Miscellaneous November Events

We've had a rather warm autumn, which has allowed Forrest to play outside a lot. He enjoys puddling in the mud at the empty lot that will soon become Toalson Park in our neighborhood. Sometimes he comes home very muddy. We wish we'd gotten a picture of him, but his shoes are shocking enough.
This is what the bathtub looked like after Forrest was done cleaning himself.


Wacky Hair Day


Brian's birthday



Forrest started a blog to educate people about the rain forest and why they should work to protect it. Here he is typing an entry:


This is the last photo ever taken of Mancha. We lost her to renal failure on November 13. In her prime, she weighed 7 pounds; at her vet visit on the Saturday before she died she was down to 3 1/2 pounds. She was all cat: loving, sensitive to her humans' pain, obnoxious, and passive aggressive. We will miss her.


Brian, Andrew, and Angi hung Christmas lights today. (It's 55 degrees and sunny and sure to be much less congenial after Thanksgiving!) Here are the boys on the roof in preparation for putting up the lights.

Halloween

Brian is ready for work on Halloween.

Forrest chose to be a skeleton warrior; he just put together two of his costumes from previous years and it turned out very well.



The make-up required a lot of patience, though.

Carving Pumpkins

Grandma Shirley and Grandpa Ernie came to visit for the weekend before Halloween. We went to the pumpkin patch, and, although the rain had made many of them mushy, we found four good pumpkins.

Brian, Grandma Shirley, and Grandpa Ernie after a long hard afternoon in the pumpkin patch.

Forrest and Alyssa carved pumpkins while the others watched Nebraska football.

Forrest got to carve his own pumpkin all by himself this year.

Angi carved hers too.

Showing off the jack-o-lanterns.

The Feast of the Hunter's Moon

Last weekend we went to the Feast of the Hunter's Moon at Fort Ouiatenon Historic Park in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Forrest tried on clothes from the time period.

He made trades at the kids' trading blanket. Kids purchased a small bag and traded the contents, bag, and string that tied it shut for items they wanted. Forrest's bag had a shell, buckeye, and a round spiky seed pod. He traded for lots of braided ties and a shell necklace:

Andrew, Angi, Brian, and Forrest went lumberjacking with an old-fashioned saw.
It was over there!

Happy Birthday, Jessica!

Happy Birthday, Alayne!

Forrest's Skeleton

Forrest has been really into drawing skeletons and labeling the bones. From top to bottom, the labels read: skull, rib, spine, humerus, phalanges, hip bone, femur, fibula. Yes, we know some of the labels need to migrate a bit - it's pretty good for a 7 year old's totally independent work!

First Day of School

Here are several images from the first day of school yesterday. Alyssa was off to teach 4th and 5th grade gifted students at B.T. Washington. Forrest went to 2nd grade in Mrs. Wood's class at Dr. Howard.

Our New House

O.K., you've all asked enough times; here are pictures of the new house in Champaign.



Forrest's room:



Hallway and living room:

Kitchen, dining room, and laundry room:


Alyssa and Brian's room:

Alyssa's Daemon

Forrest's Daemon

Of course, his should be constantly changing 'cause he's a kid.

Brian's Daemon