Halloween

My poor in-laws' house flooded big-time last night.  As in, the entire bottom floor had 2 feet of standing water this morning, and it had risen higher than that overnight: our wedding album was damaged and it was up on the console table behind the sofa!  So, you can imagine the amount of work that lies ahead for them... it's overwhelming even to think about-- and I haven't seen any of it with my own eyes.  Ugh!

All that to say, I thought I'd been too busy to keep up with the blog lately... but now the degree to which I am "busy" has all been brought into perspective!  So while I can't get up there to help (let me tell you how helpful I and two kids would be), I figure the least I can do is get some cute pictures of the grandkids posted.  I doubt it'll do much for Ricky's morale, but JoAnn's the one having to share tight living quarters with him for an unknown amount of time while they wait for the repairs to be made!  :-)   So here's a little comfort for her soul, at least.  (And I will try to get some of the backlog up over the next couple days, too.)

From tonight's trick-or-treating:

"WHAT is happening?"

he's a lumberjack, by the way.
--one who really doesn't like having whiskers drawn on his face.

In case you were wondering, "rainbow princess" costumes are required to have rainbow polka dots AND rainbow stripes.  This is the best I could do with that kind of guidance and a fabric store that clearly didn't understand how much variety in rainbow fabric they ought to carry.

 41 pieces, in case you were wondering.
She even wrote the number on a piece of paper and put it in the bag with the candy.
Unfortunately for her, she wrote it backwards,
so I was super tempted to eat about 27 pieces of candy tonight.

"NO, Clement!  NO!"

(What would Halloween be without a little hoarding?)

And some pictures from the pumpkin patch on Tuesday...   I'm beginning to understand the difficulty of taking family portraits.  All eyeballs on the camera AND smiles??   No way.

Josephine was a little braver with the pumpkin cleaning this year.  

Hang in there, Mama Jo and Grandfrog!  It'll be okay (eventually!).  We love y'all and are thinking about you constantly!!  

hungry goats, llama kisses, stubborn kangaroos

Latest trip to the zoo, 9/27/13.

"here, goat-- would you like to eat my little brother?"

"I wanna a kiss.  Anyone want a kiss?  Step on up, folks.  Freeeee kisses!"

"c'mon.  just one little kiss."

not just any old trip to the zoo.  this time we splurged for the train ride!

"Mother.  Where is my approved child safety restraint system?  This is so irresponsible."

They made up for the lack of animals with festive displays.
I actually really loved the train ride, possibly more than my kids did.

But I don't WANT to eat the cabbage.

This is a 1.5 year old kangaroo.  When he got nervous his ears trembled.  It was so cute.

Speaking of kangaroos, I should be attending my 10 year college homecoming reunion this fall, but I can't make it.  Still, it deserves a shout out-- Austin College was a mighty fine four years!
Go Roos!

they humored me

Every now and then my corny side begs for a chance to express itself.

So when I found out that Grandfrog also had a red gingham shirt, this happened:

And of course, Josephine had to take part.  I found myself unsatisfied with having caught the three Sims boys in matching shirts; it only made me wish I'd coordinated a whole family portrait!

cuteness!

Here are a few other pictures from Teague this weekend.  I didn't get many.  Josephine locks herself in the upstairs bedroom with Mama Jo and Gam almost 100% of the time, and a good amount of my time around Clement is spent moderating his love fest with Badges, so this is all I have:

It was definitely fun seeing everyone!  I always get to catch up on my naps while Josephine runs Mama Jo ragged.  :-)  Thanks y'all!

rain, rain, come and play

There is actually a lot one can do during Outside Time should a rain shower happen to pass through for five minutes.

- Beg to come inside because you are getting wet.
- Fail at that endeavor because you were already wet, by choice-- see the garden hose and the window and what you were doing before the rain started????
- Whine some more.  Insist you're dying.
- Be given an umbrella.  If you are four, this is pretty cool.  You might live after all.
- Remain under the umbrella for at least 15 minutes after the shower has passed and the sun reemerged because you're so enraptured with being under an umbrella (we DO live in Texas, so it is pretty rare), and then carry it around with you everywhere you go thereafter, which includes ramming it into the door each time you peer through the window to see what your mom is doing.

     ...Also, see that water gun?  Guess what's in it now.  If you said something silly like "rainwater!" you do not have a four year old.
Try again.
You must consider what is within reach from under her umbrella, and not anything liquid which might be the logical thing to put into a squirt gun-- because you must think like a four year old.

Rosemary.
It's stuffed full of rosemary.

WHERE is the parenting guide that tells me how to get rosemary out of a water gun?  All those little skinny needles?  You CAN'T.  
But can you recycle a plastic water gun if it has rosemary?  I don't know.  They don't make a guide for that either.  The recycling guides don't say "hard plastics that are full of rosemary are also okay."  Nor do they specifically say they aren't.  
So what do I do?
Here's the honest answer:  it will probably just sit on that chair for at least another six weeks.  My approach goes like this-- and yes, I consider it holy:
"Dear God, I cannot get the rosemary out of the squirt gun.  Will you do it?  If I just leave it here and do nothing at all, maybe it can decompose and be squirted out?  Or maybe a large bird will come and fly away with the whole contraption and I will not have to deal with it?  Just a couple ideas.  But you know, whatever you think is best.  Love,  Josephine's Tired Mom"

God gets a lot of these prayers...

We must be SO wearisome to him.  After all, he DID just answer the prayer for rain...

wyatt and clement

Wyatt came over to play this morning!!

These two were adorable!  If you're in the mood to have your heart melted, check out this video of them figuring out the pop up toy.  Their mutual grunts and "eh?" noises are so sweet.  And I love how, around 0:50, you can just see Wyatt go, "Here, man, let me have a go at that.  I've got an idea."
Side note:  I hope when they're older they'll still clap for each other.  I would like to see more adult men clapping for each other the way they did when they were one.  I know that I, personally, would enjoy places like auto repair shops and tattoo parlors a lot more if that were the prevailing atmosphere.