November: A Photo Essay

Let's be honest, the pictures are the most important part of the blog, so for November I'll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves and add clever commentary as needed. (When is clever commentary NOT needed? Exactly.)

Valley of Fire Half-Marathon, which has become a tradition for the non-pregnant years. (For me, anyway. Will doesn't get pregnant, so he can run every year)

Leftover pics from Charlie's birthday which were mistakenly filed under November. Need to talk to my personal assistant about these kinds of unecessary clerical errors...




This is the Chinaman (Flying Chinaman, Annie?) costume that Charlie refused to wear at Halloween. I guess it's only suitable for reading attire.




This picture makes it pretty clear who inherited whose skin tone; what's not clear is why Charlie seems to be trying to escape my loving embrace/vice-like grip on his body.


The occasion of this family outing was an extra opportunity for Halloween celebration at the nature preserve. Wait a minute, Halloween was in OCTOBER...
I expected Charlie to be quite shy of the ghoulish characters we came across at these festivities, but he was surprisingly bold. He really breaks free of his shyness when his uncle Sean and aunt Lori are around, probably because he's trying to ensure they don't waste any of their attention on their own child and lavish it all on him. Lori and Sean are the celebrities of Charlie's world, being two people who will never refuse a game of Memory or a romp in the backyard with him. We all love having them live so close!





As I took this picture of Antonia she seemed to be saying "Do you know you're stealing a little bit of my soul, every time you do this? Why do you do it, mom? Why?" Someone needs to tell her that we don't believe in souls or any of that other superstitious claptrap.




You need to enlarge this picture to fully appreciate it:
I've noticed that I pretty much make the same face in every picture, so I find it completely baffling that Charlie seems to have never repeated a facial expression twice. I guess it makes a little more sense if you consider that I'm basically dead inside because I've had my picture taken so many times that I no longer have a soul. You know, if you believe in that sort of thing.

Something that remains comfortingly consistent, however, is the facial expressions of all the art projects Charlie brings home from church and preschool. With one creepy exception:




These pictures are just to prove that sometimes Antonia's hair does not look like she went through the tumble dry cycle on the dryer. I generally have a lot of fun styling her hair, it just doesn't last very long and the camera never seems to be around when it's looking less than frizzy.






One day when Dorothea was over Charlie climbed up next to her on the couch, and then of course Antonia felt strongly inclined to join them (squealed at me until I put her up.)
As the situation progressed, Antonia banished herself to the far side of the couch.
The lighting was weird, so I moved them to the other couch, but somehow Antonia ended up exiled to the other end of the couch again...
Note the almost devious expression on Charlie's face. Not sure what that was about, other than to exhibit another bizarre expression from his unlimited arsenal.




This photo is displayed here as a reminder that Thanksgiving happened, and we experienced it. This is the only photo we have of Thanksgiving. But that is not to undermine the importance of being thankful, and swimming in the pool, which is something for which we should ALL be thankful.




There is a magical place called the "Bass Pro Shops," filled with all kinds of magical things that boys can look at and touch and shoot, things that are all FREE to experience. I may have written about this place before. The "Bass Pro Shops" have much decor in the late-early-mid-century Giant Fish style, and the ever-popular Carved Wood style, which is very pleasing to the eye and fun to take pictures of.



Finally, a few Charlie-isms:

Charlie: My bone hurts.
Me: Which bone?
Charlie: My tummy bone.

Charlie (at dinner): What is this?
Me: It's soup.
Charlie (looking regretful): Oh. I'm afraid I don't like this one...

"wore"- Your As in, "Those are wore treats? They're only for moms?"

"plares"- prayers

"DDD"- DVD

"Octopus Prime"- Optimus Prime

"zerio"- zero

"Guitar Herio"- Guitar Hero

"fork"- fort As in "Can we build a fork?"