Day 3

Grace is a vision in shades of pink as she waits for Charlotte's bus.



She was very cute standing out there looking down the street for the bus to be coming. I wanted pictures of the reunion. They get so excited to see each other at the end of the day. Grace, however, did not want pictures taken. I snuck this one when her back was turned.

Day 2

I had Gracie home with me today, but she politely declined to be photographed for NaBloPoMo Day 2. Here are two from the archives of my iPhone instead. Lame, I know, but I have 28 more days to go (thanks, Heidi!) and I am pacing myself.

Eli at the Pumpkin Patch petting zoo. He really liked the animals. Eli loves dogs and cats. He giggles maniacally when he sees them. This past weekend he impressed Derek by taking some cat food from the bowl at Jerry and Allison's house and trying to feed it to the cat. Derek couldn't figure out where he learned to do that.

Gracie sleeping in the car sometime this summer. It made me laugh.

NaBloPoMo

November is National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo). A blogger that I read regularly organized it as a spin off of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I don't think I have a novel in me, so I thought I would give the 31 blog posts in 31 days a try. Let's see how well I do.

Day 1 - my trick or treaters. The little dinosaur didn't want to pose for the picture.



Charlotte was Tinkerbell. She was hoping for wings that lit up, but we couldn't find any. Gracie was Sleeping Beauty. This was Charlotte's costume from last year. It was obvious how much taller Charlotte is than Gracie, Grandma had to hem the dress almost 2 inches. Eli was a dinosaur in a costume he inherited from Kat. I think there were maybe pants originally, but we couldn't find them. We had fun trick or treating with Shawn and Cheyenne. The girls got lots and lots of candy, most of which they won't eat. They have very specific ideas about what kinds of candy they each like, which we don't discourage. At least for now it keeps them from the traditional Halloween gorging experience. We'll see how many years that lasts.

Sleeping Baby

By the time both the girls were about 4 months old, if they woke up from a nap they were awake. There was no getting them back down, no transferring them from car to crib, no chance. Charlotte would wake up if the car idled for too long, like a long red light or something. Eli is just the opposite. If he falls asleep in the car, you can carefully carry him in and lay him down and he will go ahead and finish his nap peacefully. Today, he fell asleep on the way to Best Buy to pick up the new laptop. I carried him in the store, waited in a long line, got the laptop, put him back in the car, drove through the McDonalds drive through, stopped for gas, got home, brought him in and put him down and he slept through the whole experience.

So I got a new computer

I literally turned it on out of the box, picked a user name, accepted
the license terms and then...was basically pushed aside. It seems to
meet with Gracie's approval anyway.

Eli

I planned to take some pictures of Eli outside today, because the forecast said it was going to be sunny (it wasn't). I had recruited Gracie to come along and help me make him smile. She loves that. This morning, I stepped out of the room for a few minutes and I heard a big crash and Eli crying. I'm not exactly sure what happened. As I held him on my lap and he sniffled and watched Blues Clues, I saw a huge gooseegg forming right smack in the middle of his forehead. Nice. The swelling has gone down now and he is left with a bruise in the shape of a line, so I think he pushed a kitchen chair over and it smacked him in the forehead.

That's not why we scrapped the pictures, we'll go out next time we get a nice sunny afternoon. The colors are great right now. I did take these few inside, but the bruise doesn't really show.




He loves this little bike. He is the perfect size for it. He scoots around both forward and backward quite quickly. He steers and when he goes backward he looks over his shoulder and steers and goes the way he wants to go. I was impressed.

Louisa

I had alot of fun photographing Louisa and Alex yesterday. Just a few.

Written History

I was 5 and a half when my grandfather bought the pinball machine. I have a fuzzy memory of when it came and everybody down in the cellar trying to put it together. I remember that mixture of excitement and frustrated consternation that goes along with any member of the Russ family attempting something mechanical (yeah I'm looking at you, Dad). I have many vivid memories of the times we spent playing pinball in the basement of my grandparent's house. I remember sprinting upstairs after setting a new record and bragging about it to my grandfather, who would have been sitting in his chair watching football or something. I remember getting in a huge fight with my sister because I walked away from a particularly good game with 2 balls left and she hit the reset button accidentally(?). I probably haven't played it in 15 years, but hearing the sounds of it tonight it was just like I expected.

We kept a list of high scores that has been hanging on the side of the machine since 1981. The first listing on it is AR, my grandfather. After that my Dad dominated for quite some time. All my cousins names are there, in their grade school cursive handwriting. There are some visiting dignitaries listed also. Emily, our first best friend. My Nanny, the wonderful woman who took care of us and was like an extra grandmother to me. I giggled picturing Nanny letting us drag her down to the cellar and making her play pinball with us. She was one of those little old ladies who always clucked and feigned disapproval, but looking back at it she clearly indulged pretty much our every whim. Anything your little heart desires, she would have said. I forgot the list and had to make a trip back to the house to get it this afternoon. I think I'm going to frame it.

The girls were totally enchanted with the machine. It was fun showing them how to play. They are already getting the hang of it pretty quickly. We put it in Eli's room. He doesn't realize it yet, but he scored big time with this one.

some bad snaps





the primary source document
(I didn't intend to have my name be the one highlighted, it just happened to be in the middle of the page and stand out well. I stink at this shot anyway)


a new generation