Family Photolog: October 2012

Here. I know this is what everyone's waiting for.

Personally, I think all kids look like mutants and are fairly ugly for about a month--except my own. So I'm not going to go on and on about how cute Peter is. I think he's absolutely beautiful and he makes me cry, just like Phoebe did (and still does). Our own kids are the most beautiful things in the world. And I know I share that understanding with all you parents out there. It's a bizarre experience and becoming (and being) parents is the most brilliant experiment designed.

Yesterday Phoebe and I enjoyed the weather and cleaned up all the leaves in our front yard. What the heck?! We only have one tree on the boulevard! Phoebe had fun and then left me to bag everything so she could go play with her new brother.

So far, she thinks it's great that he's peed on himself and once hit himself in the face while getting a diaper change. Today in church Phoebe was asked if she had something new at home (Alisa and Peter stayed home). Her response was "I have a brother Peter and he peed on his face." I guess this is all payback after being the king of potty jokes . . . as a kid of course! ;)

Safari Legos

Basement wall after cleaning, and cleaning,
and cleaning the crazy rotten wood.

Legoland! Phoebe liked it, but I'm not sure
if she liked it more than I did. Coolest store
on earth!

So what have we been up to . . . Well, Phoebe's liking preschool. She often doesn't want me to leave, but doesn't get upset when I do. She loves it as far as I can see, but that's not very far yet.

She's super into Legos which I think is about the coolest thing ever. I found my old space legos from the early 1980s and killed an entier morning building with them. Most brilliant toy ever created.

People talk about nesting. Whatever. I get it. But I said to Alisa that that term sounds like something suburbanites do when they go to the mall and pick out a bunch of color-coordinated crap for the babies room that they really don't need. I removed a rotten workbench that was mostly compost, but was once some solid 4x4s. You can see the beautiful basement wall left behind above. Nice, eh?

We had 6 cubic yds of composted soil trucked in for garden health and to fill the new 3'x15"x16' box I built from decking. Pretty fun to put together and fill. Gonna plan some blueberry bushes this spring. Should be a fun new endeavor. As you can see, I put my first year's hops to good use doing a fresh hopped IPA. Haven't tried it yet. Ask me in November how it turned out. I'm already scoping out a couple other areas in the yard to grow a couple other varieties of hop. So there's my version of nesting for ya!

Our garden was great this year. We still got some broccoli, kale, spinach (under a cold frame), raspberries, and carrots out there. But our squash/pumpkin patch produced about 70 squash total. What a great crop. We did well with peppers this year as well! I can't recall, but I think I filled about 30-40 pints total and have them frozen. A lot of nice greens right before our first frost last week.

Finally, we await child #2. Everything's going well. Alisa's doing well and we're finally wrapping our heads around having a second child in the house. I've struggled to comprehend that this child is coming since my life has revolved around Phoebe in a very good way. I'm still adjusting to being home. But I think the arrival of our new child will force me to stop puttering on projects, sit back and enjoy the great time we will have together as a family this winter.

We look forward to see you all when we do!