homeofthebudds

walkin in the woods

Yesterday, the kids I and and some friends went for a walk in the woods. Well, really it was the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. But I like the sound of "the woods" better. It was awesome.

We stopped at a nicely placed bench for some lunch after a bit. Lunch is important.

The kids had a fabulous time climbing up and down this hill. Ellen was an awesomely sweet big sister helping Brennan navigate it a bit.

At one point I asked Ellen if she'd like to model for me and she happily obliged.

Here's "happy"

And "sad,"

And "crazy."

Isaiah thought crazy looked like a lot of fun so he got in on the action too.

On our way back we saw a couple deer out in the field. They were carefully observed and photographed.

And of course, we stumbled across a dandelion flower. Which always deserves to be photographed. I love how Isaiah is getting up close to it. His picture is up on his blog along with a few others. Ellen's got a post up too.

Happy Halloween!!

We got to spend Halloween with the Steele's. We went over to their place for some personal pizzas, some football watching and some trick or treating.

Isaiah was pretty excited about being able to have as many pepperonis as he wanted.

Ellen (or Ellers as my kids were thrilled to call her) was excited too. "Pizza!!!"

Brennan has become a huge huge Blazer fan since we took him to that game. He frequently shouts out "Let's Go Blazers" and he wears his Blazer hat often.

The Steele's had scouted out neighborhoods so we drove over to a good one for some trick-or-treating. Dave calls it the trick-or-treater's paradise. High density housing, affluent home owners and the houses are close to the curb.

I did some experimenting with shutting off the flash and turning up my ISO. I can't remember what that stands for, but the result is you can take pictures in the dark with no flash. They are rather grainy, or noisy, but I like that there isn't funky flash lighting. I'm not so much a fan of the funky flash light.

There was lots of running going on. "Look! There's a light on! This house this house!" So exciting.

(This, by the way is what the pictures look like before I converted them to black and white. They have a sort of orange cast - I don't know if that's because of the tone of the street lights, or there were just that many orange lights out, or if there's something else affecting it. I'm sure one of you knows much more than me about that subject.)

Isaiah was the brave kid who was perfectly willing to be the door bell ringer or knocker.

It was super fun.

We came home with a ton of candy. A ton. It was still early enough that we got a few trick or treaters so I was able to hand out some of our loot to the neighbor kids. Don't worry - all three ours chose several pieces to keep for another day before we put it in the give away bowl.

yay!

Anne is here visiting.

:)

Thanksgiving traditions

Its tradition to walk to the local park after the Thanksgiving feast.

Brennan enjoyed some pretzels once we got there.

And kept a close eye on Maggie to make sure he was going to be the one to finish them.

Aunt Ashley received a few tackle hugs.

While Dave and Jeff kicked each other's butts on the basketball court, Uncle Jason played with the kids.

I'm not sure why my camera missed everyone else that was there (like Jeff and Wendy and Micah and Dave) but it did. It will do better next time.

The other Thanksgiving tradition in the Budd household is to take family pictures.

Here was our "Show your muscles!" shot. The kids always show off their buff elbows.

Here's our "Do the robot!" shot.

Kevin and Luann brought the kids back some Hawaiian clothes from their trip.

I took a gazillion pictures of them in these clothes hoping for one that would 'work'.

Isaiah was working with me, and Brennan and Micah were having a ton of fun with each other.

Look at them. How much fun are little cousins supposed to have?

Isaiah is still working the smile, and the boys are still giggling together.

Look, they love each other.

Sciency thanksgiving (pt 3)

More science demos!! I believe this one was water with some drain-cleaner type lye melting aluminum foil. Wendy, you should feel completely free to correct me when I butcher the ingredients.

Brennan was pretty interested in this one.

The water is turning gray...

And it's melted! or dissolved perhaps? I do remember some smoke though. Notice the plastic spoon is untouched.

A sciency Thanksgiving (pt 2)

Here was another trick/science demonstration: white sugar and a little sulfuric acid. Check it out.

It's starting to change color...(that's one of the signs of a chemical reaction we learned.)

Hmmmm...more color changing...

Whoooaaa check it out!!

It's growing!!! Wow. Seriously wow.

There's still more to come tomorrow folks.

weekend update

There was a very welcome adults only dinner cause some friends offered to watch the kids. (thanks Agees!)

There was some skyping with old friends that I miss. (Hi Fieldhouses!)

There was some bonding with other ladies at Imago at an incredibly well done women's forum. Totally looking forward to the next one.

There was some video game playing (that's Dave looking up how to beat a certain section.) Actually there was a ton of video game playing. Isaiah is getting pretty darn good. He's passed me up on some of the games already.

There was some knifty knitting.

There was some late into the night crafty talk with crafty friends who came over to share the crafty room with me during which I learned to knit (again) for real!! (Thanks Laura!)

There was modeling of the new hat by our friend Amy who came for lunch,

...to learn the intricacies of calzone making.

There was a lovely lovely adults only walk while Amy stayed with the kids. (thanks Amy!)

And finally there was late night knitting and old movie watching.

Good, good times.

I am so not a crowds person

We went to the zoo today.

It was really really empty. We went places we don't always visit, and lingered at them instead of checking them off our 'must see list' like I'm prone to do when its crowded. We did all kinds of new things - like comparing wingspans.

And pretended to be eagle parents

And babies. At one point we were all in there making what we thought sounded like eagle sounds.

We drove tractors,

and rode ponies.

The kids discussed the finer points of making clothes from goat wool. ("See Isaiah, this part is really soft and you and you use it to make sweaters." "Yeah, but not the horns Ellen.")

They snuck up on a water geyser,

And ran shrieking when they saw the water pour in,

so they wouldn't get soaked.

They got up close with the polar bear,

And thought about why its called a "polar" bear.

It was a good day.

The day in pictures (super long. super lots of pictures. just so you know.)

This morning I met up with some friends and we got rather productive and made various lip balms, solid perfumes, bath salts and even deodorant!

When I came home I found everyone practicing their video game skills. We've been thinking about how important it is for the kids to be well rounded and then lo and behold this week Dave's Uncle Brian supplied us with his unwanted playstation 2 and a box full of games. So there you go. Playstation is getting added to our school schedule. (you know...the whole hand-eye coordination thing.)

Zai was really digging Pac-man.

And then Zai and I went to explore Michael's and Ellen stayed home with Dave to practice her hand-eye coordination skills. Isaiah was pretty impressed that the shopping carts were small enough for him to push.

And then we went for a walk. In the non-rain. Umbrellas just in case.

Call me anal, but I don't usually let the kids push Brennan. I like to know he's going to reach our destination in one piece. So Ellen was feeling pretty grown up today that she got to push as long as she wanted. And in the street even! Wow.

We walked to the track. Can I just take a moment to mention that I love fall?

And we raced. On your mark....set....

Go!

Okay the kids handicap head start is over - Go!!

"Ummmmm..."

(** Dave wants me to mention that Brennan didn't get to get out of the stroller cause there was duck turd all over the track.)

Between races we watched some guys flying their RC planes.

And we watched.

And we watched.

And we watched some more. (guess who was bored of watching airplanes??)

Me! Guess who loved every minute of it?

This little guy loves everything that moves. Loves it loves it.

And when we'd finally had enough racing,

and enough watching we headed home.

Where we played with fire,

and pumpkins.

An assortment of Halloween pictures

We carved our pumpkins last night.Just in time for halloween.

Isaiah told Dave exactly what he wanted.

Ellen didn't care so much for carving. But she was on the pumpkin seed removal. And then putting them in other peoples pumpkins when they weren't looking.

(Just kidding. she was putting them back into her own.)

Brennan on the other hand, loooooved scooping out the seeds. He did this for probably twenty minutes.

pretty sweet, eh?

I set out our candy basket rather early and our neighbor was over playing. She saw it and asked for candy. I said only kids dressed up get candy so she ran home and came back in her costume. She's Hannah Montana.

Getting excited about the glow sticks

How cute is this little chicken??

I'm so so bummed I didn't get a good one of all three of them. We might have to dress up again tomorrow.

Ellen really got into her role and acted very princess-ly.

Brennan actually seemed to enjoy being a turtle. He left the hat on for quite a while. He was pretty comical crawling around with his little turtle tail wagging behind him.

The Steele's came over to go trick-or-treating with us. I gotta say I was disappointed in our neighborhood this year. Tons of dark houses. Last year, we'd been moved in for a matter of days and when we walked the neighborhood I remember being in awe of how many kids were in the neighborhood and how into it people got. But we had some good friends so it was all good.