a blue foon!" (A talented scientist, but he can't say "spoon," and he doesn't understand pronouns yet.) Trial and error is the heart of good science, but that plastic spoon just didn't cut it. Later on, Daddy applied some manly pressure and got the thing open. It's very white inside and looks a lot like a zucchini or pumpkin. I told Allen we'd pick a bunch and put them in a basket, but Daddy doesn't want us to do that quite yet. He still thinks they'll grow into something interesting.

Sunday at the pool

As a spur-of-the-moment deal, we decided to dash to the pool on Sunday afternoon. Boy, were we surprised to see how much work they did! The whole pool floor is redone, and there was a new play structure. Emilyn and Allen had tons of fun. And since Mommy was ready with the camera, we have another chance to look at Allen, then and now!

NOW: OCTOBER 2007

THEN: JUNE 2006
(Aunt Laurie's favorite picture)

Emilyn's first Brownie campout

On Thursday night, because school was off on Friday, Emilyn and the Brownies had a campout in Katherine's back yard. Emilyn would like to report to all about her first time sleeping outside in a tent:

Emilyn says, "Well, we packed my toothbrush, my clothes, flashlight, a couple books, my chair, a sleeping bag, my new slippers and the little mat that goes under my sleeping bag. When it was time to go, me and Daddy packed everything in the car and went to Katherine's house. When we got there, everyone put their things by the fence and we played on Katherine's playground. Then, about 15 minutes later, we started to get everything set up in our tents. I shared a tent with Katherine, Olivia and Sarah.

"Then, a little bit later, we looked at a paper that was hung up on the wall to see what our jobs were. I was 'dinner prep.' Yay! Olivia and Gabbye were 'dinner prep' also. We washed apples and we took the plates out to the table and we got some chips and hot dogs and we roasted hot dogs on the fire. Then after everybody was finished with their dinner, we sang some songs and we talked about Brownies. By this time, it was dark. So Mrs. Franz gave us numbers, and she called us by our numbers to go brush our teeth. And then Mrs. Guerkink read us a couple of books (but everybody was tired, so nobody listened). So we went to our tents to go to sleep.

"Inside the tent, there was a little curtain that you could change your clothes behind so nobody could peek at you. Mrs. Franz slept behind the curtain. Everybody else slept in the middle. Our tent, I guess, was the loudest. In the next tent, Hannah's little sister Claire was overtired and crying, so we couldn't go to sleep. But, finally, we fell asleep. We heard a lot of crickets and cars (I guess one of them was Maddie's, because she had to go home because she was homesick). It was kind of cool to be sleeping in a tent. But I had bad allergies because of the grass, and a lot of grass was sticking to the tent, because the tent was wet. I also had sore legs. So, I didn't get much sleep that night.

"My tent woke up at 5 in the morning. So, I decided to stick myself under my sleeping bag and read with a flashlight. When all the other tents woke up, we all climbed out and we looked at the sign to see what our morning jobs were. This time, I was 'breakfast prep.' Yay, again!

"We made hot chocolate and took orders for the people that wanted orange juice and fruit punch. Then we all made a card for Grace, because she wasn't there, because her Grandma died, and she was in Texas. And then we ate. We had 'brown bears,' which are biscuits roasted in the fire, and then we put them in a bag with brown sugar and cinnamon and shake it. That was good, except for mine was burnt. But the hot chocolate was good.

"Then I decided to lay on the lounger with my book, when everyone was pretty much doing nothing. And then we practiced our skit, which had Hannah as the main character, the 'banana girl.' The skit was about the uses of bandannas. After we show one use for bandannas, Hannah tries to do it with a banana and says, 'I don't get it!' And then, at the end of the skit, the last use for bandannas is tying it up and carrying food in it. And Hannah peels the banana and says, 'I get it now!' It's a funny skit.

"Then we made 'God's eyes,' which is two popsicle sticks with yarn wrapped around it. By then, the parents were getting there. When I saw Mommy and Allen, I got all my stuff packed up. Allen was playing with Katherine's pumpkins. I was on the swings and didn't want to get off. Then we went home. I was pretty tired. Next time I go on a campout, I should bring leg pain medicine!"