Halloween - Katie interprets a confectionary classic!

Mommy worked long and hard at the sewing machine to transform our little monkey into a little Katie-Kiss. Despite going back to the drawing board twice to retool, rework and reinvent the hat (for a total of 3 - count 'em, three - different versions of the hat) Katie was not a fan of the hat (though Mommy looks rather stunning in it). Heck, she looked cute even in just the brown "chocolate" suit mommy made for her, though, so it doesn't matter that much. We went to a Halloween party this past weekend at Cartwheels (video to follow) and today we played outside this afternoon in her costume (was the weather just awesome for this time of year or what?) and then we put her in the wagon and rolled her to some friends' houses to - well, let's face it, to show off how cute she looked. Once she was out and about, she quickly got the hang of saying "Boo".

Video: Playing in leaves is much more fun than raking them

Katie dances!

Check out these cool dance moves Mommy taught Katie (you may need to click the play button twice)

The product of our traditional Friday night pumpkin carving (too bad there's no "smell-o-vision" on the internet, because the house is filled with the great smell of baked pumpkin seeds, which we will probably eat too many of). Katie's pumpkin is on the upper right.

Friday afternoons rule!

Everyone I talk to seems to say that Fall is their favorite season and it's days like this that makes them feel that way. And being Friday certainly helps.


She can say "pumpkin", but it's in Katiespeak so it only tangentally sounds like pumpkin. Except a thousand times cuter.




When you're one-and-a-half, a little red wagon is a must. A nice Daddy who pulls you up and down the block is a plus!



Taken on her slide in the yard, one of her favorite places to be (even though she took a nasty fall off it just a few minutes before this was taken. Can she bounce back or what?)

Rewind: Last Halloween

With Halloween fast approaching and the costume-making process in full-swing, here's a picture of Katie's candy-corn costume from last year. Mommy's got skillz....
(God, she was so small back then...)

Pumpkins

We drove out toward the hilltowns to get pumpkins this weekend. We came upon one of those small farmstands where you leave the money in the jar. Yeah, so you know what that means - FREE PUMPKINS! WHOO!

It was another really nice fall day, with lots of sun and those cool scattered puffy clouds.

Katie called it a "pumpkin", despite mommy's best effort to force the more horticulturally correct "squash".

More review: July

Despite Daddy's consuming porch project, we did get to have fun this summer. Here's a little review.





At the reading of the declaration of independence in the park in Loudonville. Happy Birthday America!



At Lincoln Park pool one of the really hot days we had. A close reproduction of the previous year's photo that made the front of the newspaper. Katie seems to enjoy the water more this year. Next year she'll be swimming around like a little tadpole...



At the impressive Bash-Bish Falls on the NY-Mass border. She's not as light as she looks folks.





We had a great time at camping out Bellstock XIII this year. Katie was very good and loved running around (and around). Despite the brief but quite heavy downpour on Saturday afternoon (which saw us and the whole Parker family crammed under our pop-tent and tarp settup eating awesome quesadillas (mommy sure is something, huh - cooking quesadillas in a pan on a mini weber grill in the rain)) it was a great weekend.






Daddy and Katie look surprised (Bellstock).






Katie saw her first rock concert (probably the first of many). We brought her to see the Black Crowes/Robert Randolph/Drive-By-Truckers at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (we don't need no stinking babysitter!). Boy did she ever love running around! While toddlers are pretty un rock-concerty, the crowd really enjoyed her and her enthusiasm. She also was mesmorized by a juggler guy who was there (but not as mesmorized as daddy). At one point when pedal-steel master Robert Randolph was whipping the crowd into a funky frenzy, Katie made a bee-line to the front of the lawn area and began to dance like crazy. There were 4 young 20-something kids up there dancing as well and they almost fell over at how cute her dance moves were (she sure can shake her baby-booty. It was pretty darn cute, I must say). Someone later said of Katie's dancing, "She must get that from Mommy." Stacey and I both looked at each other and without missinga beat said, "No, that's from Daddy."


We had some really hot days in July. Mike and Peter (we had our wedding at their house) said we should go over there during the day and use the pool. So we did. Doesn't she look refreshed?




Guess who took all of the towels out of the drawer and then climbed on in?

Another Katie Rewind: The Fair

Who doesn't like the county fair? I mean, other than you city slickers, that is. Boy it's fun. Mom and Dad won like 3 bucks on that game where you drop the quarters in and the sweepy-bar sweeps back and forth and hopefully pushes them off the edge (but usually just down those sneaky side-slots. Darn those hidden side-slots!!), which - if you're familiar with the sweepy quarter game - you know is quite the feat. And we saw lots of animals and heard cool animal sounds. It was great to show Katie that the characters in her cartoon books are based on real, smelly animals. Moo.

Back in Time to: Labor Day

Labor Day Weekend we were able to get up to the Adirondacks. Our neighbors really wanted us to use their cabin up on Loon Lake (best neighbors ever?) and we really want to use it so we did. Man, it was nice. Katie had a whole new house full of stuff to touch, and touch she did. We relaxed, went down to the lake, went to the surprisingly extensive and VERY cool Adirondack Museum, and just enjoyed being in the woods. Despite having a better audio/video set-up than we have at home (and a better cable package as well) we purposely kept the TV off to appreciate the "cabin activities" that you always remember: playing board games (Boggle was our game of choice this summer), listening to the radio and reading magazines. Add some beer in the mix and you got yourself one darn good weekend!



at Blue Mountain Lake



on path to Loon Lake

Mommy's 40!

Last night was Stacey's 40th birf-day party. We went bowling with some friends, then came back to our house for food, drinks and cake. Everyone had fun bowling - if you can't have fun while bowling you're a communist (or android). Mommy won 4 bucks on the traditional bowling-alley scratch off ticket! Earlier in the day Mommy literally lurched backward with surprise when she saw all the old photos of her that daddy put on the refrigerator (thanks Rich and Mary for sending them). Boy, baby mommy and baby Katie sure look alike - it's pretty amazing. Daddy's baked ziti was a hit and the Air-Force One salad with chicken did not seem to clash with the ziti as Mommy said it would (she freely admitted that she was W-R-O-N-G this morning, by the way). Everyone had a good time.

I gotta pick up this spare!

Katie photos

Katie takes Vermont

Vermont last weekend was great - the weather was spectacular. Katie was really great, especially on the really long car rides. We stopped at this cool waterfall shown above, ate lunch at a very scenic pond, went on a short hike at the top of the mountain which is littered with HUGE boulders (with Katie in the backpack), and took a tour of a granite quarry (where we were able to bowl on their outdoor granite bowling alley - that's rights, folks, I said granite bowling alley. Yes it is as cool as it sounds). We also went to an awesome farmers market. Yeah, describing a farmers market as awesome may sound like a bit of hyperbole, but it was. That was where the now legendary rope-making took place.