Happy Halloween!

The boys were very excited about Halloween this year.  This was first year that Eliot really took pumpkin carving into his own hands (literally).  Though supervised the creations on the right and left were his very own work.  The one in the middle was commissioned and supervised by Peter.

Last week we went to Sendiks (a local grocery store) where they had all sorts of harvest/Halloween activities going on including face painting.

Peter wanted to be a blue cat and was very pleased with the results.  When I take pictures with my phone he's never sure where to look, which is why he seems to be staring off into space.

Eliot wanted to be a cheetah.  Though "cheetah" was not part of the face painter's official repetoire she very obligingly adapted her tiger face to come up with a close approximation.  He asked for "the lines down the face" but when she didn't seem to know what he meant he was a good sport and thanked her anyway. 

The night before Halloween we attended the Harvest Festival at church which of course included costumes and Trunk-or-Treating.  After Eliot's face painting was done he painted Yellow Bear's face so she wouldn't feel left out.

While Eliot chose to be a cheetah, Peter chose to be an Australian redback spider (which was a costume that I'd made for him last Halloween).  The two of them had a great time crawling around and really getting into character.  Eliot kept telling Peter that cheetahs eat redback spiders and that Peter should give him a "venomous bite."

They both won on the cake walk (thank goodness!!) and were very pleased.

They each won a doughnut in the bean bag toss.

They settled in for spooky story telling.

The spooky stories included the standard grapes for eyeballs, spaghetti for guts, wet sponge for brain etc.  They thought it was delightfully yucky.

Saturday was Trick-or-Treating in the neighborhood and Eliot donned his cheetah outfit again, it's fun to be able to use your costume more than just once.

Fifteen minutes before Trick-or-Treating was to begin Peter announced that he wanted to go as a black cat instead of a spider.  This seemed simple enough--and what's the point of all this anyway if it's not to have fun?--so I whipped together some ears and a tail with the boys' "help" (which eventually meant their being shut out of the sewing room so that I could get it done without also sewing pieces of elastic to scraps of fabric for Yellow Bear).  Peter didn't want me to take his picture so this one was taken on the sly while he was describing how full he was.  All the last-minute costume making meant that we had only one of the two hours allotted to Trick-or-Treat.  This was just as well since their patience could only stand going down one street and back up the other side.

Once they were done they settled down on my parents' porch and stuffed themselves with candy while passing out candy to the Trick-or-Treaters that came along.

Peter dumped his candy onto the table to sort through it.  In the picture I asked him to say "Happy Halloween" in order to get a good smile but he wanted it to look like he was just beginning to say "Halloween" so he froze in the midst of saying the first syllable.  He's certainly one for doing things his own way.

Eliot was over the moon.  His dream of being a "real" cheetah had come true as far as he was concerned and on top of it all he had a bucket of candy.

Apple time!

Earlier this month we took the boys to the apple farm to pick apples.  There was hail earlier in the summer (remember the siding?) and so many of the apple were damaged, though still edible.  Eliot found this little apple that was just perfect.

Every time Peter picked an apple he wanted me to take a picture of it.  This was one of the few pictures where the apple was not obscuring his face.

Peter carried the bag of apples, at least for as long as it took to take the picture, then he handed it back to me.  Ten dollars worth of apples is pretty heavy for one little boy to carry on his own.

Picking out some pre-Halloween pumpkins to decorate the house with.  Eliot was very good at pulling it all on one of their little carts.  He took the job very seriously.

Peter picked out the perfect Peter-sized pumpkin.

The farm is a great place to make new friends.  

Home repairs

Earlier in the summer we had a hail storm come through the area.  It damaged my parent's roof and siding and they had to be replaced (thank goodness for insurance).  The roof was replaced first and it was a major event.  The boys saw the roofers come early in the morning before they left for school and then they were picked up early from school later in the afternoon to watch them finish their work.  Peter kept telling people that he would be a "woofer" when he grew up, until he saw them walking precariously along the eves, then he decided that being a "woofer" was a little too dangerous.  Then, last week, the men came with the siding.  Again the boys watched, starry-eyed, as the old siding was stripped away and the new siding put into place.  Eliot was especially impressed with the calking gun.  The men left some of their scraps for the boys to use in their own building projects and then I took Eliot out to get him his very own calking gun.  He spent the rest of afternoon calking and creating.

It didn't take him long to get the hang of it.  He informed me that the next time the siding needed to be replaced we wouldn't have to call in the professionals because he was ready and willing to do the job himself.  So that's a relief.

Smoothing the calking with his finger just as he had seen the craftsmen doing.  He's a quick learner.

Peter got in the action too.  Though the calking gun required a little more squeezing power than Peter could muster, he got busy with the hammer and drove several nails into the end of a fire log that had been purchased for that very purpose.  I love my little handy-men.

Serb Fest 2015

Here in Wisconsin summer-time means church parking lot carnivals.  I remember Spencer mentioning it once long ago when we were living in Wauwatosa, that every church seemed to have its weekend to hire some carnival rides and games and throw a party in their parking lot.  The Serbian Cultural Center, which is in my parents' old neighborhood on the south side of Milwaukee, also joins in the fun.  We drove down with the boys a couple of weekends ago for Serb Fest.

The cultural hall (which was similar to halls of the same name in our own church, complete with basketball hoops tucked up out of the way and a stage at the far end for theatrical productions) was set up with round tables for people to sit and eat the food purchased from the tables along the wall.  It was delightfully intimate with a dessert table that looked like a bake sale.  Plates of baked goods crowded in together and had that unmistakable made-in-the-kitchen-of-some-goodly-stern-faced-grandmother-who's-love-language-consists-of-discipline-and-good-food look to it.  And indeed, many such grandmothers were seated along the wall behind, over-seeing the proceedings and gossiping together in Serbian.  The food was delicious and our meal was accompanied by a traditional band strumming and singing on the unlit stage.  It was great.

And then came the rides.  Eliot was very shy of the rides at first.  It took three failed attempts to get him onto the ferris wheel.  Once on board he kept giggling and saying how fun it was.  Words belied by the vice-like grip he had on my arm the whole time, flapping his hand away for a milisecond to wave at Rissie and Peter as we went past.  Eventually, however, he softened to it and wanted to go on the ferris wheel again and again.  The Tilt-a-Whirl was another one that he wasn't certain of at first.  He was excited to get on the ride, which helped him last through the long line, but once it came to sitting down inside the shell-like seat and getting clamped in, he balked.  Knowing that he would like it once it got going I pulled him in beside me and pulled down the bar.  Sure enough, as we started to spin and laugh, he had a great time.  The Tilt-a-Whirl was another that he wanted to go on a second time

Standing in line is tough work for little guys.

It's tough work for big-little guys too.

Eliot wasn't too sure about the roller coaster when it was discovered that no adults were allowed.  The attendant was really great about it and boomed, "That's okay!  You go on, I'll still be here when you get your nerve up!"  Peter, however, decided that he was going to ride it even if it meant going alone.  He looked about himself with an expression of happy expectation while the buckling-up was going on.  And then it started to move.

The roller coaster was not wild by any means (attached as it was to an electrical cable that stretched from a pole in the center of the circuit) but there was a lot of rumbling and jolting about.  The expression of happy expectation was immediately replaced by one of fierce concentration, as though Peter was trying, by shear force of will, not to be tossed into the dirt.  As he passed by us we would shout and cheer his name and a self-concious grin would tug at the corners of his mouth, but not enough to break his concentration.  Sometimes he would glance about quickly, but always just too late, and he would wind up catching a glimpse of the people just beyond us.  When the ride finally came to a stop he climbed down from the platform with a big smile on his face and announced that he would be going on the roller coaster only once because, "it was not fun."

What's a carnival without cotton candy?  I was going to get the boys each their own, until I saw the person ahead of me in line handed a wad of blue fluff that was easily twice the size of their head.  Then I decided that we could all share.

The boys did a pretty good job of sharing it too.  They would take turns holding it and tearing chunks off.

The only trouble with cotton candy is that it's terribly sticky, and in the humid summer evening it began to drip a bit and I started finding it stuck to all sorts of strange places: my purse, my hair, my arm.  So after we'd all had our fill, the bit that remained on the stick was made to disappear while I took the boys on one more Tilt a Whirl ride.

At the end of the evening Eliot decided that he wanted to try out the roller coaster after all.  When Peter saw that Eliot was going, he decided that he needed to go as well.

When the roller coaster jerked forward, the same look of concentration came over Peter's face and for a moment I thought that he might be saying to himself, "Oh shoot, what have I done?"  But then Eliot started laughing.  And suddenly all of the jolting and rumbling and going up and down became hilariously fun and both Peter and Eliot thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the ride.  Later, when Peter was asked what his favorite ride was he said it was the roller coaster, "but not the first time, just the second time, because the first time I was not with my friends."  Having your brother by your side can turn even a scary ride into a fun adventure.

Beginnings

Today was Eliot's first day of 1st grade.  It was also the first day that Peter would be in the "Giraffe" class at the YMCA.  He had previously been in the "Koala" class.  As far as I can tell, the greatest difference between the two classes (besides the ages of the children) is their level of security--the Giraffes are evidently now old enough to understand some of their boundaries.

The morning got off to a bit of a rocky start.  I had arranged to go in to work late so that I could drop them off and having me around in the morning threw Peter off his groove a bit.  He was very unhappy to find that we weren't going to spend the whole day eating pancakes and watching Toy Story 2.  Eventually I sent him off to the YMCA with my dad, per their usual routine, and was told later that he went happily to his new class.

Once they'd gone I was able to focus on Eliot a little more who, after all, was going through a greater transition today.  First grade is a big deal.

We snuggled and talked about what school would be like until it was time to go.  When we got to the school we lined up with the other children and parents and waited for the doors to open.  One of the school administrators was out taking pictures for the school year book and as she moved along towards us she called out for people to smile.  The girl standing behind us with her mother mutter, "Well I'm not going to smile."  So we weren't the only ones dealing with some first day jitters.  It turned out that the girl was a 3rd grader whose family had just moved into town.

When the doors finally opened we worked our way in and Eliot started to look interested.  The theme for the year has something to do with building, and all of the decorations had something to do with Lego, including two cubical balloons on either side of the front door.  So far, Eliot was impressed.

We knew where he classroom and locker were because we had attended an open house last week where we had met his new teacher, Mrs. Core.  We got his backpack put away, and got him settled at his desk, all while he held onto my hand as though he were dangling from it over a precipice.  Finally it was time for me to go.  He was distressed to see me go but soon settled in as some of his little friends from Kindergarten gathered in around him.

When I got home from work (later than usual, because I'd gone in late) I found both he and Peter smiling.  "School was great!" Eliot announced, and he can't wait for his second day of 1st grade tomorrow.

Mount Rushmore and Co.

A little over a week ago Spencer and I took the boys out to Mount Rushmore to go camping and see what the area had to offer.  I had been there once before about half my life ago so it was a trip of discovery for us all.

Peter's favorite President was Teddy Roosevelt (because his bear has the same first name) and Eliot said that Teddy Roosevelt was his favorite as well (because he's going through a phase where everything Peter has/does, Eliot must have/do as well).  This was a couple of days into our trip and, I'm not going to lie, it was a little rough.  Both boys were exhausted (both parents were a little tired as well) and let's just say I photographed whatever smiles I could.

On the way out we stopped for the night in Sioux Falls.  The falls were fun to explore and the hotel had a swimming pool so the boys could burn off the pent-up energy from the day's drive.

We also stopped at the Corn Palace to have a look.  I felt a brief pang of childish disappointment to find that it really wasn't made of corn so much as decorated with corn (I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting) but it was still fun to have a look around.

The boys were a little creeped out by "Cornelius" at first but eventually opted for a photo.  It didn't help that he was first ever costumed figure to speak to us.

And finally, the Black Hills!

Peter was still a little small for some of the hiking, though he did give it his best shot when he was in the mood.  Eliot really got into it and enjoyed exploring some of the hikes.  It would be fun to do this trip with them again when they're a bit older.

Our campsite, situated on Horsethief Lake within the Black Hills National Forest, was a cozy little spot which looked better in close-ups.

I crossed the little road to take a picture to give a better sense of the close proximity of our neighbors.    It was still fun though and we had some really nice neighbors.  The neighbors to our right had two children a few years older than our boys and one night I could hear the mother reading "Mary Poppins" to them.  To our left, on the last evening there, a nice family showed up with one teenage daughter and a little dog named Rocky.  They introduced Rocky to the boys and let them give him each a treat (they didn't realize what they could have been starting) and later brought some S'mores over to share.

We ate all of our evening meals at the campsite and everyone was a good sport.  Our first night we had hot dogs (a favorite of Eliot's) and baked beans (a favorite of Peter's) cooked over the fire.

In the evening the bats would come out and swoop over the lake and above our heads, eating up bugs.  The boys would take a walk around the lake every day with one or both of us and enjoyed seeing our little campsite from across the water.

The sign said that you had to be at least six years old to ride.  It was as though Eliot and I had exchanged places.  I was the little kid, "Let's go for a ride!  Don't you want to go for a ride?" and he was the collected adult, "No.  I don't."  Oh well, maybe next time.  He was taking baby steps.  Patting them on the nose and feeding them hay was enough for him this time around.

Peter got in on the action too, which was impressive since huge animals haven't really been his thing up to this point.  I suppose it helped that they were penned in.

We visited a wildlife park called Bear Country to get our animal fix.  It was one of those drive-through parks where the animals wander free all around you.  Pretty up close and personal, but again, I think Spencer and I were the more enthusiastic participants.

We visited a cave which the boys really enjoyed.  They were delighted that there were sections in which the grown-ups had to crouch down while they could walk through up-right.

We took a ride on an 1880's train that took us from the town of Keystone to Hill City and back.  It was a half-hour ride each way (in theory) but when you're riding behind a steam engine on a hot summer's afternoon you have to be prepared to roll with the punches, or at least that's what the tour guide reminded us each time we stopped to let the engine cool down.  We didn't mind, there was a lot to look at.

Peter was exhausted before we even boarded, and the breezy rocking of the train was a little too much for him.

On the ride back both boys had been refreshed by a soft pretzels purchased in Hill City and we had a nice ride back to Keystone.

Saying good-bye to the train.

What's a vacation without a few souvenirs?  And what better place to find a souvenir than a quaint shop own and run by a local?  This little place was called "Earth Treasures" and we discovered it when we stopped at a small grocery store to buy some water.  Not only did it sport a really cool fence made up of tools and farm implements, it also sold rocks most of which were from South Dakota and neighboring Wyoming. 

We gave the boys each a dollar to buy something with and they both left with two rocks each.  Eliot chose a chunk of petrified wood while Peter found a rock from Australia with the fun-sounding name of mookite.  The shop keeper was a local woman who added up all of the prices and tax by hand and was full of information.  For example, the piece of serpentine that I purchased apparently contains asbestos.  Never fear, though, it won't do you any harm unless you try to cut or polish it, in which case you'd need special protective equipment.  It was a fun little shop, and I thought well worth the stop.

On the way home we drove through the Bad Lands National Park.  The boys got out at the first stop and took a look around.  But as we continued to snake our way through the park they were just as happy to stay in the back seat and play.  So when we came to a spot that was worth having a look at Spencer and I would take turns running up and taking it in before moving on.

During the trip Peter decided that he was going to be a rock climber when he grew up.  He even came up with things that he would need for his climbs (a jug of water and a jug of milk).  Here he's doing his best rock climber pose.

We spent the night in Sioux Falls again before the long drive across Minnesota and most of Wisconsin.  We took the boys for a swim and then rented a movie on demand to watch with them and help them wind down.  I had assumed that they would fall asleep in the middle of the movie but they hung on until the end.  When they finally did fall asleep they slept like a couple of little mookite rocks.  I wonder what they were dreaming about.