The Incredible Bulk

It was...sucrose...poisoning.

We had the church "trunk or treat" last night.

We brought a "spider girl", a vampire (NOT Dracula), two skeletons and a mummy.

One friend said we should have dressed Henry up as a marshmallow. That would have been more fitting, for sure. He's squishy.

Here is Sophie's spider girl costume. What is a spider girl, you ask? We don't know. But she wears a headband with a spider in it. And she is cute. I don't know where she learned to hold her hands out like that in photos, but that's how she rolls.

Emma had some fangs that were supposed to attach with putty to her teeth, but they kept falling out. I think her real fangs are scarier anyway, dontcha think?

Here are the pumpkins. Andrew carved his own on the left (modeled after The Scream by Munch--his idea). Ethan had a dragon, Sophie had a kitty, and Emma had a butterfly.

We made this one for Henry. Picasa face recognition was smart enough to recognize a face in the photo. It guessed it was one of our relatives. The kids thought that was funny.

After the kids collected their loot, they got down to business. Sophie grabbed the scissors and started cutting open wrappers to save time. It's a technique she used all day.

Here is Ethan doing two lollipops at a time. Whatever it takes. My philosophy on Halloween candy is: "Eat it until you're sick," aka "Get it over with all at once."

He taught Sophie the same trick:

Later they started doing three at a time. Sophie finished all of her candy in less than 24 hours, and we're all better for it.

Ginger's going to post a video to her blog called "The Effects of Sugar On Our Children." You will want to check it out. It is almost unbelievable.

Tonight we stayed home and handed out candy at the door while we watched Ethan, Sophie and Emma literally bounce off the walls. And when I say "literally" I'm not just employing a figure of speech. I mean they literally bounced off the walls.

Meanwhile, Andrew, Henry, Ginger and I played Scrabble.

It's 33 degrees and we're camping

Andrew can't feel his toes anymore

This is the face Sophie made...

...when she saw the playhouse we made her for her birthday. 

Overheard

ETHAN: Dad, if I created a man-made coral reef would it destroy the order of the universe?
ME: No.
ANDREW: Yeah, but if he put just the animals he liked on it...
ME: No.
ANDREW: Oh.

Overheard

ETHAN: Japan is the smartest country.
ME: Why do you think that?
ETHAN: Because in Japan THEY HAVE HEATED TOILET SEATS.

Overheard

SOPHIE: Andrew, did you use my new birthday fairy as a hostage?

One more

He's so chubby the doctors tell us it may be a year before he can walk.

He goes in for his official two-month weigh in on Wednesday. We'll keep you posted.

We can't get enough of this kid

Aren't babies amazing?

Let the celebrations begin

Today we kicked off Sophie's week-long birthday celebration, which will culminate next weekend with the visit of both sets of grandparents.

Today she had her favorite friends over for a tea party. They drank lemonade and ate purple cake. Ginger did an awesome job.

Sophie reminded us in the car that now that she is (almost) four, she can sit in a booster instead of a car seat.

We love our Sophie very much.

Overheard

EMMA: I wonder how they make rubber bands.
SOPHIE: They make them out of fuhl.
ME: Huh?
SOPHIE: They make them out of fuhl.
ME: What's fuhl?
SOPHIE: FUH-RL
EMMA: She's saying fur.
ME: They make them out of fur?
SOPHIE: From ami-uhls. Dead ami-uhls.

Caught one

Orion: A school project

Hey ladies

Asleep on the stairs, Thursday, 11:04 PM

He had been in bed, but decided he didn't want to be in his room sleeping alone while Andrew was downstairs doing homework.

Can I use your guys' phone for a sec?*

The tiny hinge screw fell out of Andrew's eyeglasses at school the other day. He was pretty sure it happened in French class. So he went to the office, called home, and asked Ginger if she could bring his metal detector to school. He wanted to canvass the classroom and hallways to look for it.

A perfectly logical solution, I suppose, in a parallel universe where time has no value. Ginger tried to dissuade him by explaining that the desks in the French classroom were probably made of metal. Andrew insisted they were made of wood, even the legs, so his plan would work. Ginger told him she wasn't going to bring his metal detector to school, and that he could wear his spare pair of glasses in the meantime. After he hung up the phone, Andrew decided to go to the school nurse,* who fortunately had an eyeglass repair kit in her desk.*

I am posting this with Andrew's permission because we agreed this is going to be really funny to him in a few years. I think it's pretty funny now.

*Reference: Napoleon Dynamite, chapstick

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