A Nerve Wracking Iron Bowl 2009

"Roll Tide" (from most of us)!!!



And... "War Eagle" from Dylan and her sidekick, Gracie.
Okay, there, I did it. (Dylan insisted that she be represented.)

Some Fall Pictures

In late October, we went walking on a sunny, crisp Sunday afternoon. It was a perfect fall day.




This field is about 100 yards from our house. It's a great place for the kids to just run free.

She Did It!

She's trying to smile, but she's too nervous.



Trying to be brave.



Trying even harder not to cry. (She didn't!)



It's over...such relief.



She chose her birthstone, yellow topaz.

Happy Birthday Katherine!

We began celebrating Kat's birthday on Friday. Yeah, Friday the 13th. I tried not to worry too much. I'm not all that superstitious anyway. I mean, with all the salt I threw over my shoulder throughout the day, I figured we were pretty well covered.

I guess the salt thing worked. That small fire was contained in a matter of seconds, and it only took a few minutes for the smoke to clear. No injures and no firetrucks lining our street. Just Dylan stuck holding the charred remains of her paper plate. Yes, that's our Dylan.

Katherine has been looking forward to her "double digits" birthday for months. She's been planning (think Franck Eggelhoffer from Father of the Bride) all the details of exactly how she wanted everything, walking around making lists. And everything turned out great! She had a lot of fun with her two best friends, Chloe and Sydney, who slept over and then joined her for mani-pedi's the next morning.

Later today, if she's brave enough to go through with it, she's going to get her ears pierced. I'll post details of this later. Sure to be dramatic and exciting!

Happy Birthday, Sweet Girl!!!

Fall Break in New York City

We decided to spend a few days in the city for the kids' Fall Break. Here, the kids are on the Red Steps at Times Square just a few steps away from our hotel.



We ate at Hard Rock Cafe under Jimmy Hendrix's purple velvet suit. (The kids had no idea who he was.)



But Katherine, our new saxophone player, was impressed with Bill Clinton's sax on the wall next to us.



We also went to Ripley's Believe It Or Not. From the time we entered, Isaac was convinced it was a haunted house, as you can tell by the look of terror on his face. This is how he looked the entire time we were there.




At least Scott enjoyed his time there.




I've no clue what this is. But it's kinda funny.



On our last day, we ventured out of Manhattan and went to the Bronx Zoo. Isaac loved the Bug Carousel. Of course, he had to find a green bug - his favorite color.



Here, Dylan is returning from feeding the peacock. She was determined to touch the thing and after a few minutes had it eating out of her hand (literally).



As I recall, this was after leaving the Bird House. Go figure.



This picture is so funny. Isaac was wiggling around on the train ride home and the conductor came by and played along with us pretending that he was in trouble. As you can tell, he bought it...hook, line, and sinker.



His pitiful look made the guy feel so bad that he even let Isaac wear his hat. I've never seen a little boy look so relieved as Isaac did when he found out he wasn't really in trouble!

Happy Halloween Part 2

We spent the earlier part of Halloween at the church's trunk-or-treat. As a family of aliens, we landed our spacecraft on a very windy day and it almost blew away without us!



Later on, for more trick-or-treating, we had Supergirl...



Batman...



and...Alien Tween Queen.



Ready for candy...



and we got plenty.



But Batman was more interested in the Burger King cheeseburger offered by Alien Mom.



Supergirl and her sidekick, Wonderdog, aka Amy, outlasted the rest of us. (Scott practically crawled back home.)



It was a long, fun day. Now, what to do with all that chocolate? I think we can figure something out.

Happy Halloween Part 1

Some earlier Halloween fun included Dylan (Vampire Princess) and friends dressing up for the Haunted High School.






Isaac (Bat Man) had a party and parade at his preschool.






Here, Bat Man and Thomas the Tank tried hard to convince another little boy to wear his costume, but he wouldn't budge.