Happy Halloween!!!

Looking Up

Grace in Small Things - 92

1. Wine... lots of wine.

2. Peapod Grocery Delivery.  It's slightly decadent.  It makes me feel slightly lazy.  But it saves SO much time.  It's a stress reliever.  It's LOVELY.

3. The crunch of fall leaves under your feet.

4. Ana saying "You my FAVITE mommy!"

5. Being able to watch full episodes on Fox.com (Bones, Glee, House, Lie to Me, Raising Hope) since we currently don't have Fox.... sigh.

Grace in Small Things - 91

1. Zoe's enthusiasm when the school bus comes to pick her up.

2. Finishing a book on the Kindle... and having the next book in the series downloaded and ready to read in 30 seconds.

3. The feeling as you fold the very last piece of clean laundry... for the moment of all of the clothes in the house being clean.

4. Cappuccino chocolate chip muffins.

5. Guinea Pig noises.

You know it's really fall...

when you go pick your pumpkins...

and you get to eat apple cider donuts...

and you get great photos surrounded by orange...

and there are happy faces because the hints of Halloween are there...

 

And... you know you're done getting fall pumpkin photos when the fake smile and grumpy stance show up.

Grace in Small Things - 90

I haven't done these in a very long time... but I'm kind of feeling like I need them.

1. Little girls twirling in long princess dresses.

2. Huge belly laughs from a 2 year old.

3. The enormous smile on Zoe's face when I walked into her classroom on Friday for Parent Visit Day.

4. Tea sets and tutus.

5. Having someone drop cup cakes off at your door so you can taste test (and then help spread the word about their new business!!!)

Not just flat...

flat and off the rim. 

Just what I needed this morning.

When You Give a Kindergartner a DSLR...

Hi!  It's me... Zoe!  I'm actually getting to blog again.  I don't know if you remember... but I did a blog post a LONG LONG LONG time ago.  Like, half my lifetime ago.  Mommy ended up finding out about it (who knew she would read her own blog???) and hasn't ever let me blog again.  I guess it's never a good thing to tell Mommy's secrets.

Anyway, I asked Mommy if I could use her big fancy camera to take some pictures.  I decided I wanted to show you the pictures I took... and since I asked permission... Mommy said I could do a blog post.  She gets to read it before I hit publish though.  You'd think I'm not trustworthy or something.  Doesn't she know that 5 year olds are all about following rules and directions???

Anyway... Mommy let me carry her DSLR all over the house.  She didn't even watch me.  She told me to be very careful.  She told me I needed to quietly concentrate.  She said something about giving her a few minutes of peace... whatever that  means.  All I know is that I got to use the fancy camera.

Here are all of the important things in our house right now.

This is the real pumpkin I picked out all by myself.  Mommy thought I was crazy climbing all over a billion pumpkins just to get this one.  But it was the very best one in the whole pumpkin place.

This is our fake pumpkin.  Mommy says it's "ceramic" whatever that means.

This is our friendly ghost.  We also have another ghost in our house.  Her name is Ailey.  Mommy thought she was my "imaginary friend".  I told her she's not "imaginary" she's a ghost.  It's totally different.

This is the only scary decoration in our house.  It's not really scary though.  It's plastic.

There are the rest of our pumpkins outside.  My pumpkin got to come inside though... because the squirrels are treating the outside pumpkins as if they are a buffet.  So, at least my pumpkin is safe.  That's all that matters anyway.  (Oh, and I took the picture through the glass door because I'm not allowed to go outside by myself.)

Those are 2 big spiders and a jar over the fireplace.  They're not real spiders.  Mommy doesn't like real spiders AT ALL.  But for some reason these HUGE spiders are allowed to stay in the house.  Oh... and that jar used to have candy corn in it but someone ate it.

This is a goody bag that Aunt Prudy gave me.  She gave one to Ana too.  I'm hoping that if I hang them by the fireplace maybe they'll get filled with goodies on Halloween.  They're hanging on the same hooks as our stockings hang from for Christmas.  It should totally work.

This is our scarecrow.  It has a switch that makes it glow and change colors.  I'm not really sure why a scarecrow should glow and change colors... but it does.  Mommy says it's "fiber optic".  I don't know what difference that makes.

This is our "centerpiece".  Mommy tries to keep the pumpkins and gourds and corn in the middle of the table but Ana and I like to move them around the table... and sometimes around the house.

This is another spider.  It's big and fuzzy.  Again... Mommy usually hates spiders.  HATES SPIDERS. This one she seems happy to let hang around the dining room.

There is a bat tied to our tv room fan.  I tried to get a good picture of it... but the fan was spinning a little so it wouldn't stay still.  (If you turn the fan on fast the bat actually flies FOR REAL!!!  Don't tell Mommy that though.)

Here is another bat in the kitchen.  I made this one!  For some reason bats like to hang around fans in our house.

There's a witches hat.  I don't know how it keeps ending up on that lamp.

 Those are a couple of skeletons up there on that shelf.  One is a man and one is a dog.  You can put candles behind their heads and then their eyes GLOW.  It's really cool.  I told Mommy she should light them so I could take a glowing picture... but she seems to think that won't work in the day time with the sun shining.

On the other side of the shelf we have two scarecrows.   One is a girl and one is a boy.  They're stuck on sticks like big puppets or lollipops.

This is another goody bag.  We have a lot of goody bags around here.  None of them have actual goodies in them though.  Somebody should fix that.

And finally, here is a picture of me and my cheese smile.  I took it myself.  With Mommy's big fancy DSLR camera.  Even she hasn't figured out how to do this.  For some reason it made her a little nervous when she saw this picture.  Something about the image of me holding the camera out in front of me and being able to aim and push the button all at the same time while not dropping the camera.  Like I ever drop anything.

So there are all of the pictures I took with Mommy's camera.  I think I did a pretty good job.  Mommy said she wasn't even going to edit any of them.  She just let me post them SOOC (that means Straight Out Of Camera).  I guess that means I'm pretty talented.  I think maybe it means I should get my own REAL camera (no more Fisher Price toddler camera for me!). 

Oh, and I think it also means Mommy should totally let me blog more often.

iPhone photos

I moved all of the random photos from my iPhone onto the computer.

I had photos like this...

Um... who are those tiny girls???

I didn't think I'd had the phone that long.

St Thomas

September 4th was spent in St Thomas.

Our excursion for the day was a trip to Magen's Bay Beach.

I believe St Thomas and specifically Magen's Bay is our very favorite beach.  There is just something special about it.

(And I swear it isn't that the waiter will serve you your drinks IN the water.) 

Ana and Daddy.  Ana became quite the clingy kid on this trip.  So not herself.

The view of Magen's Bay from an overlook.

My little family... totally exhausted and waterlogged... 

Our ship in the distance.

Our last day of the cruise was definitely a gorgeous day.

Oh sisters.

I think I can say everyone (except Ana) had an awesome time on this cruise. 

 I'm ready to start planning the next one!

St. Kitts

We were in St Kitts on September 3rd.

Our shore excursion for the day was to take a double-decker train ride around the island.  The train's lower level was enclosed and air-conditioned... but we sat ourselves upstairs with the open canapy and the lovely island breeze (and the pina colodas and the rum punches).

Ana did not love the train ride.

This is what Nick looked like to me for a lot of the cruise.

St Kitts is covered with green fields and mountains.                   

Oh, and palm trees.  Lovely palm trees blowing in the tropical breeze.

Zoe took a moment to sit back, rest, and enjoy rocking of the train.

There was just so much open space.  So many glimpses of beauty.

We guess the people of St Kitts don't need lawn mowers... they have goats to do the job.

It was almost unbelievable that for most of the 2 hour (18 mile) train ride this is mostly what we saw.  Green fields. Blue ocean.

This photo makes me laugh... because I KNOW what happened right after I took it.  That tree branch (not the first or last one) smacked along the train, made noise, and lost leaves... lots of flying random leaves.  A split second later Ana SCREAMED like the tree was trying to kill her.  Then... her Mommy laughed.  She has a rotten Mommy who laughed at the fact that even after it happened a dozen times... Ana screamed every time.  Look how calm and serene she looks.  See how Nick's face has realized what is about to happen? Pour Ana.  Rotten Mommy.

We saw dozens of these chimneys as we rode around St Kitts.  They sit on sugar cane plantations that are no longer working plantations.  They have tons of sugar cane growing... but no longer export sugar.  So many wild growing fields.

My mom mentioned a few times that she really had no idea that the Caribbean islands were so mountainous.  It was just so beautiful.

When we finished our train tour we headed back to the port and walked through some of the shops.  Zoe was very excited that this man let her (for $5) hold his baby monkeys and get her picture taken.  They were ADORABLE.  I think she would have been really happy if we let her bring a monkey home.