October 27

This must be the year of wooly bear caterpillars. We have hundreds of them. Every day, Tyler goes out and sees how many he can find and put in a bucket and then he puts them in his magnifying habitat to watch them. He takes after Chase in his love of bugs and creatures of all kinds. Mia seems them crawling on the ground and goes over and stomps all over them and just giggles. I guess she is going to take after me and mu un-fondness of bugs, caterpillars and slimy things.

October 26

We carved pumpkins today. Tyler was more involved than last year but still not really that into it. Mike and I ended up doing most of the carving. Mike did most of the pumpkin guts cleaning detail. Mike carved Tyler's pumpkin (the bigger of the two) and I carved Mia's. It was too windy to keep them lit outside so we lit them inside for the kids. Here is Martha Stewart tip if you are carving pumpkins this year. Rub the all the parts you carved with Vaseline. This helps preserve them.

Baby, it's cold outside!

It's cold. Beautiful sunny clear skies but lots of wind. The kids still want to go outside but now it requires a complicated process of dressing two children in layers, coat, gloves and hats. By the time I get one dressed the other is hot and stripping off his/her clothes. It changes the quaintess of autumn just a bit.

Oct 25

Happy Birthday Grammy Posch!!
We celebrated Grammy Posch's birthday this evening. We went out to dinner and then came back to our house for cake and drinks. Tyler had such a great time seeing everyone. Mia was Mia and wouldn't leave my arms. I keep joking with Mike that I might have to go to college with her. Her first top tooth just broke through and the last couple of days havee been rough. I am hoping the second one is right behind it. 3 down, 17 to go! Tyler tried and loved calamari - go figure!

October 24

Well after getting home to weather that seemed to have bypassed fall and went straight to winter, I decided to sign Tyler up for soccer. I was a little nervous that he wouldn't like it or wouldn't want to do it by himself but what was I thinking? He loved it. All he talked about for the rest of the day was passing and scoring goals. The field is indoors which means he can do it year-round. He got a cute a little uniform after class and he wore it over his clothes the rest of the day. The hard part is that Mia wants to be out there on the field with them. When she turns 18 months she can start in the "Bunnies" class which I would do with her. Ha, what a sight that will be...

October 18-20

Mike flew in from Chicago late Wednesday night and we went away for a couple of days. We pretty much did nothing except sit by the pool, read, eat, drink and SLEEP. It was wonderful. My parents watched the kids and I think they had a great if not a little exhausting three days. The last two days of our trip we just played with the kids and enjoyed the warm weather. It was sad to leave. We had such a wonderful, relaxing trip and the kids had such a great time with Grammy and Papa. It's hard because Arizona and Chicago both feel like home. When we are in one place, we are always missing the other.

Peek-a-Boo!

October 15

We traveled to Tucson today to spend the day with our good friends. It was a wonderful and hectic day but when you put two 3-year olds and two 1-year olds in one house, that's to be expected. I miss my friend Sarah so much and wished we lived closer. Someday.. You never know.. Tyler and Tyler were fast friends and Mia and Emma are going to be our crazy girly girl princesses. Sarah got better pictures than I did so please check out her blog for some great pics of the kids. The funniest part of the day was when we actually thought we could put two three old boys in one bed (one of whom has never slept in a bed - Tyler Posch) and expect them to sleep. My Tyler was almost asleep before we even pulled out of their driveway.

October 14

Mia playing firewoman and veterinarian. Tyler baking banana bread with Aunt Lisa (God Bless her patience).

October 12

Today we took the kids to a pumpkin farm. Yes, they actually have pumpkin farms in Phoenix. They are just a little dustier than in the Midwest. The kids rode a ton of rides, Tyler rode a pony, they ate snow cones (no hot apple cider here) and just enjoyed the beautiful weather with Grammy and Papa, Uncle Matt and Aunt Lisa.

October 11 Evening

This evening we went to a community festival. It was really an incredibly well done event that ended with a free concert by the Christian band Lifehouse and a fantastic fireworks show. This has been a trip of firsts for Tyler and this day no exception. First time have really Native American Fry Bread, first concert, first fireworks, first cotton candy. It was also the first time he was big enough to go through an inflatable obstacle course - designed for the bigger kids. We actually waited in line for about a half an hour before we found this fact out so I pleaded, "could he just try it?" He did and you should have seen him climb up this huge wall. It was sheer determination that kept him gripping on for dear life. But he did - Multiple times actually. As the evening progressed, Mia got tired so my parents took her home and my brother, his fiance, Tyler and I stayed and watched the concert and fireworks show. The concert was great. Tyler loved it and danced all around with his glow necklace. Just watching Tyler's face while he watched the fireworks was the most fun part of the night for me.

October 11 Afternoon

Lots of swimming, lots of sun, lots of popsicles, lots of family and one large swimming dog. When you are three and one, there is nothing sweeter in life..

October 11

Hmmm. Big Bowl of Cat Food + Big Elmo Basket.. Ah-ha! I have an idea..

October 10

My dad and I took Tyler hiking at South Mountain today. We did an easy trail - Desert Classic. Tyler did great but he was clearly disappointed because he wanted to go mountain climbing and see a mountain goat and this did not qualify as mountain climbing to him so we saw a small foothill and I said, "Ok Tyler, let's climb up this mountain and look for some mountain goats and Papa will stay at the bottom and take our picture once we get to the top." This was a grand idea to him so up we went. Well we were not on a trail and the rock was very loose so I kept telling him to watch his step and steer clear of the cactus. He was fine, going right up and just a couple of feet from the top, I somehow get a huge ball of cactus in my leg. I have hiked so much in Arizona. I have done some really hard, I would almost say treacherous climbs and here I am trying to figure out how I am going to get this huge mass out of my leg. I tried pulling it out but the cactus just kept getting in my hand so I called down to my dad and said, "Need some help up here." I was seriously trying to figure out how I was going to hike a mile back to the car with this stuck in my leg. Well, my quick-thinking Dad took a key and ran it down my leg as fast as he could pulling most of it out and the rest of the thorns (which were literally 2 inches long) we were able to pull out. Immediately, my leg turned horribly black and blue but suprisingly never really hurt much. Tyler got a little upset and scared and I ended up carrying him down the hill but I was so ecstatic to no longer have a cactus in my leg that I didn't mind. We ended up having a great time and doing about a 3 mile hike. Tyler was a trooper.

If you look really hard you can see us climbing up this foothill before the cactus incident.