Halloween Prep Time

For those of you out there who have been sitting on the edge of your seats, just dying to know what the Avery's have been up to next, well, I don't blame you. We are, by far, the most exciting family ever. So I apologize for keeping you waiting for our usual witty, enthralling and yet poignant posts that typically grace this page. I haven't had pictures up for a while because our camera broke. We have been taking "stills" from our camcorder, and they are not what you would call "quality". Despite this, for my own sake, I wanted to post our pre-Halloween hauntings, because it is our favorite time of year! Hopefully you can see through the haze...

We carved pumpkins while watching "Corpse Bride". The girls weren't too sqeamish to pull out their own "guts". I was very proud. And anyone that has driven by our house knows these pumpkins lasted all of three days before they became a moldy, withered blob of orange. Too bad too, they were our best yet.

Here's Max digging in and eating the pumpkin seeds. Pretty slimy! It's okay, he pooped them out later.

Decorating cookies at the UVSC carnival. Tinkerbell and a Garden Fairy.

Sir Chunks-a-lot here doesn't have much of a costume. Maybe we'll figure it out by the big day.

The girls showing off their painted faces with their buddy, Caroline. Such pretty girls!

Fall Leaves Explained

Zoe's take on the fall leaves: "Maybe the wind is talking to the leaves, but the leaves don't understand what the wind is talking about. So the sky goes (whoooooshhh) at the leaves cuz it is mad cuz they won't talk back. The leaves say, "Ahhhh, run for your lives! The sky is going to kill us! Run for your homes!" And (zoom) they are running down the road." And that is why the leaves are blowing in the wind. They are running for their lives apparently.

Another Zoe quote: "Dear Heavenly Father, You are so lucky I love you. Good-bye."

Remember....

I have come to the frightening conclusion

That I am the decisive element.

It is my personal approach that creates the climate.

It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous,

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration,

I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.

In all situations, it is my response that decides

Whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated,

And a person is humanized or de-humanized.

If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.

If we treat people as they ought to be,

We help them become

What they are capable of becoming.

~Goethe

Inspiration

Andy had me read this great book Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall. This post is notgoing to be a book critique, but you have to understand the jist. It's about a 6'4'' big guy (um, Andy)who is getting beat to death from running (Andy again). No doctors are able to help him, so he begins to study the ancient Tarahumara people of Mexico (yes, like the restaraunt). These people are so incredibly fascinating!

They run for hundreds of miles at a time in nothing but bare feet or sandals and eat nothing but corn and chia (yes that kind of chia) and almost never get any injuries.

So Andy has started running barefoot and I bought him some chia. I also made fun of him for studying how Zoe runs and trying to copy her "technique".

(That's not dirt, it's blood blisters.)But then last night I finished the book and I had the strongest urge to go run 50 miles in bare feet. I wasn't making fun of Andy anymore (but still cringing at his blisters), that's how inspiring this book is. It made me stop making fun of my husband!!!Okay, so this did end up being a book critique, but it got me all psyched to talk about it. Go read it and go running.

Fire Mooses

This family of moose hung out outside the station and then walked across the parking lot.

The bull caught me off guard. None of us knew he was there.

Firsts

Oh that bittersweet taste of the first day of school. Will I ever get used to it? Ella has started the first grade and is enjoying all the priveleges and respect that come with it, such as recess on the big kids playground, lunch in the cafeteria, and is at last given the most high honor of "homework." First grade!!! She's in class with her best friend, she gets to ride her bike to school, life couldn't be better. As she left that first day she ran into the school with absolute joy on her face and not a single look back....

She wasn't the only one headed to school this year. Zoe's first day of preschool was yesterday. My baby is so grown up! She picked out every item of clothing she wore and told me exactly how to do her hair ("Two piggy tails right here.") She later told me, "That teacher was so nice, I couldn't believe my eyes!" She left me standing on the doorstep of her preschool with that same 'I don't need you anymore' feeling that I had with Ella. No crying or cowering, she dove right in. It would be nice if they pretended they would miss me.

Strawberry

Hiking with just Dad is always the best way to go. There's a stream? Just go through it. There's mud? Who cares, get muddy. With Dads, things are always a little messier, a little funner.

P.S. Is "funner" a word? It looks funky.

Ella is a list maker. She took her notebook with so she could make a list of the things she saw. I wonder who she got that from. (Hint: It's not me.)