10 on the 10th!

The idea is to take ten photos on the tenth of the month and share it, documenting a day of your life and the ordinary moments. There is beauty in the ordinary.

So here I am, another 10 pictures on the 10th to document our day...

I was up pretty early, and when I came downstairs, I noticed the moon!


And then it was off to school! Before the time change, the kids were going to school in the DARK. That was really hard for Max. We had him trained for so long to sleep in and not get up too early, and now we force him out of bed and out the door! So, for him, the time change helped!


I had to head to Yellow Springs this morning. Such a funny, liberal, kind of hippy town in our relatively conservative area of Ohio. It's a cute town, that has neat restaurants and eclectic shops. Definitely fun to visit. Here is a picture of the Post Office. I know, that isn't exciting, but almost all of the trees have lost their leaves. Except for these... I don't know what kind of trees they are but they are still hanging on to Autumns Glory...


And then it was off to Yoga for me! I try and go regularly on Thursdays. I have been working out a lot more since Ross has been gone. It is my effort to stay mentally stable :) I do a lot of different things, and let me tell you... I think yoga is dang hard! The cool thing, though, is that I am seeing improvement. Always a bonus.


And then my favorite part of the day... It's blurry, and we get cut off, but it helps, and I am thankful.


On Thursdays, I pick the kids up from school and head to Panera Bread. We study spelling words for Friday tests and do other homework. We also have yummy snacks! The kids don't have school tomorrow, so we skipped the spelling and went straight to snacks.... Here's a pumpkin muffin... yum!



And then, Tae Kwon Do!




With no school tomorrow, and dark, cold evenings, we decided to snuggle up and play some wii games together. I have fun playing with the kids. I love that they are "experts" in the games we play and they have to explain things to me. It is fun!



And, well, I finally broke down and did it... I made the countdown paper chain. I figured I look at the calendar a hundred times a day, I could handle the long chain and watching it slowly get smaller. I made it out of pretty paper though, so that I actually like to look at it! I made it with a two week cushion, so maybe, one day, I can take 14 rings off at once! Here it is... we take a link off as we go up to bed...

Playing in the Leaves!

So, we have a beast of a yard to mow (as I have mentioned). And our driveway is pretty long when you have to shovel. However, because our house is fairly new, we only have baby trees, which have minimal leaves, so thankfully, we don't have a lot of leaves to rake up. Well, that was the case the past three years when Ross was here. This year? We had a little change up. We have some trees in the nature preserve that we back into. This year we had a crazy wind storm, that blew a ton of leaves onto our yard! I wish I was kidding...

The day before Zoey said, "I really like to rake, I wish we had some leaves to rake up and play in!" Well, wish granted.

It actually wasn't so bad, and the kids had fun, I just laughed at the irony.






I know it doesn't look like a huge pile, but this was all theirs. They raked it up themselves (proudly) and played...













We always need to get some tae kwon do kicks in too!





READY, SET,


THROW!








And then we had to go shower because I was getting itchy just watching them...

A Picture for Ross

Just because I had the camera set up for a surprise project the other day...

I tried to get an updated picture of the three of us!

A Picture that Explains Why Max Makes Me Laugh...

Both kids make me laugh every day, but Zoey's way is a little more intangible. We can just see something, look at each other, laugh and say, "I know, right?" Yes, she's old enough to get that humor, now, which I love!

Max, makes our family laugh in different ways... sometimes just because he is a stinker!!

The other day, we were visiting with some friends. Long story short, they were our neighbors in one of our houses in Massachusetts, and their Dad/husband is deployed right now too. We went over to take some pictures of their kids and to have dinner with them.

I'll let the picture speak for itself...



He timed it pretty well, I have to say...

Hope it made you smile, too!

Ewww...

So, the other day, I came home to see these guys in our yard...


Actually, the first thing I did was make sure they were not technically in our yard, but in our neighbors yard. As they were chowing away on something, I snapped a picture and breathed a sigh of relief that they definitely were not in our yard.

After they left, I went to investigate what the excitement was about... I had no idea what it was at first, so it kind of gave me the eeebie jeebies...



This was a couple of feet away...


Gross, right? After talking to Ross and sharing it with my neighbor, I figured out it is a deer head. Hunters often times cut the head off and leave it, so probably some coyotes or something brought it into the yard.

Anyway, just thought I'd share!

Our Halloween

I was driving around and saw this crazy tree... With its orange and brown colors and a little spookiness, I thought it was the perfect Halloween tree!



Our Halloween is always a fun time and some thing the kids definitely look forward to. Zoey starts thinking of her costume in the summer. She narrows it down some time in August. She usually thinks of it and we talk, figure out a plan, and get to work. This year it was modeled after the American Girl Kirsten (or a Pioneer girl). In third grade, she got to go on two field trips where they experienced life at that time both in a home and a school house. I think this influenced her decision. Too bad I didn't make this costume then! Anyway, I got a pattern and she picked out the fabric. It was a learning experience for me and worked out in the end.



Max is different. He doesn't really think about it too much. We just offer up ideas until he's okay with one of them. He dressed like Spongebob. If you say he was Spongebob, he will correct you and say he dressed like him, there is a difference! His costume cracked me up. I forgot a spatula though, that would have been even more hilarious. I must say, the older boys in the neighborhood thought it was really good!



So, our city picks a date and time for trick or treating. This year it actually fell on Halloween (hooray!). We live in a big loop and everyone knows everyone and Halloweeen is the one night that everyone is outside. It is nice and pleasant and fun. The weather was perfect too...

Zoey showing off her treat bag...


And a curtsy...




I like her freckles in this one...


She thought of every detail, right down to the braids and the ribbons in her hair.


oh, yeah, and a witch stopped by. (She's a good witch though)


Actually, she's only part witch... the rest of the costume got lost somewhere;)










I wanted to pass out candy to just a couple of our little neighbors before leaving our treats out to walk around. The kids are patiently waiting for me to give them the go signal!


Just a couple more of Zoey, playing with editing...






Checking out the loot...


Making a trade!




This house has a big Halloween party every year and they have tons of decorations. They had smoke and the trash can... a guy jumps out of it. Max didn't like it but he didn't run away.


Our time is almost done, once the sun sets.


A fun night for the kiddos!