Halloween

Here's the merry band before the mass candy grab began. Olivia is dressed as Ariel (with Ariel necklace in case anyone asks for a trick, ahh-ahh-ahh ahh-ahh-ahh-a-ahh), Stella is the Jaguar, Kieran is Wolverine (an X-man, not a member of the Fantastic Four!), and Aiden is the Ninja Turtle.

A big part of the fun for the adult escorts was watching Olivia sprint from house to house in heels while holding her just-slightly-too-long skirt with one hand and candy bucket with the other.  She never missed a beat while running across lawns, through flower beds, and mostly on the pavement from house to house. 

We had an amazing night for running around outside.  We sprinted the block at Kieran and Aiden's and headed to Kim and Matt's house before all of the good Alameda Ridge candy was gone.

Poor Violet really looked like a fish out water.  I've got a short video of the poor thing enjoying every moment in this costume.  She was a trooper and didn't try to pull this off too many times.  The stroller ride kept them pretty mellow trying to figure out exactly what was going on with the yelling and the running from the bigger kids.

Luke was dressed like his parents were loyal members of the GOP (that's an elephant costume), which we really didn't see coming until the last minute.  This was coupled with the fact that Jen had a McCain/Palin t-shirt on for the her costume (Ashley Todd).  We really didn't imagine that the B on her cheek could be so easily be missed.  In dim light, she wound up with a costume that just looked like a McCain/Palin supporter in the wrong neighborhood. The t-shirt was a custom job done with fabric paint, so no money was donated to the McCain/Palin ticket.

Michael and Jen both avoided their own camera in their costumes.  Jen's absence is perhaps understandable, you don't want to have to explain a McCain/Palin photo taken out of context years from now.  Michael went as Carbon Footprints which he picked up at the last minute from the guy at the emissions testing center (thank you, DEQ guy).  A quick trip to the Art store for fabric paint and stencils and poof, instant costumes.  The costumes took about an hour to prepare, thanks to some great October weather.

There's definitely some sort of perspective thing happening in this next photo.  Kieran is not quite that much larger than Livvie.  Their costumes kept them warm. The temperature dipped a bit, but that just made it perfect for running around in polyester outfits.

Livvie had a great time at Matt and Kim's.  They ventured out to a couple of houses on the ridge, the one on the left is a gigantic gothic mansion that was super spooky.  Liv couldn't really handle the severed arm on the ground.  She wanted to touch it, but just couldn't bring herself to do it.  It was a little over-the-top, so one can hardly blame the poor princess.

Jacks-O-Lantern

We carved our pumpkins tonight.  Liv drew 3 practice designs and settled on this smiling, toothy version with ears. 

These are actually new pumpkins.  You may remember our trip to the Pumpkin Patch.  Yeah, those pumpkins are now rotten.  So much for going early. 

The twins did not participate.  They had a busy day and didn't nap well, so early to bed.

Livvie let me etch one of the pumpkins.  The etching was done with a church key, which is not as hard as it might sound.  As fun as the church key was, I'd probably buy a couple of wood carving tools before attempting this again.  There's also a ghost on the side that's a little tough to see in these photos. Liv did a little etching, but it was hard and she lost interest quickly.

This is an slightly underexposed shot, but I think it looks a little spookier with a green glow.

The carved pumpkin has a little trouble with airflow and getting enough air to keep the votives at full strength.  An important lesson learned.

The masher and the stasher

Violet and Luke eat very differently.  Violet prefers to shove as much as she can into her mouth.  Luke is a bit more of a biter.  He likes to bite off small pieces and isn't shy about using his teeth on clothing, skin, or small dogs (if they'd just stand still).  Here's a little video of lunch today.  Apples.  Violet has got her entire slice in her mouth while Luke is demurely nibbling away.

Here's a link to the video in case anyone is looking at this in Facebook.  I just discovered that the videos don't show up in Facebook when they are imported.  I don't think there's anything I can do about that (use the "Original Post" link at the bottom of the Facebook note).  I also updated the Blogger template to try to make it a little easier to read online.

Luke and Violet are eating almost any solid food now.  They're still banned from milk and chocolate until they hit 1 year old in a couple of weeks, but they've moved past just Cheerios now (that was sooo last week!).  Just today, they've had baby carrots (steamed), crackers, yogurt, egg noodles, apple, and real oatmeal (Mom's oatmeal at breakfast - they don't really let us eat alone anymore).

Violet swings

Another video today, this time of Violet enjoying the porch swing.  Violet doesn't nap as well as Luke in the afternoon, so he was already snoozing while the sisters were out enjoying the sunshine and giant breezes.

Also caught this great self-portrait (holding the camera out with one hand).

The weather was great today, warm and breezy. Michael and the neighbor Joe were both out cleaning gutters today. Michael discovered that climbing on the roof is for younger men. We had a tree branch rubbing against the roof in the wind (you can't imagine how annoying it is to try to sleep through that AND the twins chatting to each other in the next room, one of them had to go!). The roof is much steeper and I am much less foolish than I used to be. It's funny to think about all of the roof climbing that Mark and I did back in Delaware. The roof used to be just another door, up and in through a window. Maybe this roof is just twice as steep, yep, that's got to be it.

Brave Olivia went all the way to the top of the ladder (~15'). Things were great until she tried to help clean the gutter and got a scrape.  Immediate princess band-aid application was required!

Livvie Sings and Roux

Olivia loves The Little Mermaid.  You can hear a little of "Part of That World" below.  She's also playing with her Ariel Polly Pocket at the same time.

On Saturday we tried to go see Wall-E at the Family Matinee playing at the Kennedy School (great pizza right out of the oven!).  For the un-initiated, the matinees at the Kennedy School are super cheap, second run movies with couches, pizza and beer.  The Kennedy School is an old elementary school converted into a brewery, bar, restaurant, and movie theater (in the old gym, so it's perfect for strollers). 

Luke and Violet haven't been to the Mommy Matinee (same thing as a family matinee, just during the week) in about 2 months.  They used to do great during the movie (by that I mean that they had a bottle and went to sleep, of course), but now they can crawl and eat and movies don't work for them anymore.  Michael took them to a nearby park for a ride on the swing instead.  That's something they really enjoy.  I wish I took some video of this because they were making soft cooing noises the entire time they were on the swing.

Once again, someone at the park asked how far apart these two were in age.  The boy has only got about an inch and half and two pounds on her.  I think it's his gigantic head that makes people think they aren't related.  Doesn't help that Violet is still bald.

After the usual afternoon nap, the kids went to Kim and Matt's while Michael and Jen went to Danielle's, our next door neighbor, 40th birthday party at Roux.  Much fun was had, the food was amazing and over 30 friends came to toast Dani being over the hill.  Jen discovered a new fav drink - the Sunday Confession and had the resulting headache on Sunday.

We sat next to Roni and David who also have young twins.  We spent much of dinner swapping twin stories.  Their girls, Lilly and Kate, are only about 6 months younger than Luke and Violet.  It seems like big age gap at the moment, but it will start closing fast.  Another highlight of the evening was unloading our exer-saucer (also known as the neglect-a-chair) on Roni and David.  One less large colorful plastic contraption in our living room!!

Livvie spent Saturday night playing dress up with Lana who is about 6 months younger than Liv and the two princesses had a great time.  That is, until it was time to go, then there was much weeping.  I mean seriously, it was only 12:30am, why couldn't she hold it together?

Livvie Art

Here's the latest from our Neo-Impressionist-in-residence.  The large object in the lower left is a shark.  This one might be entitled "The Ocean", but then she painted another similar one this evening that she also told me was "The Ocean".  I believe that makes this one the painting formerly known as the ocean.

This painting occurred immediately after she and Jen made a larger-than-life Sleeping Beauty chalk drawing on the sidewalk out front.  It's been an artsy kind of day.

The dishwasher

Violet was pretty proud of herself for climbing up onto the dishwasher yesterday (these are clean dishes!).  Both she and Luke race to the dishwasher whenever it gets opened.  I'm not sure what the attraction is all about.  We let them play in some of the clean water on the door after unloading the dishwasher ONCE.  Now, it's all they can think about.  We've had to start loading the dishwasher with them still strapped into their chairs after dinner.

Violet has decided that screaming is her new thing.  She yelled so much during dinner last night that she got banished to the crib to work it out.  There was more yelling tonight, but not enough to get her in trouble.  We're stepping up the efforts to get this girl some words.

Half Marathon

I ran the Run Like Hell! half marathon today.  The goal was to finish under 1:45 and I made it in 1:44.  There was a slow start and it was just over 13 miles, so my pace was probably just under 8 minutes/mile.

I had a great first 10K, but then someone put one long, slow hill at miles 7, 8, and 9.  Brutal.  It was 40 degrees at the start (7:30 AM) and when I came home a couple of hours later, it was still 40 degrees.  I've decided that I am a warm-weather runner.  It'll be funny to see if I'm in any of the photos with any of these other jokers in just running shorts and tank-tops.  I was dressed to the hilt in pants, long-sleeve shirt, wind-breaker, and gloves (and I forgot my hat, but I would have worn it, too).

At the end of the race, they had buffalo wings and beer for all the competitors (from the race sponsors).  It was 9:30AM and I just couldn't do either of those.

Livvie loved the race finisher's "medal" they give you at the end. Her first question when I got home from each of these 4 races was "Did you win?", to which I always re-assured her, "Yes!".  She and Amryn took turns running into the next room and placing the medal around each others' neck for winning.  Their race turned into a sort of obstacle course race from room to room with various completion tasks required in each room.

That's the last race for this year.  The Shamrock run for St. Patrick's Day will probably start off next year.

Results

Time	Pace	Age Rank	Overall Rank
1:42:53	7:51	24 / 68	158 /1010

Kieran's Birthday

We celebrated Kieran's birthday with a costume party (Kieran's idea!). 

Livvie dressed up as a princess (yeah, shocking I'm sure).  It was an older princess outfit that still fits (2T/3T!).  She seems committed to wearing the Ariel costume for Halloween proper.  We had a BatGirl backup, but that one went back to Target because she appears to have Ariel locked-in.

Livvie held her own as the solo girl of the crowd.  There was a mad dash for the Batman action figures and Liv got there last.  It didn't matter too much, Livvie seemed to enjoy the Scooby Doo action figures better.

There was a pinata, of course.  I put a funny video on YouTube with a little of the fun.  In it, Kieran takes himself out with a over-committed swing and Livvie displays her swinging prowess by holding the "bat" with a right-handed grip and crossing her arms across her body to make the swing. I think we might have to switch the grip and try her swinging left-handed.  Work in progress.

We neglected to think about putting the neat sheet under the pinata until after watching them pick the candy out of the dirt.  Eh, it's good for their immune system.

The twins loved the whole party.  New toys, wrapping paper, big kids running everywhere, and Violet even got a turn on the swing after watching how Olivia did it.  You can see wee Violet right in the mix at the bottom of this photo probably eating wrapping paper.

Vacation Day (at home)

I've got 3 weeks of vacation to take before the end of the year, so today was a vacation day at home.  Livvie went to school today and Jen had a lunch date, so it was Daddy and the twins.  The highlights for my special day were taking a nap, playing word scramble, and vacuuming the car.  I'll only be accepting snarky comments about my vacation plans from dads with 3 kids and/or twins.

The twins are basically on top of you wherever you go in the house.  They stand at the gate when you go into the basement, climb atop you if you sit on the floor, and sprint to the bathroom if they hear you open the door.

I was able to distract them a little with some ziplock bags in the kitchen.  Yes, we use these bags even after they've been strewn all over the floor.  We have come to accept several shades of clean in our home.

 

 

Picture Day

We went to Andie's studio today for some family photos and hopefully a holiday picture suitable for mailing.  We've totally got this 3 kid thing down now.  We're so good we're even early with the holiday photo!  Ok, they're not in the mail yet, so maybe I should back off that statement a tad. 

We doubled-up today and also went for the pumpkin patch.  It was a nice day and everything was dry for several days so, no mud.  Which is funnier of course, because it's raining now later in the evening and we had planned to go to the patch tomorrow. Heh, well..., we thought it was funny anyway. 

Livvie is a big fan of the cow train.  Daddy is not as big a fan.  That's my best attempt at a terrified smile.  "Bump!", "Bumpy! and "Hold On!" were pretty much all Liv and I had to say to each other for the 15 minutes it took to make a loop. 

Luke and Violet enjoyed the view from the double jog stroller.  Wide as truck but lightweight with gigantic wheels which worked out perfectly for taking them all the way out to the pumpkin patch. 

We neglected to take a single picture in that field of pumpkins.  Yeah.

Here's a nice shot of how cozy Luke and Violet were.  The weather was great.  They got to watch Livvie ride the train, leap at Dad, and crawl through the hay tunnel.  They're making a mental list of all this stuff, I can tell. 

Violet has turned into a pacifier hound in the last couple of days.  She knows there is usually one found in her car seat in the other room, reaches into the crib looking for them, finds them on counters, whatever it takes.

Violet has also gotten proficient at flushing the toilet.  Luke is still trying to figure out how she does it; still working on his technique.  They will both now flat out race us to the bathroom when the door is left open and they see us coming for them.  We can usually redirect their attention to Livvie's bath toys (infant-safe, mostly).  Their wee little minds don't linger too long on any single activity.

 

Dance Class

Monday is Livvie's dance class.  Groovin' and Shakin' is the name of the class, I believe.  There's a lot of running around in circles in the beginning when this photo was taken.  That skirt has bells on it, of course.

After dance class there is the obligatory trip to the playground.  The dance studio is right next to the playground, so it's a little un-avoidable.  I only had to use the playground as bait twice to keep Livvie on the dance floor when she felt she had enough dancing.

The big highlight at the playground was the ability to do the balance beam all by herself for the first time.  She made it all the way across several times.  Very proud of herself. 

 

Livvie takes a pretty good picture sometimes.  She does need a little reminding that we take pictures of people and not chairs, though.  She's wholly responsible for the following pictures.

 

Livvie did a little drawing today as well.  I annotated this one a little so you could all figure out who's who.  Eyes are now drawn with dots in the middle and circles around them; that just started, not sure why.

You can click on any of these photos to see more on Flickr.  In one of them, you'll notice that she likes to draw without pants.

Aiden's Birthday

Aiden turned 6 and had a kickball party.  Girls were decidedly less interested in the game of kickball and there were a couple of them there besides Livvie.  Our's truly missed most of the game because of a potty break (and the potty is 3 blocks away and your friend Lana has to come, too...).  Luke and Violet opted to watch with cheerios and a surrogate nana.

The Berenstain Bears have a story about too much birthday.  Livvie loves it.  Of course, we love it too now that Livvie got sick on her birthday.  Aiden's too-much-birthday moment wasn't nearly as dramatic, just a little self-imposed time-out over a missed turn at bat.  Liv wasn't here for this photo moment, but I'd bet she would think Aiden had too much birthday right about now. 

Aiden pulled it back together for a triumphant final kick that sent him around the bases for the big win (in as much as there was no score and nobody was ever out).

There were lots of terrifying moments with the pinata after the game.  Jen had the camera running for some of the fun.  I'm pretty sure that Livvie is holding the bat in the next photo just as Mulan would hold her fighting stick. 

We still have some work to do on batting stance.  Aiden and Kieran gave Liv a bat, ball, & glove combo for her birthday.  One would assume they want her to practice a little before the season really kicks in next year.

No naps this afternoon, so everyone was anxious to get to bed tonight whether they knew they felt that way or not.

Jamming

Violet and I got a little time to jam after the race yesterday with Luke and Olivia napping.  Here's a shot of her doing her best Pete Townsend windmill.  There's a little more Violet on YouTube.

Violet often wakes up mellow and snugglely.  She let me do a little strumming and then took her turn. 

We are currently drowning in clothes for the twins.  It is change of season, we've got a stockpile of clothes they are growing out of, and we are running into the limits of what a single dresser can provide.  Below is another shot of Violet trying on some of the winter clothes just before bed last night.  I think we're ready for snow now.

This is another shot of Violet after her nap.  I really wanted to paint some hair on with Photoshop for the poor girl.  First shot with the camera after I turned it on and I got this one.  Sometimes you get lucky.

Today is Aiden's birthday party (followed closely by Kieran's birthday next weekend).  Happy Birthday, Aiden!

-Michael

Blue Lake Run

There wasn't much Blue Lake in the Blue Lake Run today.  Mostly just a run out past the Troutdale airport and back.  Today was a 15K run and I finished in 1:08:07 (7:19/mile pace), results here.  There was nothing left in the tank at the end.  I got passed by a guy in the last 1/3rd of a mile.  Turns out, he ended up 1st in my age group, so I ended up second.  I finished 15 seconds behind him, but there wasn't even really the possibility I was going to catch him even if I knew (plus, I kind of thought some of the others already in front of me were in my age group).  15K is hard (it's 9.3 miles).  I'm a little concerned about next weekend's half marathon (Sunday 7:30am, ouch!).  It's 4 miles further than today.  I'm going to write off having a good pace and just go for completion.

I met a couple of work buddies after the race who ran the 5K.  Apparently, the sprint triathlon at Blue Lake is a lot of fun. I'll be taking a break from running soon with the weather getting cooler and wetter, but a sprint triathlon sounds like a good goal for next June.

-Michael

A mockle sandwich

Here's Livvie fooling around posing for the camera.  She found the zoom switch on the camera last night.  We endured multiple "say cheese" sessions while she practiced adjusting the zoom to find just the right perspective.  That is a nice ta-da, sticking out tongue, pointing photo.

Later, Livvie told me that she was going to give me "a mockle sandwich"?!?  I believe that she picked that up from one of the boys (Kieran? Aiden?).  Pretty sure she is talking about a knuckle sandwich, but I didn't correct her.  I think it's funnier this way.

Liv went shopping with Jen for a new winter coat(s) tonight (on sale now at Freddie's).  While trying on coats she told Jen several times "That's not cool."  When someone commented that she had cool cowgirl boots she replied "they're not cowgirl boots, because I don't ride cows.  They're horsegirl boots."

While they were driving, Livvie asked why there's a pipe sticking out the back of cars.  Jen explained that's where the dirty air the car makes comes out.  Livvie replied with her new favorite phrase, "That's distusting!"  It is more fun when Kieran's around, she's constantly saying "distusting" and he's answers, "Yeah, gusting!"  No amount of correcting produces a different outcome.

When Violet is happy, she's REALLY happy!  This happy face is from just before bed time, doesn't she look tired.  You can see a little of what became of the living room since kids.  It's best that it's dark and blurry in the photo.

Having a nostalgic moment

I'm trying to find some ancient files from an early training class somewhere on the steaming pile that I call my filing system.  I knew I had some old photos stashed away on one of these USB drives that I use to help "organize" my files.  Haven't found the files I was looking for, but I did find a couple of nice photos of Olivia's early days.  The twins were not large when they came out, but I forget just how terrifyingly tiny even Olivia started.

I got a nice little chuckle looking at the next photo because I realize that this room very rarely looks this well put together anymore.  You can only see a small portion of the room, but trust me.  I know what the rest of the room looked like then and I'm writing this post from the very same room now and, yeah, one kid was easy.

 

Mid-day snack

Luke in Pink

The twins enjoyed a mid-day snack while Dad ate his lunch today. Luke was still dressed in his finest hand-me-down pink sleeper.

Violet has almost mastered the sippy-cup. She's still a little short on the tipping it up part, but she knows there's stuff to drink in there and she's trying to suck on it. She still has to wait for another month and a half before she gets milk instead of water. Luke knows the sippy-cup makes noise when he shakes it. He probably just wants to see Violet try one or two more times.

Sadie's been eating well. She got the T-bone from last night's dinner and these two devolved their cheerios snack into a wild, hand-thrashing fracas. Sadie doesn't like grapes, but she loves Cheerios.

Twin shadows

Luke and Violet have hit their stride with the crawling now.  Room to room speed is about 5 seconds.  Their favorite place to be is usually wherever you are.  It's been a solid couple of days worth of twins tailing us from room to room.  They've had a few other distractions.

One of Violet's favorite haunts is the toilet.  She's figured out how to flush, lift the lid, and has even been caught reaching in to splash in the water.  Yeah, she's that fast, and no, that doesn't count as clean.  Bathroom door always shut now - new rule for Livvie.

Luke likes to helicopter on his belly in the kitchen.  He makes great haste to the kitchen stairs whenever the gate is opened to let Sadie in or out.  He feigns at the gate as though he can fool me into thinking that's what he wants to play with.  He and I both know he's gunning for the little door at the bottom of the steps where Sadie goes in and out.  He's gonna lunge it one of these times.  Game on.

The second gate has gone in at the top of the steps and the wood gate has to be used to keep them off the bottom of the stairs.  Luke figured out stairs on his first real try at it today.  Violet did stairs earlier this week... she's moved on.  Clean clothes are starting to pile up in the living room waiting for the locks to open.

We've made it through two successful days with the new PollyPocket (Cinderella set, of course).  Livvie's had the riot act read to her about the tiny pieces that keep showing up on the floor.  Next one is Daddy's.  Thankfully, Daddy moves a little slowly and always announces his intentions.