October fun

Violet and Oliver with Mom and Dad stand-ins...

Cousin Ruby loves her spaghetti!

Happy Birthday, Uncle Tud!

Baby girl sooooo sleepy!

Violet's new favorite "soldier" pose.

Books with Grammy (check out the major boo-boo on Oliver's chin!).

The food is always tastier on the other tray...

FUNNY cousin Ava!

cute hats from Auntie Miss! slightly large, but we'll make them work!

Oliver about to take a swan dive into the computer...

fun times with Omi!

I apologize for the infrequency of the posts lately! Not only have I been so busy with company and the opera, the website has been giving us (and others) so much trouble, I needed to work on fixing that before I updated anything else. Hopefully, it will work now- please let me know details if you have any issues!
First of all, we had a great visit with Omi last week! She is officially the best story-reader of all time. Oliver would actually carry books over to her and climb on her lap! Both babies had a wonderful time with her, and she was a huge help for Ben and I during a very busy week. Then Leigh-Anne and Steve came to visit- one of mommy's BEST friends and her husband (who Aimee set up, for the record....). The babies posed on their laps for a few photos, and it's so cute that I think we may need to use it as our Christmas card...hope LAC and Steve don't mind impersonating us on a few holiday greetings.
We also celebrated Uncle Tug's 28th birthday at Grammy's house- lots of eating pictures to share!

Some other quick funny things:

* Violet is officially obsessed with the "big" slide at the playground. There are FOUR sizes there, and I (insanely) took her with me on the big one one afternoon- now it's all she wants to do! She laughs hysterically not just sliding down, but walking over to the thing you must climb up on to slide down- too funny! Unfortunately, this doesn't work well when I'm at the park alone with the babies. Today the three of us tried to go down together- bad idea. Violet ended up with a mouthful of gravel, and Oliver thought he'd be ok until I landed on top of him. We all cried.

*Oliver is now into getting me my slippers ( with no training whatsoever! ). While I don't have many nice things anymore (not to echo my own parents too much....), my slippers are Land's End, fur lined- amazing clog-like things. Anytime Oliver sees them off of my feet he picks them up, finds me and replaces them immediately.

All for now- it's been a long morning, and I need a quick nap while the babes nap!

One last (but far from least) thing I want to write about:

Today would've been my dad's 64th birthday. He died 10 years ago next week. It's amazing- sometimes it feels I've lived another lifetime since he's been gone; other times, I look at photos and can still remember the sound of his whistling or see him in his maroon robe like it was yesterday. We usually go out as a family every year for Chinese Food (his favorite) to "celebrate" him. This year, I'm trying hard to get a book about him finished to give the babies. It's actually been really wonderful to work on it, and try my best to help him live on for his grandchildren.

Happy birthday, Dad. Wish you were here with us still.