This is why we are always so tired...

This is what Swine Flu looks like. You can almost see the red blood-shot eyes.
This was a day after his high fever came down a degree or two. Once he got below 102, he started acting a little more normal.

This is what Roger may have looked like as a child who just lost one of his top incisor teeth. You just don't know what you'll get if you ask Eli to smile.

This is what the "cool mom" made to give away at the class Halloween party I know, I don't give myself enough credit. Once Michael Myers ate the Tootsie Roll from inside his witch's finger, he proceeded to lodge the finger into the eye of his mask. It was graphic and cool.

This is Megatron. He will be trick or treating with his arch-enemy, Optimus Prime. Hmmm. They get along about as well as Jude and Eli.

These are second-graders. They wear you out!

Mother nature is such a...

Mother nature has been so unpredictable. We grow what seems like endless pumpkin vines. Then later in the season, those vine produce fruit. We get excited, but then that fruit takes a bad turn and starts to rot during the last week of September. Then we are left with one speck of hope as we only have one small pumpkin left that is in race to turn orange before it's too late. Then it snows and we have to pick the poor little pumpkin before it can turn orange to save it from the hard freeze. Will the little guy survive? On the upside, these lovely "snow cone" flowers popped up the morning after the snow. It's a new hybrid that only blooms during October snow storms.

Little Brother (10/6)

The death of Big Brother (10/6).
He was beginning to turn such a lovely shade
of orange, too.

The face of a winner

We continue to wind down to the end of the racing season. Eli has brought home a few more trophies. Last week he won one more, but mom hasn't had a chance to take a picture of all of them. He now has three second-place and two third-place trophies. Dad re-geared his bike and we were excited to see how much more speed Eli would get, but no kids showed up in his class that weekend. He had to race an 8-year-old novice boy and a 9-year-old novice girl and ended up taking third. This weekend it snowed, so they did not race. Three more weekends and we'll be done (if the weather holds.) He'll be bigger next Spring and maybe speedier. Only time will tell.