Fall and Halloween

Fall is here and I'm in love with it. Our walks have turned chilly and the leaves are gorgeous. Reuben has learned to say "Pretty!" When he finds something aesthetically pleasing he brings it to me to appreciate and exclaims Pretty! like the beautiful leaves below, rocks, rotting bits of wood, pieces of trash off the sidewalk, chewed gum.... you get the idea. I've learned our opinions on beauty diverge at a point.

We celebrated Halloween which took some effort. Reuben Miriam and I all got the flu. It was horrible. Public Service Announcement: Get your flu shot! Because the flu this year is a nasty one. With all the disease our Halloween festivities were mainly stuffing the kids into their costumes and keeping them in them till the cried loud and/or hard enough to evoke our pity.

Here's Reuben rolling around the church gym begging us to take his lion costume off.

And here's Miriam devastated to find herself dressed as a bear cub.

Eventually, we managed to find costumes each child could stand. Reuben fell in love with his glow in the dark skeleton pajamas and refused to take them off. Here he is trick or treating.

Miriam didn't seem to mind a clown wig. I think because it's not so different from the mess of hair she usually has on her head.

I had two, okay, now that I think about it four favorite Halloween moments:

1. Aaron went upstairs and stomped around and growled like a monster which scared the socks off Reuben. Here he is pointing upstairs and nervously telling me about the monster on the loose.

2. Reuben has taken up ghost hunting. Our neighborhood does a great job decorating for Halloween so our daily walks Reuben uses to "find ghosts" as he puts it.

3. Reuben was nice enough to share his candy with me. He even went the extra mile and chewed it for me. He decided he really likes licorish but he couldn't figure out how to say it. So he spent the day after Halloween following me around and demanding "More Licor! More Licor!" which sounds pretty bad in public.

4. Reuben likes to tangle himself up in Miriam's play mat then call for help. On Halloween night he was entertaining himself in just such a way when I answered the doors for some trick or treaters. Their eyes got big when they saw what looked like a small child tied up and plaintively calling help! help! Help!

Bwa ha ha ha!

You can see a corner of the gym in the picture below. And below that is a video of Reuben trapped.

Picture Time

On Saturday Miriam turned 3 months old. We blessed her on Sunday. We were happy that our families could come visit us for her blessing. Here are a few pictures of some of the fun.

First thing Saturday morning we attempted a "photo shoot" of the Meldau cousins all together. This is the only picture we got of all three together. Notice how both my kids are freaking out. Eliza is doing awesome. My mom says it's pay back. I always HATED having my picture taken and as a kid I didn't hesitate to let people know it.

More pay back.

But we still got a few good ones. I love this picture.

And this one.

Later we took a few more pictures at the park. I think maybe I should have brushed Reuben's hair. Oh well. It's true to life.
Happy Eliza
Eliza is proudly brandishing her "sword" at me
Aaron with Miriam
Eliza having fun on the slide
Eliza and Reuben riding together.
Here's Miriam age 3 months in her Blessing gown she received from her well-traveled Aunt Janet.

Miriam with cousin Eliza.

And Miriam with her Grammy

After suffering through all the Miriam festivities, Reuben got a big payoff. Tonight we took our evening walk and someone set out a whole load of plastic dinosaur toys on the side of the road for free. Probably because they were sick of the mess they were making in their house. They will now be making a mess in our house. I've already tripped over dinos left on the floor about a dozen times. Sigh.

Reuben was overjoyed. He was bitten by the dino bug about two weeks ago and now chatters away about "brachiosaur" "T-rex" "Stegosaur" "Ankylosaur" and my personal favorite the "Ice cream dino" also known as Pachycephalosaurus. (Who makes up these names??? Not a parent.)

Reuben thinks the dome shaped head looks like ice cream. Reuben with the stroller filled with his dino bounty

The Ice cream dino

Good Job T-shirt Elves

Oh my, oh my. The holidays are fast approaching and I'm trying to not get too covetous. That went out the window when I found out about Out of Print shop. They sell t-shirts of the covers of out of print books. I want EVERY single one of these shirts.

Except this one. Even though the graphics are excellent.

And maybe also the Lolita because I've got kids and wearing that around at a play group is kind of asking to get beat up. (Meanwhile the Lord of the Flies would be perfect for the play group)

Speaking of kids, they have kids tees too.

Dear Santa - I am Reuben's mother. Please bring him one of these t-shirts but not the Pride and Prejudice one because he's a boy and wearing that is asking to get beat up. Nevermind. Bring him that one too. He'll just wear it under his football sweatshirt. Then he can be just like his dad. -Katy

Rewards

I hate going to the doctor. Hate it. My follow up appointment for having Miriam happened this week. I was tempted to skip it. I skipped the follow up after having Reuben and lived to tell the tale. Since the visit was already paid for and in order to be "allowed" to purchase insurance I had to get a clean bill of health, so I dutifully attended. (I love how insurance will only insure you if you can prove you don't need insurance) Anyway, I decided to reward myself for my good behavior. I had a hard time thinking of what I could get myself as a treat. Then I found this beauty. A whale shirt! I can't wait for it to arrive.

And here's something else that brought me joy. How to make jello blood worms from this site. You mix jello and cool whip then poor it into a container with straws. Once it congeals you've got worms in the straws which you can blow out. So gross but perfect for halloween. As if jello itself wasn't gross enough already.

Dreadful Bedhead

This is my new favorite picture. Here's Aaron picking Miriam up this morning. The girl still has a TON of hair. She has Crazy bed head. I'll brush out her hair right before I lay her down at night and in the morning she'll have three or four dreads in the back. Literally. It's that tangled. I don't know what to do. Anyone have tips on how to keep a two month old's hair from tangling? If I don't figure something out I'm pretty sure her hair is going to end up looking like this

A Fun Guy with Fungi

I was looking forward to fall and it has arrived. The weather has been wet and cold and windy. Such soggy weather has produced some awesome mushrooms. Reuben hunted up a couple beauties the other day at the park.

In this picture I almost got Reuben to smile in my general direction by telling him I was going to throw him a ball.

Here's Miriam enjoying General Conference.

2 Months

Miriam turned two months old last week. She's proved herself to be an amazingly sweet and easy going baby. She's a keenly aware and observant little person. I feel surprised whenever I remember how young she still is.

She smiles easily and laughs and coos anytime she gets attention. On several occasions, I've been talking to Reuben only to look across the room and see Miriam beaming up sweetly trying to catch my eye.

Here she is hanging out on the basketball court while Reuben and I shoot baskets. You can see she's figured out how to suck on her fists which she seems to enjoy.

And here she is crying because her Mom keeps dressing her like a boy. We were low on laundry and after a few blow outs all I had on hand were Reuben's hand me downs. Sad day.

Speaking of Reuben, nursery has taught him to say "MINE!" and hoard his toys. To see it at home is kind of funny. He'll show Miri a toy then exclaim mine! and run away to barricade his cache behind pillows or the couch. He's constantly preparing for a show down. It makes me wonder what he's been doing in there. I think it's a little ironic that church has endowed him with an emphatic attitude of possessive materialism. We're going to have to work on that...

Here he is climbing on a statue at the zoo.

And here's a picture I found on my phone. I guess Reuben must have made it. I commend him on his selection of location.