Are all the planes broken?

Is Daddy in that plane? No, that one's broken.

Daddy must be in that plane, right? Maybe. He said that the second plane might be broken too.

Mom, it's been fun playing in the van for an hour this afternoon and a couple hours this evening, but we're about to get cranky. Has Daddy landed yet?

Yay, it's Daddy! Best news ever...at least one plane worked well enough for Daddy to finally get his wings!

Story Time with Grandma & Grandpa P.

Ryan's parents were in town for a week to help celebrate Ryan's winging (those pictures will come later). The boys were thrilled to have two doting grandparents around, even if the visit was short.

The Little Colonial that Could

Here's a not-so-lovely photo of our house back in January before we took ownership. If you think that the exterior looks stuck in the 80's (or worse), you should see the interior! We loved the location and the neighborhood so we decided to take a chance. We chose to live in the Navy Lodge the first 2 or 3 weeks that we were here...that should tell you something.



This photo is from August. Not much has changed since August. The landscaping is non-existent and will remain so until the spring. We still need to paint the front doors and decide if we are putting shutters back on the house. At least we are no longer embarassed to pull into our own driveway.



As soon as the exterior remodelling projects were underway, the neighbors began to come out to greet us. I think they are just as relieved to see the new exterior as we are!

Halloween/Fall Festival

Buzz Lightyear & Woody


Checking out the chickens


Coloring pumpkins


Boys playing in the hay

Can we smile AT the camera?

The boys just had to play out front while Ryan cut some tile for the downstairs bathroom floor. It was a lovely fall day so I grabbed my camera and attempted to get a cut shot of the two of them sitting together. I can never get them to both smile AND look at the camera at the same time. Oh, well! Don't you just love Nathan's hand on Ian's knee? They can be so cute...sometimes.

We voted! Did you?

Fearing horrible lines and utter chaos, we waited for Ryan to get home so that all four of us could go to the polls as a family. We take the boys everywhere so this was not unexpected, but I was sure to take my camera with me as this was to be an historic election no matter the outcome. (We'll talk about the outcome at another time, I'm sure.) No lines awaited our arrival, only smiling poll workers and super easy electronic voting machines. Woo hoo! The boys were fussy in the stroller, but a poll worker rushed over to give them their very own stickers--which they are displaying in the photo--to help bribe them into silence. Gotta love other people who clearly have raised their own children.