Basement Playland!

Ready for some nice, crazy lighting, flashy red-eye shots? Welcome to my basement. Correction: Welcome to the DeJ Family Basement Playland. I finally did what I knew I needed to do for some time and CLEANED OUT THE BASEMENT!!! (It was no small task, I assure you.) Looks so much better. My objective was forming an indoor bike/trike loop around the center divide and creating a ball pit by bringing our little outside slide inside and filling up the kiddie pool. The kids were pretty excited and I think we'll spend many happy hours downstairs over the winter. I even set up a little desk/chair for myself so I can work while I supervise :)

Only a mother of two preschoolers...

Carries around a fake cellphone all day. Only this afternoon did I realize the cell phone I had dutifully been carrying around all day was Grace's (real) pretend one. Wonder if I missed any calls?

The pic is unrelated but cute. Think I have a little tailback on my hands?

Trick or Sick?

Sometimes kids are indecisive. Sometimes even Archie. However, indecisive is definitely NOT the word to describe Archie for his Halloween costume. He's been planning out his policeman costume for months now. No other offer for a different Halloween costume deterred him for more than half a second or so. He is a pretty cute policeman, right? The only problem is it's now Halloween and he's been sick for three days. I took him to the doctor this morning, and he has some kind of respiratory issue requiring an inhaler, antibiotics, etc. I'm just praying it won't turn into whatever he had in Thailand that time that required a hospital stay because despite a few interesting diversions in the hospital, it wasn't fun for anyone. Thankfully, no one has mentioned anything quite that drastic yet.

This Monday we went on a Halloween parade at a local nursing home as a little service project. He enjoyed dressing up, and his teacher is going to let him wear his police uniform when he does come back to school. Hope everyone behaves that day :)

Another Year at the Pumpkin Patch

After so much fun at Sinkland Farms Pumpkin Festival last year, we couldn't resist going again this year. Going with the same friends, made it even more fun! All the photo ops are, of course, one of my favorite parts. Thanks, Jeet, for the great family photo!

Hunt snapped this one of me and my boy in the preschool hay maze.

Check out last years blog post for a similar shot that shows how much Archie has grown.

More pumpkins that one could count.

Archie had fun again on the pony ride. Grace was still too scared.

Face painting was more her style. She got a cute pumpkin.

Archie loved this crazy Hokie thing. It high-fived with him.

He also got to milk a fake cow.

The mini-pumpkin chunker (catpult) was lots of fun. Because Archie helped clean up the pumpkins, he got some free shots.

What's Cooking?

First, for my father-in-law who is quite allergic to shrimp, you might want to skip this post. To everyone else, welcome to the world of raw shrimp cooking. The grocer at our local Chinese store is very persuasive. I'm really not sure what I was thinking the other day when I went in and asked him for shrimp when I was hoping for pre-cooked, deveined, peeled. I mean, I know what kind of shrimp Chinese people like to eat. Sure enough, that's what I was offered. He made such a good sales pitch, I just couldn't say say no. Plus, I wanted to serve authentic for my guest coming that evening.

Shrimp are actually gray until they're cooked.

Yum, Yum! (Actually, I much prefer the other kind. Getting the brains out is rather messy work.)

I forgot to take a pic of the discarded shells, legs, brains, etc. You're glad, right?

Crossville Fun

When Grace got hand, foot and mouth disease the other week, we didn't let it spoil our fun. (Thankfully, she didn't have a very bad case.) We took the time off to go see Memaw and Papa. We got to help Papa celebrate his retirement AND birthday. The kids LOVED running down this hill.

Rolling down the hill was also pretty fun!

The Game

No need to talk about who won or lost - just the fun we had being together tonight while Grandma watched the kids.

I was pretty mesmerized watching the majorette twirl three fiery batons. Don't think I've ever seen that before at a football game.