Christmas 1

Merry almost Christmas from McPherson. We're halfway done though, so you've got some catching up to do.

Here's the highlights, with incredibly cheesy music.





And here are some photos

The Great Turkey Hunt

We didn't find any turkeys. We did find lots of leaves, sticks and rocks, but no turkeys.

Snow time

It's supposed to snow this weekend and I can't wait. When I was a kid, I loved the snow. Skiing, snowmen, sledding, the possibility of a day off school, these are all excellent things. For the past several winters, I've dreaded snow. (Pointing at snowflakes for TV purposes is idiotic and cold) But now that I no longer have the prospect of standing in the cold for no reason, or better yet, driving around in the snow, while shooting video, and telling people not to drive in the snow, I'm pumped for the snow. Owen and Olivia are also excited about the snow. They want to go back to ski school, build a snowman, drink hot cocoa, and all that stuff. If it does snow, I'll be sure to post some pictures, but until then, we'll remember last year's winter wonderland.

2 parades down

So I know I'm bummed that I'm not at a World Series parade right now. But, I went to another parade this afternoon. This one had much smaller payroll. The kids had their Halloween parade this afternoon. They looked like they enjoyed the lap around the parking lot. They probably would have liked it more if there was more candy involved, but I'm pretty sure they went directly inside and had their fall party, which I'm sure involved massive amounts of candy and other food. So they'll be fun to deal with later.

The other parade was this weekend around the neighborhood. I'm paraded out. Now they only have 5-7 more dress rehearsals for the real Halloween, which will be terrible, because it's supposed to be 35 degrees and windy Friday evening. Awesome- happy halloween.

A trip to the park

I took the kids and the camera to the park. It was picture day at school, so they were sort of dressed up. Hopefully Olivia's hair was little more tamed when their pictures were taken at school.

Look at you, scrolling all the way to the bottom of the post. Pat yourself on the back for plowing right up to the fence. Thanks for stopping by.

Back to school time, fall edition

School is going very well for Owen and Olivia. Here's the deal though, they haven't been there in a week. They've had a random week off, mid October. While it's been fun having them around all day, it's time to go back. We've been to parks, train stations, stores, restaurants, everywhere.

Lindsay and I had our first parent teacher conference last week. Believe it or not, Pre-K has a standardized test of sorts. It's mostly counting and letter recognition. Owen didn't do so hot. Although I believe that the test was getting in the way of playtime, so he blew it off and only counted to five. I can get on board with that. (I pretty much blew off the conference, because it was going on while the Royals were finishing off the Orioles in the ALCS. If only we'd had the foresight to not double book ourselves at conference sign up time two months ago. I mean we all knew the Royals would win 8 straight playoff games and go to the World Series back then didn't we?)

It was a little strange having the teacher go over the test results with us. It kind of drives home the point that the twins are growing up. In some ways it feels like we just brought them home from the hospital. In other ways it feels like maybe they should be heading off to college soon. It really just depends on the day.

The pumpkin patch

We went to Lawrence this morning to pick some pumpkins.  2014 is apparently the year of the white pumpkin, because we came home with a half dozen white pumpkins, and no orange ones. I'm not sure what that's all about, but I guess I'm ok with it. I think we've been to the same patch in Lawrence every year the kids have been alive, so it's kind of fun to look at the old pictures and see how they've grown.  Here are a few pics from this year.

Here are some from years past, in no particular order.

This one may be from another pumpkin patch, but it's Owen, a pumpkin, close enough.