Still Life with Book, Speaker, and Doomed Plant

Before she left Portland, Cathy had a dream that a plant was suffering in a store somewhere in Portland, and that plant needed to be rescued. Somehow ignorant of our history of plant care, she thought our home would be a safe place.

I thought I'd capture the plant in photos before we had started forgetting to water it. Stay tuned for the grim photos of the poor plant's imminent demise.

This is Ed's picture and post, but after stuggling up and down between blogger and flickr we posted it under Christie.

Photos

This is a helicopter.

October is a hectic month, and it took me half of November to get it together again. This was Wrig's Halloween costume. I tried to make it a little more elaborate, but she has had a vision in her head of this paper bag costume for about an eighth of her life, and she'd have none of my fancy ideas!

Budding Photographer

Thanks Ali for sharing your tradition of giving your kids a disposable camera on their birthday. We did this for Wrigley's birthday, and she had a fantastic time. Here are the results:
The rest of the roll

When Grammers came last week she thought it would be fun for Wrig to do it again, and here are the results of round two:
And the rest of this roll

I am less than thrilled about being featured in front of the camera rather than strictly behind it!

Truth in Advertising

M: This afternoon, I want to go to Target and Michael's.
W: What's Michael's?
M: A craft store.
W: A craff store?
M: A craft store.
W: A crap store?

'Nuff said.

Wrig's note: Then Mommy whispered into my ear, "A craft store, with an F." Then Mom had trouble figuring out how to do the kite. Bye!

I knew fatherhood would be hard ...

... but nobody told me I would have to live for more than a week with somebody else's Halloween candy just lying around. As I type, I can see a Butterfinger, a full size Payday, and even a Reese's peanut butter cup. Sure, I could pillage. She probably wouldn't - well, might not - find out, but so far I have managed to resist the temptation.

So far.

Day 2

Today is Wrigley's birthday. Ed has Parent conferences tonight, so Wrig will get to see Ed only between 3:30 and 4:30. We'll go to an early dinner with him. I have a midterm tonight, so I'll drop Grammers and Wrigley off after dinner. We don't think she realizes how crummy it is that we can't spend the day with her.

We started the day with a celebration breakfast at Mother's Bistro, and Wrigley enjoyed some whipped cream and chocolate chips with a little pancake.

4 days of birhday

A few days ago, as Ed and I tried to prepare her for a very busy birthday week, Wrigley realized that she was about to have 4 days of birthday celebrations. How fortunate, since she is turning 4.

On Tuesday, we had Wrigley's celebration dinner (neither Ed nor I are going to home in the evening of her real birthday, today!). We had a couple of her favorites, orzo with parmesean and snow peas. Afterwards, we opened presents.

Here she is concentrating on a new marble run:

Wrigley Friday

Boy, I am glad it is Friday and not Wednesday still. It has been a very busy week!

I have a helper in all things. You noticed the pick blur in the To Do series? Here are some other helping pictures.