A Little Jig..

or as his dad thought it should be titled, "Young, Fresh Cayden Shaking his Groove Thang!"

Sorry it is on it's side. I couldn't get it to rotate. :)

A Ghoulishly Good Time.....

We had our annual Pumpkin Carving Party last nite; the first time it was held in our new house with LOTS more room!

The Festive Table

Bubbling Cauldron

A Creepcake

A plate full of Creepcakes

Implements of pumpkin torture

Hammish, our Transylvanian Terrier, waiting for the festivities to begin

Dorky, but lovable friend, Eric



Tom, really sticking it to his pumpkin

Grammy and Cayden; Cayden actually got to do a little carving on his own this year!

Our former neighbor, but pumpkin carving party regular, Karen

Papa (Cayden looks a little nervous in the background)

Eric's carving on Hammish's pumpkin (Eric forgot his pumpkin this year)

Papa's

Grammy's

Tom's

Mine

Karen's

Cayden's (he even designed his own pumpkin this year! Grammy helped him carve it. Not bad for a 4 year old!)



The line up

Glowing Jack-O-Lantern's

More glowing Jack-O-Lantern's

Sorry it's so blurry, but you can only see them glow if you leave your flash off. I have shaky hands, apparently.

One down, one to go! Stay tuned for our playgroup pumpkin party happening this Thursday!!

More Landscaping?!

We added some landscaping to our haunted house today........









much spookier, don't you think?

Apple Cider Donuts and the Aroma of Goat Cheese

Our playgroup took the kids to Lattin's Country Cider Mill yesterday afternoon to visit the animals, get some pumpkins and of course, eat some yummy donuts (my whole reason for going).

Cayden looks so crazed because just before I took this picture the big goat butted the little goat right in the tummy and lifted his back legs right up in air!

The black goat with the really long goatee on the far left was making all this noise at us the whole time we were there. Cayden has some feed in his hand and that goat was so bold he grabbed Cayden's sleeve and was pulling his arm closer to get at it.

The goats were so cute, especially the babies. Oh, but do they stink! Like goat cheese! I love goat cheese, but the aroma makes the thought a little unappetizing. Posing in the pumpkin patch

Riding the carousel (all 6 kids!!!)

This is a little video of the pig at the farm running in circles with the kids.

That's odd, I never took any pictures of the donuts!! Sorry Erin! If you are coming up this weekend, we can go and get hot apple fritters!!!!!! NUMMY!

Hammish vs. The Vacuum

My sweet little protector Hammish. This video is a little silly and very grainy (sorry, I was really vacuuming at the time), but I just love how tough he is.....that is, until the vacuum comes on.

Booey says "BOO!"

Cayden and I put together a Haunted Gingerbread House today. A time consuming process, but a very fun one!

We chose the "Fractured Facade" design

As I said, it was time consuming, so the back of the house suffered a little :)

We're going to buy some coconut tomorrow and tint it purple to fill in the "yard" I'll post those when we're done.

I AM A ROBOT

Red Alert! Red Alert! You must read this entire post in a robot voice to fully experience it.

New robot wall appliques were purchased for Cayden's room last weekend. Gaze at the images below:

The series of robots. Cayden chose their locations.

Heart Robot

Keevo (not sure where Booey came up with that one)

Green Robot with Dots

The following robots were based on REAL robots. LOOK!

Blue Robby

Red Robby

Red Robot 2000

Blue Robot 2000

(He's missing an ear and his legs keep coming off. He's had a hard life!)

Stay tuned for pictures of our own life size robot. Look for them near Halloween!! To hold you until then, enjoy the following:

Looking for a good robot flick for the weekend? Check out "The Forbidden Planet". Lesley Nielson in a "serious" role as the future of our race rests on his shoulders!

Poor Little Fat Dog

Hammish FINALLY went in for a shearing today. I think this is the longest we have ever let him go. He was supposed to get his hair cut in mid August but the poor baby hurt his shoulder really bad and we had to postpone.

Here are the before pictures:

He really does have two eyes

Profile shot

And AFTER:

Looking out his favorite window weighing at least 10 pounds less; of course the vet never agrees with us that his hair contributes to his chubbiness

I know he looks a little severe, but he'll be perfect looking in a couple of weeks. He's so happy....well, I think he is. Does your dog's personality change after a haircut??

By the way, if anyone owns a spinning wheel, I think we enough fur for a nice sweater!!

Mexico

FINALLY! The long awaited Mexico photos. There aren't many as we spent most of our time reading by the pool eating beer batter shrimp :) Oh, we had a little stowaway on our trip as well.......

Leaving Portland

(just a note: beautiful day in Portland when we left. We could see Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood out of our plane window! Amazing!)

Mr. Bill took his responsibility of sitting in the emergency exit very seriously

The view from our balcony

This is all wax! They just keep adding new candles.

Mr. Bill laying in the sun

Beautiful sunset

One of four turtles in the pond below our balcony

Flamingos that oddly enough aren't pink. And in the apparent shrimp capital of Mexico. I don't get it!

An Iguana. A staff member kept feeding her little bits of fruit. (we were told it's a she)

This is a big moth, at least 4 inches wide from tip to tip. We were told it is called

The Black Witch