A Day at the Park

We had another nice day last weekend, too. It was nippy, but not so much so that we couldn't take the girls to the park. It was Veterans' Day, and since Mr. Pickles feeds at the government trough (his words!) he had the day off. There were a couple other dads at the park too, which was nice to see.

Poor Miriam -- Mommy has been so busy that she doesn't get to play at the park as often as either of them would like. Very often she'll come up to me and say, "Mommy, I need something to hold on and swing!" We're seriously thinking of getting a chin-up bar & a small slide so she can have something to do to burn off energy inside, especially now that winter is coming soon.


mountain climber


swing!

Mr. Pickles got this shot just before Miriam landed on top of him:


aaaaa!!!

Katie had oodles of fun too, even though she couldn't play on the playground equipment. She mostly led Mommy around and climbed up and down little hills and stomped on the bridge.


Katie taking Mommy for a walk

It's nice spending time together as a family like this.

Fall Bike Ride

Here begins my frantic attempt to get caught up in blogging before the holidays take over my life!

We had a couple days of glorious weather two weekends back, and so decided to make the most of it. We hoisted the bikes on the car rack (and by "we" I mean "Mr. Pickles, while I watched a offered executive managerial advice") and drove to a trail that runs along the Potomac River. Everybody and his dog was there too!


all set!

The girls were actually really good on the trip. We had them well supplied with sippy cups and toys and books. I think they both spent a good part of the trip sleeping too!

We paused for a quick break at a park right next to an airport. Landing airplanes flew RIGHT overhead. It was pretty cool.


vroooom!

Naturally, Miriam freaked out b/c they were so loud. So we didn't stay long. Just long enough to get this shot of the Capitol and the Washington Monument in the distance.


the view

Neither of us had a watch, so we didn't know how long we were biking. We had planned tentatively to try to make it up to Roosevelt Island, which we've ALWAYS wanted to visit. But after 8 miles or so my legs gave out so we stopped for a lunch break.


taking a break

Many flights follow the course of the river before they land at the aforementioned airport, so Miriam got to watch more airplanes (and helicopters too) from a safe, quieter distance. She was pretty jazzed about that.


look!

Katie was just happy demolishing Daddy's banana. She'd take as big a bite as her little cheeks could hold, sometimes bigger!


mmm... yummy


little monkey

It's views like this that make me glad we live near our Nation's Capital.


wow.

Before we took off again, Miriam got the wiggles out by running downhill. Admit it -- who doesn't love doing that?


wheee!

One of the best parts about the trip was being surrounded by the glories of fall. Apologies to all my California relatives, but you don't got nothin' on this.







There's an ent in this last shot. What, you don't see him? He's the tree with eyeballs. ;)
It's just amazing to think this kind of beauty exists in the middle of the big city. No concrete jungles for us -- just the real leaf & bark ones!

All in all I think we biked almost 17 miles. My legs just about fell off when we got home! But it was a lot of fun and so worth it. It's too cold to go out anymore this year, but maybe in the spring we'll actually make it to the island. Cherry blossom time is another glorious season.

Happy First Birthday, Katie Bear!

In yet another demonstration of a warp in the space-time continuum (I'm noticing that those are happening a lot in parenthood), our little tiny baby turned ONE YEAR OLD yesterday! We had a little family party complete with the requisite chocolate-iced cupcake.


ooooh.... prettyyyyyyyy

Miriam had a hard time understanding that it wasn't HER birthday. Fortunately one-year-olds need lots of help with all the birthday rituals.


big sis "helping"

The icing that Mr. Pickles used was essentially melted chocolate. Katie wasn't quite sure what to make of it at first.


what IS this?


methinks I LIKE it!


MY cupcake


arrrrrrrr


after the kill

Our chocolate baby! You can even see all three of her teeth in this picture. :)


lookit all my loot!


big sis "helping" again


enjoying the plunder

Of course, after all the gifts were opened, Katie moved on to...


the BEST present

--the wrapping paper! (and the plastic tags, and the twist ties, and the ribbons, etc. etc.)


Thanks, everybody, for the great presents!

Happy Halloween!

I'm so proud of my pumpkin this year. You can barely even see the toothpicks holding up Trogdor's back. :) The flickering candle made the fire look really cool. And one trick-or-treater even admired Trogdor's beefy arm.


Trogdor the Burninator!

For Halloween dinner this year we decided to do something fun so I made baked jack casserole -- basically beef & peppers & seasonings baked in a pumpkin, and wormy apples for dessert (baked apples with gummi worms poked in them). Yum! (thanks for the recipes, Mom B!)

And what did the girls dress up as? What else but:


Goldilocks and Baby Bear

Katie made it difficult to take pictures, because she kept doing this:


runrunrun!

We had originally planned on being the THREE bears, but after 2 months' searching I could NOT find bear ears anywhere. Apparently you're only allowed to be a pussycat or playboy bunny, but not a teddy bear. Mr. Pickles improvised very cleverly, however, and I think he made a very convincing Papa Bear Just Returned From Work:


Goldilocks and the Two Bears

I stayed home and ate- I mean, handed out candy. Miriam came back with quite a bit of plunder. You know, there's nothing like that sweet smell of Halloween candy, that divine combination of chocolate and artificial fruit flavoring. It brings back all sorts of fond childhood memories. :) Now we've gone all through the good stuff and there's only hard candies and nasty chewy things left. (All the good chocolate disappeared after a day or two, as it usually does if Mrs. Pickles has anything to do with it.) :b

Fall Has Fell

Which means.... fall festivals!!! We went apple picking this past weekend. We've been meaning to go every year for a while, but this year we finally did it! The orchard we went to was also having a fall festival with a corn maze, pony rides, face painting -- all the usual fun pumpkin-patch kind of things -- but by the time we got there it wasn't worth the $25 admission price for the short time we'd be able to stay before naptime (which is sacrosanct!). But next year!

We still had lots of fun.


the expert apple pickers

Miriam was a GREAT apple picker. Katie, however...


I'm cold!

It WAS cold, and windy -- much more so than at home! We weren't dressed quite warmly enough, which is what Katie was complaining about.

..all better! :)


mm--yum!

Mr. Pickles was saying what a great experience this is for our kids -- being able to see where food comes from, and taste it right off the tree. So they won't think apples come from a box at the grocery store!


science lesson

All tuckered out! Note their hands.


sleeping beauties

Miriam is very good about sharing her apples with Katie. Now whenver Katie sees an apple, she goes nuts and starts babbling and squawking and pointing. We think she likes apples.


sharing the spoils

Now... time to start baking!!

Spoken Gems

These are the things I need to blog about more often, because so much hilarity is lost unless it's written down right away.

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Miriam is very interested in people's ages. One of her favorite questions to ask is, "How old they awe afto they bothday?" She asks us this several times each week. We don't want to discourage her from asking questions -- many times I've noticed she'll ask something she already knows the answer to, just to get us to talk with her. But one can only take so much pointless questioning, so lately I've taken to replying to her very obvious questions with, "What do YOU think?" Earlier today Miriam asked me, "How old Katie is afto her bothday?" so I replied, "What do YOU think?" since this was about the 3,714th time she's asked that since Katie was born. Miriam thought for a minute and said, "I think she's going to be 30, just like Daddy."

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We have a large mirror in our walk-in closet in which Miriam loves to study herself. A few days ago she was playing with her hair in front of the mirror, and lifted it all up on top of her head. Then she said, "If you cut off all my hair, then I'll be a BOY!"

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In anticipation of the annual Christimas shopping frenzy, we've been getting various toy catalogues in the mail. Miriam LOVES these -- she's taken to bringing them in the bathroom with her so she can peruse and dream. I remember drooling over toy catalogues when I was a kid too. Today as she was showing me her favortie pictures from the Fisher-Price catalogue, she would say, "Mommy, you need to bwing one of dose fo me!" I think her favorite (mine too) :) was the $90 fairy tale castle. Dream on, child.

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"Uh-oh."

What, you want more?

Okay, that's Katie's contribution to family conversations these days. She discovered the joy of saying "uh-oh" while we were at the mall a couple weeks ago. Now every employee at Target, Aunt Annie's, Stride Rite, Shoe Dept and the food court knows that Katie can say "uh oh." It actually reminded me of when Joe was little and he liked to push the morse code button on our walkie-talkies -- you could always tell where he was by the never-ending "beep... beep... beep...." Same with Katie and her "uh-ohhhh... uh-ohhhh... uh-ohhhh....."

Cutie Patootie

Katie gets her very own post for this stylin' pic because she's just so darn cute! :)


cutie patootie

Munchkin Mischief

A sampling of evidence from the resident mischief makers in the house:

Katie loves light switches. The quickest way I've found to circumvent a temper tantrum is to hold her next to a light switch. The poor oven light is going to burn out in no time.


oven light

Her next step is usually to pull down the towel and throw it on the floor.

Katie loves my unmentionables drawers.


caught in the act!

Already fighting over the phone!


fighting already


Sigh... corrupting the innocent. Mrs. Pickles' family will appreciate this caption:


Have some madeira, m'dear!


I like beer!

Katie also loves Os. I'm so glad the box was already empty!


who, me?

Katie with the BIGGEST mischeif maker of them all...


Da

(in Mrs. Pickles' humble opinion...) ;)

The NEW Improved Walking Wonder!

I only say "improved" because the latest edition of the Walking Wonder, version CL111204, started officially walking when she was only 10 months old! (Granted, it was a few days shy of 11 months, but still!)

Here are some shots of the WW v.04 in action:


laps

She loves doing laps around things. The day she decided to walk, about a month ago now, she started out by doing laps around the linen closet island upstairs. Granted, she would only go about 5-6 steps before she toppled over, but she kept getting up and continuing, chortling to herself the whole time.
I also took these b/c of how cute she looks in these ponytails.


laps 2

During her first couple weeks walking, Katie earned herself the nickname "Frankenbaby" because she'd toddle around with her arms sticking straight out in front of her. I kept trying to get a good picture of this, but they all came out looking like she was dancing.


dancer


dancer 2

Finally:

Frankenbaby

Yes, but can she chew gum at the same time?

phone

Well, now that she's mastered walking, time to move on to bigger & better things!

hockey