When November Turned to December...

Although we still had a few cold and clear days, we often woke to heavy frosts that were so beautiful! It almost looked as if we'd had a dusting of snow.

We did our final raking of the leaves for the winter...

The kids were beginning to get the hang of leaf raking and turning into quite the good helpers.

Miss Kate had a much better attention span than her 2yr old brother...

That's not to say there wasn't some goofing around on her part tho.

(I'm pretty sure her brother would have been raked into the leaf pile if intervention had not occurred.)

But she continued diligently raking even when brother left off with the work part of things...

And even when he began playing in her hard work...

she continued on.

After he paced back and forth several times in front of her he was made to fix her leaf pile...

But in reality I think he spread it out even more! :)

So Kate gave up on being helpful and gave in to having fun!

Did you know if you walk around in a circle, passing through a leaf pile, while shuffling your feet...

over and over...

and over again...

changing directions if you start getting dizzy...

and you do it for long enough...

you will eventually get a circle shaped leaf pile!

And if you have a circle shaped leaf pile with a path through the middle there are no end to the games you can play in it!

But all fun must come to an end...even fall fun!

Not to worry though, as winter fun is just around the corner.

And freezing fog is sure pretty to look out the window to.

Catchin' Up

Once Miss Kate found out how fun it was to be outside she thinks its the best place to be. She doesn't really care if its dark or cold or wet or windy. She will step out on the patio and stand there looking around at whatever she may see of interest...usually birds and come in every now and then for a breather.

The mischievous face of the escapee sneaking out the door.

Enjoying her freedom.


And hiding because she doesn't want to come back in.

Today we spent the morning catching up on housework and after-travel clean-up. Miss Kate was getting one bang-n-bump after another and acting very sleepy in spite of having slept in until 10:00 already. She could barely help me finish baking cookies without collapsing and she'd only been awake for 3 hrs. She'd even helped herself to several pieces of chocolate before I caught her.

This pic actually belongs first but my computer isn't cooperating for me so I can't get it to move. (that is why this post is all hodge-podge and the "Today" part landed right in the middle of the "Catch-Up" part) If you look closely you can see the purple bruise on her cheek. It looks much worse in real life.

When its too windy to play outside we get out the cardboard inside and make fun stuff. A couple weeks ago we did this slide and Miss Kate enjoyed it for several days.It was pretty high so I didn't let her use it without me to help her until we moved it into a corner later in the week. As you can see it took quite a pile of stuff for adequate support.


When its sunny we go walking. Sometimes to the park and sometimes just around Aunt Vi's neighborhood.

And when it's a sunny weekend we do fun stuff with Mr. Wise Guy. Mothers Day weekend was beautiful and we got our garden all planted out at B&B's.

The guys did most of the work and us ladies sat and watched the girls play in the water.

They sat and poured water back and forth for hours.

Cousin A likes to sit in the water...

while Miss Kate just sits beside it.
But they both end up just as wet...

And they both like to drink it, even though it is cloudy with sunscreen and full of floaties.

That was also the day I tried Miss Kates patience with a new hairdo. She did amazingly well, but we haven't done it again since. :)

A visit from Aunt Susie

Sus spent the whole week with us last week and we had a very fun and relaxing time. ...we hope she did too. ;) We had a nice sunny day that wasn't too windy on Tues. so we walked down to Carpenter Park near our house and let Kate play on the toys for a little while.My little alien coming in for landing.

Ridin on the motorcycle
Next we tried the horsey.Aunt Sus helping with the slide...and giving pushes on the swing.
Aunt Susie did a cute little braid in Miss Kates hair.
Looks like we could use a better hairdo in this pic. :D

Miss Kate had a thing about sitting on A. Susie's feet and spent alot of time peeking between her legs trying to line up just right before plunking down on a foot. Once she even followed her about the kitchen waiting for Aunt Sus to stand still so she could get her 'perfect line up' before plunking down. It was hilarious to see her backing around after Sus on her hands and feet with her bum up in the air keeping her sights on Sus's feet from between her legs. Needless to say she gave up as Sus was moving much faster than her and she lost sight of the feet through her narrow view.
Here are a couple of videos of her entertaining herself while A. Sus was here. (This is especially for Philemons viewing pleasure.) :) Sorry for the poor lighting, and please just ignore my extra noise and comments. Thank you. :)
Notice at the end of this one she had to run over to see the video of herself on the camera.


One of her many ways to burn more energy. :) She loves to roar about on this wheel and has taken a few hard crashes but doesn't seem to mind most of the time. Of course that could just be because she is usually silly tired and quite hyper when she starts roaring about.

We miss you Aunt Sus. Come back soon. :)