Halloween knight

Happy Halloween! I've been trying to download these photos all night! But every other parent must be trying to do the same thing -- blogger is reeeallly slow tonight! Gabe had a great time as a knight in shining armor. At the end of the night, he got a visit from his good friend Isaac, who was dressed up as a dragon!! It made for a GREAT photo!!

"Mischief Managed"

The title of my blog is a reference to Harry Potter -- you'll have to forgive me -- since it's Halloween, I'm in a "spooky" frame of mind! These are just some cute pics taken last week of Asher trying to get into trouble. One of his favorite things to do is try to open the drawer on the coffee table. We try to block it with his toy basket, but (as you can see) he has managed to outsmart us. Too cute!
Gabe woke us up this morning with a loud "Good morning! It's Halloween! Happy Halloween!!!" I've never seen a little boy so excited for candy. The funny thing is, we haven't really been talking up the "holiday." For him, the excitement has been building all on its own! I'll post photos of the trick-or-treating later tonight!

Carving Pumpkins

The much-anticipated pumpkin carving happened last night. Gabe has been talking about it for a good three weeks. He had each of our patterns picked out and ready to go. The dragon is my pumpkin (carved by Nathan), the spider holding the pumpkin is Gabe's (carved by Nathan) the big pumpkin with the goofy grin is Nate's pumpkin (carved by Nathan) and the cat pumpkin is Asher's (carved by me)! We had such a blast, and Gabe helped us carry the pumpkins out to the front porch afterwards so that we could snap some photos. He is SOOOOO excited about Halloween tomorrow!

No more 'love' for Miss Couric

Okay -- it's finally happened.
I always knew that I didn't particularly LOVE Katie Couric. But I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because she was too peppy. Maybe it was because she seemed to try too hard to be young, hip and trendy. Or maybe it was because during several interviews, I witnessed her turn on perfectly well-behaved sources, and "rip into them like a monkey on a cupcake."
But yesterday, I was reading the wire (an occupational hazzard of mine) and came across a story about an interview she did this week with Michael J. Fox. Fox was going on about stem cell research and how much he supports polititians who support this type of research, even though he "doesn't care about politics."
At the end of the interview, Katie apparently felt the need to inform the TV audience that her father has Parkinson's Disease and that she has made financial contributions to Fox's foundation for research.
Um. Hello? Hi! Welcome to Journalism 101. I shouldn't KNOW what causes you support or don't support! And quite frankly, if you are financially involved with your source, you should probably be the LAST person interviewing this particular person!!
Whatever happened to non-biased, uninvolved, third-party journalism? Couric has always bugged me because I know EXACTLY where she stands on way more issues than I care to count. There are some extremist journlists who think that voting should be off-limits to us, as a group. Now, while I certainly don't skew that rigid in my beliefs, I nonetheless must stand up for my belief that a viewer should have a HARD time figuring out where reporters and journlaists stand on the issues they present. Because, quite frankly, it's not about US. It's not about the writer or the reporter or the journalist. It's about the story and the different players in it. It's about presenting each side fairly, whether you like it or not.
End of rant. I'm sorry Katie, but I just don't think this is going to work out anymore. I've lost all respect for you. Please don't take it personally.

Gabes First Soccer Season

Enjoy watching this video montage of Gabe's first season of soccer. He had such a blast! I'm not entirely happy with how "fuzzy" the quality of this video is on YouTube. For family, I will happily burn you a DVD if you like, so that you have a clean copy! For friends, please forgive the 6 minute length on this video... what can I say ... I'm a proud mama! :)

Just some pictures

These are some cute photos of the boys from this week. Gabe, Nathan and Asher playing in a fort they made in our living room ... and Asher sacked out for a nap. So cute!

Pumpkin Time

We went to the pumpkin farm today! What a difference from last year, when I was almost 9 months pregnant and looked like a walking pumpkin myself! Gabe had a blast climbing through the straw maze and eating a "Cider lick" which is basically a popsicle made out of apple cider. We also went on a hay ride, which the boys loved. Asher seemed a bit bemused by the whole process, but had some fun crawling over the pumpkins. We had beautiful weather for it too -- in the 50s, which seems warm compared to what it's been like lately!
In the photos: Gabe and Asher sit together on some pumpkins; "I want this one! But only if I can lift it myself!" ... Gabe picks out his pumpkin; mom and Gabe on the hay ride; dad and Asher on the hay ride; "What are these round orange things?" ... Asher picks out a pumpkin; mom and a snuggly Asher on the hayride (It was his naptime, and he was inclined to try and get in a good snuggle if he couldn't actually sleep!

If you have to drop the "F" bomb; it may be time to start singing

I freely admit it. I have a pet peeve. Actually, I have several. But this one involves celebrities and politics.
My pet peeve involves celebrites who use their star power to soapbox about their political beliefs. Now I fully agree that everyone has a right to the good old first amendment -- but my theory is that performers/actors etc. are popular for a reason, (their talents) and when they start to use their positions to bash politics, the president, or promote the leader of Abu Dhabi (I don't care which), I lose my patience. Yes, they're famous ... but does that necessarily make them more enlightened in the area of politics than your average Joe-citizen? So why should I be forced to listen to their impassioned drivel?
Case in point. Monday night, Barbara Streisand performed to a sold-out crowd in New York. During the performance, she apparently took a lengthy break to do a mock comedy routine with a Bush impersonator that apparently got "a bit too long." Now, I understand that there are comedy "bits" in the entertainment industry, but apparently, this was going a bit over the top, as audience members began heckling Streisand from the crowd when the president bashing "bit" got lengthy.
Her response? "Shut the %$#@ up!" Now that's classy. Maybe if you have to resort to cursing at your own fans, it's time to just do what they paid you to do in the first place -- sing -- not soapbox.

Go Gabe ... Go!

Last night Gabe and I were snuggled in, reading "Go Dog ... Go!" (a classic!) When he insisted that he could read it to me. To my astonishment, he did just that! I pointed to each word, and with the help of the pictures, he read each word! I was shocked! Granted, the book uses simple words and phrases, but the fact is that he was RECOGNIZING them! And when he got stuck, he would sound it out. He sounded out the word "Green" all by himself and you should have heard his whoop of excitement when he figured it out. Yes, I said "WHOOP!" That's the only way to describe it. So now, it appears that my little man is a reader.
He's also been trying to figure out (and use) longer, more complicated words. We've had some humorous moments in our house during the past few days as he tests the waters with his new vocabulary. For instance, we went on a hike this weekend. (That's where the pictures are from, by the way). While getting his shoes and socks on, he called out to me, "Hey mom! Something in my shoe is embarrassing me." !!!! I think I had told him that when you're embarrassed you feel foolish or feel bad. So his foot felt "bad" so it was "embarrassed." Funny! Oh, and just this morning, Nate was getting Asher dressed when Gabe wandered in and asked what he was doing. Nate said, "I'm dressing Asher." To which Gabe responded, "Oh, that must be expensive." I have no idea what he meant by that, but it was pretty funny!
We hiked at the Ellwood H. May Environmental park this weekend (called Maywood by the locals). It's right up the street from us, so I'm rather "embarrassed" to say that this was our first time there. They have gorgeous trails! While hiking along the Pigeon River, which is a sizable little creek with small areas of mini-rapids where the water flows a bit faster ... we saw a Hmong boy jumping along the banks. At first we couldn't tell what he was doing, but then, as we wandered out on an embankment, we saw that he was fishing and had a HUGE fish on the line. He fought with it for awhile, running past us up the banks. To our astonishment, we then spied more large fish leaping up the creek by themselves -- fighting the current. One was just sitting there, so we got a good look, before it skittered and flipped about 30 feet up the creek. I've never seen a fish do that! When we walked further upstream, we saw the boy on the bank of the river, with his fish. Turns out, it was a HUGE salmon! With teeth!! I'm not kidding when I say it was 3 feet long! The boy was so proud of himself, it was really cute! He told us all about his catch and how long it took to real him in. It broke his line and he lost his lure, but he didn't seem to mind much. He tied it to his bike handlebars, and the thing still dragged on the ground! Gabe had fun looking at the fish, but he wouldn't touch it!
The photos are from our hike. The one of me and Gabe with our sticks, is when we were pretending to have guns ... we were "hunting" turkeys. (There were wild turkeys in the park) The other photo is of Gabriel, finding "turkey" tracks. We had a wonderful weekend!