Don't Laugh

Josh really wanted to be The Cat in the Hat for Halloween this year, so we decided to make it a family affair and all dress up like characters from the story. That meant Chris and I had to suck it up and look silly as Thing 1 and Thing 2. I don't know how people talked to us tonight with a straight face.

We had a great time at our friends' Halloween party. Josh spent most of his time in the bounce house, and Molly wandered around looking for candy.


Molly was a goldfish, not a chicken.

Chris has some help this year in the adult vs. kids Tug-of-War, which Chris says they let the kids win. While everyone was watching the game, Molly sneaked some candy from the prize bags.

Molly and Co.

Molly's teacher just emailed me this picture from the class's fall party, and I thought it was worth posting. I'm amazed the teachers were able to get ten 2-year-olds to stay in place for a picture!

The little girl standing next to Molly in the red dress is Bailey, her good buddy who also was in her class last year. Molly likes to point at her and yell, "Bay!" Bailey, whose mom is a speech therapist, responds with, "Mommy, that's Molly."

Another birthday!

Josh and Molly were thrilled today to celebrate Vivy's first birthday with her. Emily saved the birthday cake from a near face plant from Josh, who could barely contain his excitement about eating it.

Vivy was a trouper, even though she didn't feel great, and the kids had a great time playing with Vivy's cousins. Here's Vivy giving us a sign-language thank you for our card, which Josh signed Joshua Metzl Molly.

Josh and Auntie Em waiting for the cake

Luckily since Vivy is only 1, she won't remember that I made her a cake with Big Bird yellow icing and that I had some trouble writing "Vivy" in cursive. I didn't realize you don't need very much gel dye to color icing.

Molly loitering around the cake area

Nice smiles, kids

Tae Kwon Do!

Missy requested a picture of Josh in his Tae Kwon Do uniform, so here he is. This is in one of classes this week where the kids were paired up and had to chase each other around a set of cones. Josh ran fast but took wide turns around the cones, so the other kid quickly gained ground on him. As you can see in the picture, Josh also likes to watch his Tae Kwon Do moves in the mirror, so that sometimes distracts him from the task at hand.

We've come a long way in our six weeks of Tae Kwon Do. I haven't posted about it because Chris and I were absolutely mortified the first week or so. The parents are allowed to sit in on the classes, and the first week Josh occasionally licked the big mirror (not a small lick--the kind of lick you give to a big lollipop), and once when I was there he yelled out "I have to go yucky!" (his terminology for poop) in the middle of the class. The parents burst out laughing on both occasions. I was not happy that we were providing the entertainment!

I sat in on another class this week, and I was amazed at Josh's progress. He now sits still with the other kids, follows the instructor's directions and has even learned some Korean words. He also says "Yes, sir" regularly, which I've been working on with him for two years. I think he may be close to being awarded the "Super Turbo Camo Belt," a camoflage belt that's given each week to a kid that does a good job. He was in the final two this week, and the instructor has told Chris that Josh is doing really well (considering his rough start). We've come to the conclusion that Tae Kwon Do is probably doing way more for Josh than the hours of therapy he gets each week.

Here's Josh in his uniform, holding a Tootsie Roll (the prize at the end of the class) in each hand. In the next picture, he's giving me some kind of Tae Kwon Do yell.

Family Sort of Fun Day

We spent most of our day today traveling back and forth to one of the small towns I cover here for the newspaper. Molly and I went to their new farmers market this morning, and then we all went back for the annual Family Fun Day this afternoon.

It was kind of a bust, other than Josh trying out the weirdest carnival game I've ever seen. We got the car stuck in a muddy ditch, I lost a pie-baking contest I entered and we bought rain barrels and then could barely fit them in the car with us.

First, here's the weird game. It was a huge inflatable caterpillar, and the operator sat on a chair and held the "mouth" closed. He would let one kid at a time jump in, and then he would clamp the mouth shut. The kids ran through the caterpillar and jumped out its rear end. At one point, the operator yelled at a kid to "close the butt" of the caterpillar.

In the mouth:
Josh went through the caterpillar so fast that Chris wasn't prepared for his exit, but here's another kid coming out just to show you how odd this was:
Here's Josh on the ground after his dramatic exit:
I had to quickly remind Josh that "get in line" means get in the back of the line to avoid a riot at the entrance to the bounce house.

Here are Josh and Chris on the big slide, which unfortunately was not the fastest ride due to the combined weight of Josh and Chris:

Quiet is never good

The kids seemed unusally content playing by themselves in the back yard today, so I once again fell for it and enjoyed a few minutes of quiet inside before I remembered our backyard is a construction site.

Josh, who's enjoying a string of good behavior lately, was playing on the swingset, but Molly had found the contractor's buckets of soapy water they use to wash paint brushes in. She had to be rushed straight to the bath when it was all over, and I'm hoping the red clay and whatever was in that bucket will come out of her clothes!
Here's a totally unrelated picture of Molly, who suddenly seems to care a lot about clothes, shoes and hair bows for a 20-month-old (when she's not dumping dirty water all over herself in the back yard).

Apple abundance

We made an 11th-hour decision last night to take the day off from regular life and go to the mountains today. We went back to the apple orchard that, if you remember from my post last year, was totally barren after a drought. This year, the rain has returned and so have the apples. We had a great time picking apples and walking around on a beautiful fall day. We were so tired after dragging two buckets full of apples through the orchard that we forgot to take the kids to the barn to see the goats and chickens.

We did, however, get the obligatory kids with pumpkins picture
and the annual "kid doing weird things around pumpkins" pictures. This year Josh kept it together pretty well, so Molly supplied the weird pumpkin moment:
The kids also enjoyed the homemade fudge available at the orchard shop:
More pictures from our day:

Drywall

Here are the latest pictures of our drywalled rooms.

Sunroom:

Office, including the very exciting new closet:

A visit from Snickers

I was a little surprised today when I looked out in the backyard and saw Josh carrying around the neighbor's long-haired chihuahua, Snickers. Our neighbor told us he had been inspired by all of the construction in our yard, and today he began replacing the fence between our yards. I was glad to know that Snickers walked over the downed fence into the yard and was not carried over the fence by Josh.

Molly was thrilled by Snickers' visit, although Snickers was not quite as enamored.

Siding, etc.

We now have siding, some decorative cedar stuff, insulation and drywall. Amazingly, the addition might be finished on schedule by the end of the month.

Here's a very exciting picture of our new air conditioner, which is operating after two days of people working in our attic. For me that meant two days of a very cranky Molly, who had a hard time napping with all the commotion.

This is the office pre-drywall. The French door on the right goes into our bedroom.