The Linus Chronicles: 2008

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Well, another year has come and gone. We have again survived!

We punctuated our Holiday kick-off with a trek to a local tree farm. Linus is pretty much in heaven at the farm - dirt, heavy machinery, vegetation, animals, the works. We picked a cute little tree and it's been doing great and sucking up LOTS of water here at our house. I'll try to take a picture of it before we take it down and send it on to be mulch (circle of life!).
The last (and seemingly random) picture was taken at our local botanical garden, it is NOT a picture of our little tree in some giant atrium in our house. That would have been one heck of a Charlie Brown tree makeover! It was just so Christmassy I had to throw it in.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Cousin Fun!

I've got to try to blog while my mom is still in town. She leaves tomorrow and I have a hunch my free time will be greatly reduced.

Sooo........
Cousin Lilly came to visit! She's almost exactly two years younger than Linus and they really got along great.

All of us were quite smitten.

Lilly seemed to enjoy Pittsburgh (especially the trip to Rita's, just like her mama). Her parents Ryan and Suzi seemed to have fun. too. They were real troopers driving so far to come spend Thanksgiving with us.

Come back anytime, guys!

Victory is MINE

Pardon another non-Linus post. Some things just have to be bragged about.

We moved into our house three years ago. This room had been taunting me in technicolor ever since. It looked like a Disney Princess puked Exorcist-style all over the walls. Yes, those walls WERE four different hues of hideous. And there was a big hole under the window of the purplish wall (don't ask, lower right corner of window - partially obscured) that I had "sealed" up with plastic wrap and duct tape to block the drafts. I know, you'd think it was a single-wide.
Anyway...

I didn't get any truly "before" before pics, but I think the midway-through pics are bad enough.

Turns out all I needed was to reach the boiling point with disgust (and a built in babysitter - thanks mom - and a little extra incentive to tackle it -more house guests!). I got done just in time. I have no idea how we lived with it like that for so long. Oh wait, yes I do. We used it as an office, ignored it as much as possible, and never let anyone in there to see it.

Soooo... a laborious patch job and two coats each of primer and paint on every surface and I think it makes an acceptable guest room.

Dang, I wish I had better "after" pictures. Oh well. Maybe later.

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Idlewild!

We have this neighbor with a huuuge heart. For the past two years he has given us tickets enough to take friends to Idlewild for Halloween. They have this trick-or-treat-through-the storybook-forest and ride-the-rides thing every year called "HallowBoo". So anyway, we went on the last Saturday possible (scheduling issues) and had some drizzly cold weather (scared other people away, though - NO crowds at all!).

First we wandered through the Storybook Forest...

Linus' costume was a "Builder Man". No, NOT Bob the Builder, "Linus the Builder Man". Anyway, he didn't want his helmet on and that was pretty much the only thing that differentiated this get-up from his daily wear, so sorry it doesn't look very costume-y.

The beneficiaries of Mr.M's kindness: McAffees, Browns, Nielsens

A fantastically unnatural colored fountain. The water looked orange as it spewed, green in the pond and had pink foam. HOW did they DO that???

All aboard! We got to do two trips on the train in a row and if Carter had had his way, we would still be doing laps on that track.

As many of you know, it just wouldn't be a trip to an amusement park with Richy if we didn't have walkie-talkies. Admit it, they're fun. Especially for talking to one another whilst 5 feet away. Or less. Here they are calling Caleb:

Who is in the seat in front of them.

Creepiest thing in the park:

Well, almost.

These guys seemed to think the creepiest thing in the park was in Grandma's House - my what big screams they have.

Time for a group hug.

She's not done hugging, Linus.

Linus got really brave and went on the roller coaster three times and even braved "The Spider".

Lesser men have been brought to their knees by the Spider, but Linus was a champ. Good times. See you next year, Idlewild.

Happiness is Buddies, a Grandma, and a Bucket of Candy

This Halloween Linus got some of his favorite things. It was like Christmas in October.

Some new buddies that moved into our neighborhood this summer came Trick-or-Treating with him (not the best picture of everyone, but I assure you they were happy).

Grandma aka "Builder-Man" Joy is here and was "Builder-Man" Linus' apprentice for the night.

Daddy (just plain 'ol Daddy this year) and Linus and Grandma canvassed the neighborhood while I held down the fort with some cider on the porch - ahhhh.

Plenty-o-loot for a 3 year old and we called it a day. Ta-dah!

How many boys does it take....

...to figure out how to work a TV? *

Long story short: Our TV died a few Saturdays ago so Richy found one the next day on craigslist for a pretty good price. Then, A) Turns out it weighed 175 pounds B) It looked MUCH smaller before we tried to squeeze it into our car and then house C) It BARELY fit on the TV stand and D) It's basically a monstrosity that only a man could appreciate.

Thanks for your help, Matt.

*Apparently 3 and one woman to blog about it.

Just Pirty

Sorry - I couldn't resist. It was just so beautiful.

I'll now try to post something "fun".

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The Great Pumpkin Post

Every kid (whether they are named Linus or not) needs to get to the pumpkin patch at least once in their life. Even if they don't see The Great Pumpkin.

Our trip to the pumpkin patch was right smack dab in the middle of a beautiful Western PA fall. The colors were wonderful.

We even had the good fortune to have our visit be to a local farm . We've been twice now, and on the first of the trip I even remembered to take the camera!

First, we rode on a tractor trailer (heaven on earth for a 3 year old) along the farm road to the patch. We had the whole thing to ourselves!

This old pile of barn wood was on the side of the road and struck me as so beautiful. (sorry to interject in the pumpkin tale)

Anyway, the patch had been -ahem- "augmented" a bit to help it recover from the previous weekend's masses, so there were loose gourds-a-plenty to chose from. There were pumpkin vines growing from the ground in spots, so at least at SOME point there were pumpkins actually growing there (or trying). Linus noted nothing unnatural about the set-up and enthusiastically picked up dozens of different ones before settling on the chosen few.

After the arduous task of harvesting, it was time for the return ride back down to the main part of the farm.

You had to keep a TIGHT hold on your cargo. If you let go, Linus would remind you to HOLD THEM TIGHT!

Everyone - and every pumpkin - made it safely down the bumpy road. Thanks to Michelle our tractor driver for being our photographer as well as an awesome farmer.

There were some other fun things to do at the farm and since we had the place pretty much to ourselves (we caught the last tractor ride of the day), we got free reign of the hay maze and the pedal bikes. Soon after I snapped this picture I set the camera down and got my own pedal bike and the three of us kicked up some dust together. Soon after THAT Richy and I were summarily asked to stay off of the bikes, as they were only for children (sigh).

All the hard farm work made for big muscles:

Linus has loved going to farms since he was tiny and it really is such a natural setting for him. There were several spontaneous "I LOVE this place!" statements from him.
We will continue to head back to the farm as often as we can, though I can't promise to always remember the camera.

Every kid should have at least forty acres.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Happy Birthday to Richy

Richy's little brother and his family recently moved to Wisconsin for school. They've been exploring and discovering all kinds of fun Wis-cahn-sen stuff.

So for Richy's Birthday they sent us some Root Beer Cookie mix from one of their local breweries that makes tons of funky sodas.

It was indeed funky. They were sweet and a tad spicy like a gingersnap and had a "titch" (as Linus would say) of a snickerdoodle vibe. They were soft like a puffy sugar cookie, almost cake like.

They came with a little icing so we personalized them a bit. It was fun. And worth licking around your mouth - no napkins here.

Thanks Uncle Ryan, Aunt Suzi, and Cousin Lilly. It was fun. Someday we'll have to trek to Sprecher's ourselves.