The leaves are a changin'!

And it is so beautiful around here! For the past couple of weekends we've taken some Sunday drives just to soak up the beauty :) and of course to get out of the house...

Last weekend we took a drive through the Chequamegon National Forest to get some pretty pictures, and then headed to Copper Falls State Park to hike around the falls.


The falls were really neat, it was the first time me and the kids had been there. When we started on the hike, Mike lifted Duncan up on his shoulders. Duncan first started saying "Don't you fall Duncan, don't you fall!" And he had death grip on Mike's neck :) Then a few minutes later he started saying "Don't you poop on my back Duncan, don't you poop on my back!"
We had a really nice hike. We made it about a quarter of the way when we decided to cut it short. We had already gone a really long way and us adults were getting a little tired with all the extra weight :) And also we heard a low grumbling coming from the trees...





After the hike, we decided to go do dinner in Ashland by Lake Superior since we were already so close. Once we got there we decided just to picnic in the car as the lot was swarming with hundreds of seagulls (that may be a slight exaggeration). I was so glad we made that choice when Mike threw out some bread from his sandwhich and about 50 gulls totally dived for the open window! It was crazy :) They are a little hard to see in the picture, but all those white dots are seagulls :)

An Award!

A fellow crocheter, Sandy, has been following this blog for a while. She crochets for charity, and does some really outstanding work!

Anyway, she gave me this wonderful award! I must say that I'm pretty flattered :)

Here are the rules for this award:
1) Add the logo of the award to your blog.
2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3) Nominate at least seven other blogs.
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog.
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

Well, I linked to Sandy's blog above. Sadly, I won't have 7 blogs to nominate... I do a lot of blog visiting, but not linked to this blog... so I will be nominating all the family blogs :)
That means Mike, Ally, Pete, and Anne - you guys are getting this award!

We're back on the charts!

Beatrice is anyway :) At her last Dr's apt, she was off the charts small, which "freaked out" the Dr that was seeing her while our regular Dr was on maternity leave... Beatrice apparently has gained 2.7lbs in the past 6 weeks. We think that maybe they didn't calibrate the scale correctly last time because our Dr was surprised that she'd gained so much weight between appointments... Anyway, she is now in the 10th percentile for weight (18.7lbs) and 10-15th percentile for height (28 1/4").

As you can see, we have quite the climber on our hands...
And here's Duncan showing off his newest obsession: Oreos. Quite the oreo-stache ;)

I took this one a few weeks ago, while it was still nice out. Couldn't remember if I'd posted it already or not. Nice little wagon train eh? The dog even joined in!

No Takers?

So, I had no takers on the "guess which one was mine" question... so no one wins a candy bar! :)
Mine was #9.

Things are continuing to go really well around here! As most of you already know, Mike got a job at the community college, and is enjoying it so far ;) and as luck would have it, he managed to help me get a part time teaching job there! He just mentioned to the Dean that I had a MA in English and she said for me to get my app in because they were considering adding some classes... so they ended up adding two classes - one in Comp I and one in Professional Development (which they like to have English people teach) and then the Comp I got canceled... so I'm teaching the Professional Development course! I'm really excited about it - and after the first week of teaching, really glad to be back at it!

In other news: The seasonal change is upon us! The trees are turning already! I should try to get a picture this week because it's so beautiful!

Beatrice is now walking!! She looks so damn cute because she's so binky still :) She was a little slower of a walker than Duncan, she'd been taking a few steps here and there, but she was pretty cautious. Now she's trying to run! And testing out the dancing while standing bit.

Duncan is doing good, talking more and more everyday! And we started working on potty training last week. It's going OK. I'm sure it will take a while. Right now he's just enthralled with sitting on the potty. He had his 3 year dr's appointment yesterday and is average in height (38") and weight (30lbs) and still got a big ol' noggin in the 90th percentile ;) (Beatrice has her 1yr apt today). We celebrated his 3rd birthday on the 3rd with some birthday cake woo-hoo (which is what he calls it - probably because of the movie "Open Season" - they call chocolate bars woo-hoos) and I still haven't uploaded the pictures to my computer... I'll have to do a picture update once I get some recent ones uploaded ;)

Maria is thrilled with school so far and doing well. She's back to playing the saxaphone and doing a good job. She's very glad to be back with her friends! She's thinking about playing volleyball this year instead of softball - apparently they do softball at the beginning of the school year here. How odd is that? But one of her friends who lives here in town will also be playing volleyball, so we may be able to ride-share :)

Anyway, those are our newest updates!

Do you want to laugh?

Well, if you're a Republican, stop reading now ;) Everyone else, go read Mike's latest blog post! I helped him out with one of them (if you can guess which one I'll mail you your favorite candy bar) but the rest were all his ;) I won't tell you my favorite one until next week, just to give y'all some time (and don't want to confuse you and make you think it's the one I wrote).