Recently, someone requested that I post something new so that sick Halloween meatloaf hand would be gone from her sidebar.  Wish granted, madam... wish granted. 

So have you started "preparing" for Halloween by buying bags of candy yet?  How many have you gone through?  I'm through one bag of Kit Kats.

Also, I want to branch out this year from the usual mummy dogs that I make for dinner.  So I started researching.  And for some reason I think you want to see the options that I have found.


First, the for sure most disgusting, realistic one that might actually taste kind of good:

Last week, Nathan had school off while Cody didn't.  Nathan asked to go to Cody's classroom to read to his little preschool class. 

 And then today, Cody's class took a fieldtrip to the botanical gardens to see scarecrows and get pumpkins from the patch. 







 Ok, I'm all for truth in blogging... the pumpkin patch was pretty lame.  Oh there is NOTHING like a Texas pumpkin patch.  Sigh.  I guess we're ruined for everything else...

It rained all day yesterday and all day today.  So we went to the zoo.  I know, you're thinking we're crazy, and most of the rest of Boise did too because we saw ONE OTHER GROUP there.  It was amazing.  We had the entire zoo to ourselves.  The boys had school off, Ryan had the afternoon off, so rain or no rain, we went to the zoo.  It was awesome.  Well, first I should tell you that Nathan has recently been possessed of a great passion to become a snake researcher.  To this end, he has asked me many times if we could please please please please please get a snake.  He has used all means of persuasion at his disposal, the best, perhaps, being that you only get to be a kid for a short time and before I know it, he'll be grown up.  Of course, this reasoning didn't get very far with me.  I just told him to get a snake then when HE grows up.  He sat, despondent, dejected, contemplating all the sadness to be found in the world, all wrapped up in never getting to have a snake when you're young.  He looked so sad that I offered to take him to the zoo to study snakes.  Thus we found ourselves at the zoo on this rainy Thursday afternoon.

Only picture taken:

Because going through the zoo while raining is really kind of cool and really kind of no big deal, but getting your picture taken in the rain?  Please.  That's just asking too much.

But we had a great time.  The animals were all super frisky.  The snow leopard?  Would have eaten us if he'd had the chance.  He stalked us and then raced at the glass and jumped up and scratched the glass.  Pretty cool.  The lions were huddled in a sheltered corner.  Have you ever just sat 3 and a half inches from the face of a huge freaking male lion?  Him not moving, you not moving, no noise, NO ONE interrupting you, no other person vying for a look at the lion?  It was... amazing.  It was an awesome day.  I experienced the animals at the zoo in a way I never have before because it was like they were there just for me.  Well, us.  Anyway.  We had a good rainy day.  Came home and watched Home Alone 2.  Obviously, because it is October 6th and that makes sense to some people in this household.

Ryan has been sick all week.   That's been pretty lame.  I haven't been blogging much or taking pictures.  But my kids have.  One afternoon, I just let them at the digital camera.  I took out quite a few shirt shots and random toy shots, here's a few that I think are representative of their lives.










Oh, I guess I did take one picture recently.  I don't know why, but this little get up really spoke to me...