Make a Smilebox postcard

Early Halloween photos

We went to a party Sunday, so we took a few photos before we left. Natalie and Meagan wanted to pose with their Obama sign, so of course we complied. We are busy planning for Friday. This is the first year that Meagan really wants to trick or treat with her friends, rather than just us. Luckily, we have lots of neighbors with kids.
One week and counting.... There are a lot of things on the line with this election, not just electing the right president. My brother's marriage is on the line with the California election. I honestly don't understand how anyone could think that allowing same sex marriages could be wrong. Our world is too messed up to begrudge anyone's happiness or love. Guaranteed, if we were in California, our girls would be wearing t-shirts and standing with their uncles urging people to allow what is only fair.

How cute is this?

We all had a great weekend. Sandy and Marc came down from Dallas with their two little ones. Harrison is 6 days younger than Meagan, and Gracie is about 8 months younger than Natalie. They hit it off immediately. Meagan has declared that Harrison is her newest best friend and Natalie didn't want to go to sleep last night without Gracie in the room with her. So adorable to see them being little people!

Happiest vote I have ever cast...

was the one I proudly cast today in early voting for the candidate that I believe can actually make a difference in our country. I know that in the state that I live in, my vote for Barack Obama meant little, but I have never felt as much pride when I pushed that button.

The girls went a little bit overboard last night with the bubbles! They had a ball covering one another in suds.

16 days and counting...

I can't say that I would ever see the day where we could attend a fairly decent sized Democratic Rally in Williamson County. You see, Travis County, home of Austin, has a great Democratic base. Williamson county, however, is so red it is not funny. We are just barely in Williamson County, and our mailing address is Austin, so we hold strong to that! I included pictures from the event even though they were pretty sorry pictures just because we were happy to be there!

Natalie LOVES her "Baby Frankie", our large blow up thing for Halloween. Since we don't celebrate Christmas, we like to get the kids excited for Halloween.

We had a great weekend with Grandma Lois. Papa Joe is in Oregon, so it was just Grandma. The girls had a blast.

So glad that it is Friday!

I love fall in Austin. It is beautiful here. Today it was breezy and in the high 70s. Pretty much, that is my favorite temperature. This afternoon I had the "privledge" of going to one of our school dances. Dances are very different than when I was a kid. We used to get very dressed up and our parents drove us back to school at night. Today's dances are much simpler affairs. Today's dance was right after school. It was an easy dance to chaperone because there were few kids there. I picked the girls up at 5 and we went to the park. Gorgeous!
We went to a mediterrean restaurant for dinner. Restaurants must just dread Natalie walking in the door. She is the messiest human being that I have ever met. Also, I think Natalie destroying April and Jon's neat apartment week after week must provide them the perfect reason to put off children longer! :P

This cracked me up!

From a September 2005 mommies Message Board:
This has become a recurring problem with her. She is getting up in the night, and helping herself to food in the fridge, cutting her hair (last night was the second time, I have no idea how we are going to fix it this time) coloring on everything. And the food she gets from the fridge? It's not to eat, it's to decorate the house with!! Last time, she decorated the kitchen counters, the couch, and my dh who was sleeping on said couch with chocolate syrup. LAst night it was an entire bottle of blue cheese dressing. She dumped most of it into a salad. When I heard her, she was mucnhing on a tomato, and had hidden my glasses. Her destructive wave had no end!! She colored on every piece of paper in the office, grabbed a chair to reach the scissors. Snipped a few hunks of hair in there, then headed to her bedroom, which is where she hid my glasses, then she stopped in the living room to hack off more hair, then onto the kitchen!! In kitchen the food wars started, along with the removal of more hair!!
I am at my wits end,,,,,someone take her please!!! At least until the first when dh gets paid again and I can work gates into our monthly budget!

I think this is reassuring! Maybe Natalie's little temper tantrums aren't all that bad. My favorite part is the dad with chocolate syrup all over him.

The girls decided today that they wanted piggy tales. Meagan got a haircut on Saturday, so her hair is a bit shorter. Natalie needs one! Her hair is all the way down her back now and prone to tangles.

Last night our sweet little Peanut, the littlest of our dogs, had a seizure. Pokie had one a few months ago and we rushed her to the hospital. The hospital told us that the seizures look really scary but aren't dangerous. Deja' Vu, right? Totally what they told us about Natalie. Anyway, we are going to keep an eye on Peanut and see how she is. I am glad that I am home today to watch her. Poor baby. She looked so scared, which is different than Natalie's seizures. During her seizure she seemed to not know what was going on. Peanut, though, had a panicked look on her face and has been very clingy ever since.

I sooooo needed this...

Without a doubt, this is one of those "Keep Austin Weird" thingies. This is our mayor! Be patient. The first minute or so is nothing at all, so I am not sure why it is on here. But the end is awesome, esp. if you are from here.

Trying to keep my head above water

I am trying so hard to keep things in order both at work and at home. The last month simply wiped me out. I have found myself doing dumb things that I never would normally do...i.e. leaving my camera at Walgreens after printing photos a few days ago. I even had the nerve to leave Baby Jenny (otherwise known as "her highness") at school today. I feel bad for my coworkers because I know I am not where I normally am, but hopefully things will chill out and I can stop feeling crazy. I can't say that I am too sad that we have Monday off at work. The girls do not, so I will be able to send them, at least for part of the day. Yay! The last few times I have had days like that one of the girls has gotten sick so I ended up just being at home with them. I really hope that does not happen this time.

Some awesome music!

Certainly I am not unique in the belief that music can evoke a lot of memories. Tonight, though, I am amazed at quite how true that is. Andy and I went to see Jackopierce at a wonderful venue; we saw them at the Cactus Cafe. The reason that this venue is so teriffic is that it is tiny! It is a small bar/cafe inside of the Texas Union on the UT campus. They do not even have a backstage so we were able see them warming up, tuning, etc. They even had brough Cary Pierce's eight year old son.
When I was in college at the University of Kansas, Jackopierce was extremely popular. They were often in Lawrence, playing in venues much larger than the one that we saw them in tonight. Andy and I saw them together several times, both in Dallas at Trees and in Lawrence at the Bottleneck. My friends and I went even more times, always singing along and having a blast watching the two of them. Shortly after I moved from Kansas, they broke up. I was pretty sure that I would not ever see them together again, so I bought tickets the second that I saw they were avaliable. I was not disapointed!
Peter and Mary were the best babysitters. We were fairly sure that the girls would be awake when we got home a few minutes ago, but they managed to get them to go to bed. I think all of the time at the park helped. The girls are going to want us to leave them more often!
Earlier today we went with Garret and Mayme to a local festival with a great name, the Hairy Man Festival. You just can't beat that name. And yes, they do have a hairy man contest, but no, we were not interested in watching that.

Last night's debate

I enjoyed watching the debate last night, or at least the parts of it that I could see in between the girls getting ready for bed and folding laundry. I think at least part of me was expecting a train wreck with Sarah Palin, but it did not seem that way. Of course, she did not answer very much directly, but at least she wasn't somebody to laugh at on Saturday Night Live. I was impressed by Senator Biden, whom I thought did a nice job.
On the other hand, the Cubs are not doing such a good job. This is so hard to watch!