Heptadecagon

In the flurry of activity that goes with hosting Thanksgiving, I've let my mind wander away from the tasks at hand. Don't get me wrong...I don't mind hosting. Actually, we offered, as we didn't want to have to drive 4 hours with 4 kids and a dog, plus find a cat sitter for the weekend. So, having people come down here should be easier for us, but getting the house ready has made me want to escape. Why, might you ask? Because let me tell you: cleaning up after 4 kids, a dog, 2 cats, and 2 adults is not too bad, but KEEPING it all clean is a bear! Here is my usual conversation with the kids after they get home from school: "Didn't I just throw that piece of paper in the recycling bin?" "Yes, mommy," says one of the girls. "But that one is Aaron's. You put mine in the recycling bin." "Why is this hat still up here? Doesn't it belong in the basement?" I ask. "Well, we don't want to play with it in the basem

So as I was cleaning up the dining room this morning, I overheard this strange little song sung by my favorite redhead. Aaron was singing it with much animation in his voice to a tune he apparently made up. Do you know what are my favorite colors? My favorite colors are red and black and orange and green and blue! Why? Because they are Halloween colors!! Red -- for blood. Black -- for the sky and a witch's hat. Orange -- for pumpkins . Green -- for poison and bug guts. Blue -- because it is just my favorite color. Aaron chanted this a couple of times to Melina, who lay quietly mesmerized by the antics of her older brother. When I entered the room, he became quite shy about singing it. Aaron has this fascination with Halloween; he likes jack-o-lanterns, cemeteries, bats, you name it. It might be caused by being born the day after Halloween. Who knows? My favorite part happens to be the bug guts. I mean, where do kids get this stuff?!?

Zoe: Daddy, look under there. Tim: Under where? Zoe: Ha! I made you say "underwear!"

As I said in the previous post, Olivia came to visit with the grandparents. She enjoyed herself immensely, as did our kids. We all had a grand time, in fact. Olivia stated the morning she was leaving that she had other plans; she was going to live with us. I am sure her Mom had other ideas, so back to Pennsylvania she went. Here she is with Shadow, our dog.

So here it is, almost a week since my last post. Didn't I say I'd keep this site updated weekly? What was I thinking? I am certainly glad I didn't rise to the National Blog Posting Month Challenge! Some weeks, I am betting I could post every day; this week, posting has been hard. Melina has been a little off -- she didn't take her usual 2 naps a day -- and Aaron was particularly crabby. Perhaps it was leftover from being sick last weekend and early this week. In any case, I was unable to sit at the computer and write something coherent over the past couple of days. Has anything interesting happened? Oh, plenty. We had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa C. last weekend, and this weekend, Grandma and Grandpa M. came out as well. Tagging along with the M's for the ride, all the way from Pennsylvania was our niece, Olivia. The kids were thrilled to learn Olivia would be coming, and actually, I was, too. We don't get to see any of our siblings children enou

We finally have a piano. I say "finally" because I have wanted a piano for so long, but we just never got around to purchasing one. Okay, maybe it was really that we were grad students living on grad student budgets for quite awhile, and living in a two bedroom apartment with twins. I grew up in a house with a beautiful baby grand piano, and a baby grand is what I would ultimately like to get some day. In the meantime, however, we found a nice-sounding spinet piano that fits where the the pack-n-play used to be. Don't worry, we didn't trade Melina for the piano; she takes her naps upstairs now. The kids are enjoying it, and the only rule we have with respect to piano playing (so far), is not to play when Melina is sleeping. Well, I guess the kids aren't supposed to pick up the piano key cover by themselves...so two rules. I include a picture of Zoe, Talia, and Aaron doing their best impersonations of Chopin. On another note, we took some great pictures of