Puppy Photography

It's really hard to get a puppy to pose for photos.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Exhibit D:

We finally got a good photo, but you'll have to wait for our Christmas card to see it!

Fall Flowers

Yesterday at church I took a fall flower arranging class with a friend.  I had a great time - and I'm proud of the arrangement I created!

right side

left side

front

I think this will be a good Thanksgiving hostess gift!

Sunday Afternoon

After a long walk...

...enjoying a restful Sunday afternoon.

Snack Time

We are mourning the loss of one of America's most iconic junk food brands.

RIP Hostess and your Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Ho Ho's, and a bunch of products that nobody has ever heard of (Ring Dings, Funny Bones, Devil Dogs?!).

Snack time while watching Jerry Springer and Maury will never be the same.

I'm on my way to stock up at the Twinkie liquidation sale since the shelf life is about 20 years.

Projects

J has a new project assistant supervisor:

11/11

Thank you to my dad and the other members of our armed forces for their selfless dedication to our country.

Happy Veterans Day!

Our Shoe Box

For the second year, we are participating in Operation Christmas Child.  This program provides shoe boxes filled with goodies to children around the world who are in need.

Each shoe box specifies the gender and age of the child who should receive it.  This year we chose to pack our box for a 5-9 year old girl.

Here's what we included:

Activity books, crayons, pencils, hygiene supplies, and a reindeer!

All packed up.
I like how it looks like the reindeer is hiding.

The finished box.

The bar code is scanned when the box reaches its final destination, so in a few months we'll know which country the child receiving our box lives in!

Pumpkins

We were very excited to have 19 trick-or-treaters visit our house this year.  It's the first year we've actually had trick-or-treaters since nobody came to our condo last year and before that we were living in a student apartment complex.

Both the kids and the parents seemed excited that we were giving out Rice Krispies Treats.  And as a bonus we don't mind eating the leftovers in our work lunches.

To make our porch festive for Halloween, we added a pumpkin family.

Daddy J, Mommy A, and Baby Allie*
*Not to scale

Once Halloween was over, Allie got to do whatever she wanted with her pumpkin.  Not surprisingly, she decided to play with it and then chew on it.

Pumpkin nom

As for the costumes of the trick-or-treaters, I had no idea what many of them were.  Am I really getting so old that I'm completely out of touch with what kids like these days?  Our neighbor's granddaughter was Merida from Brave, which I didn't know anything about until I looked it up on Wikipedia.

However, there were a few classic costumes that I appreciated seeing, such as Darth Vader.  There was also a gorilla, a monkey, and what I think were generic princesses (or I just have no idea what princesses they were supposed to be).

As for my costume, I went as a pedestrian (as usual).  I always have just the right clothes in my wardrobe to pull it off.

Snuggles

The many different snuggles of Allie (in reverse chronological order):

It's hard to believe the size difference between the first and last pictures!