Halloween Pics

And the deluge of photos begins.

Here's pics from Halloween. My dear mom made outfits for everyone but me (I recycled an old can-can skirt that I made years back into a pirate. Someone dubbed me "Keira Knightly" at the church Halloween party. Ha.)

I give you the jedi, the jedi, Minnie Mouse, and a pirate with a healthy appetite. (hey, no one said we had to have a cohesive family outfit):

I know. It's like attack of the Mini-Mes. Lumpkin was obviously into it.

Ado!

Thank you Nana for the lovely outfit!

Minnie and her Jedi.

Looking tough

And my personal fave...

Cute? Who me?

Are you ready for some blogging?

Annnd...it's back on!

Well, almost.

Our Internet package arrived in the mail yesterday, only to find out our Mac Airport does not count as a cable modem, so after a short trip to the Comcast store today, it should be back on. :) And yes, I get a big FAIL in the technology dept. And the blogging dept for the past few months, so I have a LOT of photos to post. Here's a few of our namesake to keep you satisfied.

Ladies and gentleman...Miss Linny Lumpkin:

I can fly!!

This was four teeth ago!




Dad has good taste in tights. :)

Cruising with her "bebe".

Thank you Aunti Katy for my apple outfit! We loves it.

Updates on Linny:

• I can walk! (4 or 5 steps, and then I fall down)
  
• I can talk! A lot: Mama, Dada, Brudda/Ad-an, Cracka (cracker), Nana (both Banana and Nana Jenn), Dees! (I think it's this, she says it while pointing to stuff), Car, Ball, and her first word: "Book!"
  
• She babbles a lot too. The most endearing sounds something like, "Gliba-gliba-glaba-glaba".


• She loooves books and cell phones and goes after both. She hold anything phone-like - her play phone, the remote (it is shiny, after all), to her ear and says, "Ado!"


• She loves her blankies and dollies.


• She also loves her big brothers' toys, much to his dismay - action figures, cars, everything.


• She can wave (she got lots of practice during the Christmas parade).


• She blows big kisses and says "muah!"


• She still never naps, except for a half hour here and there, but sleeps pretty good at night.


• Last night was the first night she actually fell asleep in my arms, with the exception of when she had the flu.


• She is a terror during diaper changes.


• She has started having fits; her first was on Thanksgiving.


• She loves music and dancing - she dances to everything, and will sing sometimes, or imitate us singing. Chris caught her playing her xylophone and singing to herself yesterday.


• She has six teeth! And...
• She turned ONE last month! (Those pics will be it's own post).
  

Aden deserves his own update, so look for that, as well as Halloween pics, her birthday pics, Thanksgiving pics...all hopefully before Christmas. I have some downloading to do. :)

In the meantime, here's one more of Linny looking lovely from several months ago:

Technical Difficulties

I apologize for the continued lack of new pictures. "Our" internet (meaning, ahem, the neighbor's wifi) has ceased to work. Meaning any pics need to be transported to work to be uploaded, a huge pain in the butt.

My apologies for the delay.
Sincerely,
The Management :)

Missing fish.

I'm sad.

I was randomly perusing a blog when I saw pictures of a trip to the Ballard Locks for the Salmon run.

For those NOT from Washington: Ballard Locks = the (water) gateway between the Puget Sound and Lake Union. Also the site of where salmon migrate back to their homes, leaping out of the water and up a "ladder" of underground stairs, much to the delight of onlookers.

I miss summers in Seattle.

I miss the bonfires on Golden Gardens beach. I miss watching the boats and the salmon come in and out of the Sound through the locks, feeling totally at peace. I miss kayaking on Lake Union on a beautiful day. I miss wandering Pike's Place, getting croissants or steamed pork puns, looking at flowers and listening to buskers. I miss Bumbershoot. I miss Discovery Park, the Aboreteum, the Fremont market, and wild blackberries everywhere. I miss all the green!

I know winters weren't quite as fun - cold, cold, cold - but being near the water made up for a lot of it. Plus there was Christmas decorations downtown and hot chocolate on Capitol Hill.

And no matter what the season, I miss my friends. I have many here as well, but I miss all those who helped shape my existence so much during those three years.

And while I know it will never be the same as before - I will never be a carefree singleton, out until all hours, and I may never afford a home in Seattle proper - I know it will still be great, a wonderful place to share with my family. Single friends will have turned into couples that we can still share our lives with.

I still can't wait to go back.

Real Food in '08 (Dinner Update)!

So yesterday was Pumpkin's first day of school (I'll talk about that in a blog later today - I want to post his pictures). :)

I don't know if was the fact that I had a major meltdown yesterday (don't ask), or if it was the fact that our barely-slept-in-4 days daughter passed out around 6p, or if it was the fact that Chris and I both had the day off, or if we finally just realized that our Kindergartener is, in fact, old enough to progress beyond chicken nuggets, or it was combo of all of it... but we had family dinner last night.

Wahoo!

Chris made delicious steak with cilantro and veggies - squash, oyster mushrooms & shallots- yum! He made a tiny plate with a teeny bit of meat and a few pieces of veg for Pumpkin. He ate all the meat of course (for having a vegan mother the boy looooves red meat) but the veggies were another matter. Chris told him "I only gave a you a tiny bit of veggies - three pieces. You need to it all of it and then you can have more meat." After three bites - one mushroom and a bite of squash - he thought he was done and then burst into bitter, hot tears when Chris reminded him he needed to eat all of it.

"ALL of it?! You didn't tell me that!!!"
"Yes, we did."

Tears or no, Chris stuck with me, and we told him, "You don't want to eat it? That's fine. But that's the end of dinner. No more meat. No nothing." He kept saying, "But I want meat! I WANNNNT meat. But I want to!" Finally after he nearly knocked his plate over when I tried to take it, I told him, "If you want to eat it, eat it. But we are not going to sit here while you have a tantrum. Either eat it now, or you're done." And he scarfed all of it down. I think he was emotionally done though, because after all that he didn't even want the meat I saved him.

I even think he liked the squash (unlike the mushrooms, which required a root beer chaser). All around, not too pretty, but I consider it a success! Real food in 08!

Because I don't have enough to do...

My dear friend Katy (Ryan's momma) decided that our crafty endeavors needed a home of their own.  

Voila!  She Crafts Too has been born.

(PS.  Managing two blogs on Blogger?  Very confusing at first!)

Our Menu Tonight Is...

Am I the only one who doesn't do family "dinner"?

I was reading one women's blog on her daily work outs, and she mentioned that "dinner tonight is..." It occured to me that I read and hear similar phrases often: "dinner tonight is..." "tonight we're having..."

I would love to get to the point where I could get home, give hugs, and start making a healthy dinner with everyone eating the same thing. But for now, unless Chris is home to cook - which is maybe one night a week these days if that (and said dinner night is generally at my parents' house these days) - I never feel less like a "we" and more like a "me" than at dinnertime.

As mentioned above, Chris is rarely, if ever, home in the evenings. Which means that most nights I am essentially a single parent getting home at 5:30p, desperately trying to throw together a meal that will a) not result in a Gladiator-esque battle of the whines, b) be health-conscious, and c) not take forever to make and/or eat, thus allowing time for our frantic schedule of cuddles/ playtime/make Pumpin's dinner/feed the baby/baths/books (we can't even read the same books because the baby tries to eat the paper pages)/bedtime.

After the baby was born, our eldest survived on his own steady diet of chicken nuggets and cheesy sticks. As I slowly try to transition to healthier food, I try to feed him smaller portions of what I'm having, but any kind of spice or herb is subject to a CSI-style investigation.

So more often than not, I end up making Pumpkin the safe bet grilled cheese while I attempt to feed the baby (who is transitioning to "real" food). I generally don't start thinking about what I'm going to eat for dinner until 9pm or later. Not good, especially for my healthy diet.

While I am trying desperately to become the "we eat ____ at dinner" family, it's a process. Baby steps.

What I want to know is - who are these "we" families? How do they deal with the different tastes of their family members? The dragout food battles from the picky eaters? The evening crunch time?

Enlighten me.