Walking out of school today Henry unrolled this sheet of paper and read off all the sports teams he jotted down during his free time. In case you can't read "Henry style" I will help with the not so easy ones.... obviously starts with a W and G in correct colors for the Badgers and Packers. Memorial -daddy's school. LES is for the JETS, he sometimes flips the J around. Bokis is the Buckeyes for Ohio State. Now he is downstairs with Bryn and they are yelling for me to tell them what city the Cowboys are from... really?
Henry and Bryn have met some awesome neighbors and it's so gratifying to watch these relationships evolve as they grow older. One of these special people is Miss Elspeth, who fed us gourmet meals when we were trying to survive the sleepless days and nights after H and B were born, is the only person we know that finds a 4 leaf clover within minutes of searching, and has the best accent this side of the Atlantic. She now walks to school to pick them up on the 3 days I work and they spend their time playing at the school park, reading books or cooking up some treats until Jay gets home from school. It's worked out so well that it's easy to take it for granted. Yesterday she invited them over as I was studying and Jay was doing some basement project. They made a dress up costume out of boxes for H- town, learned a new rhyme and were given a new book about Arthur Ashe and his daughter. Oh, almost forgot the new gloves she bought them..... Today I got the below email from her with the picture that she took of them after school one day.
Thank you, Sarah & Jay, For letting me spend time with Bryn & Henry. I don't think of Tues. Th. & Fri. afternoons as a job, but as a privilege. Elspeth
Thank you Miss Elspeth for being the positive, warm, creative and fun person that we all adore.
We did put some effort into decorating for Halloween this year. The kids know just about every cool thing that Mallots sells for the big day so they picked out some of the stringy stuff to make cobwebs all around our house. Then we made some big multicolored leg spiders to stick on the webs and Bryn told me it was the best day of her life! Honestly, she did.
Henry didn't mind digging up to his armpits in his pumpkin and actually did a pretty decent job of getting all the cold slimy innards out. Bryn wasn't as fond as Henry was and only used a spoon and then requested help from Jay to clean it out.
One day Henry grabbed a pile of his dress -up hats and adorned most of the pumpkins on our porch with his hats. So, Jay's job was to make a cowboy and smiley witch on our biggest two pumpkins.
Their trick or treating neighborhood gang of Simon the bat, Bryn as poodle skirt girl, Oliver as Tigger, Evie the witch and Henry the tornado. It was hilarious watching the kids race from house to house as their bags filled up quickly thanks to all the neighbors who kept telling them "Just take a couple handfulls." They weren't shy either and at one point we looked to find that they had opened someones door and let themselves inside hoping to find someone willing to give them a treat! Henry's costume did make running a tad difficult but he sounded like a tornado as he shuffled by.
Several neighbors definitely got in the spirit and our favorite was Miss Elspeth! She hobbled out and offered the kids a pan full of brussel sprouts. No takers until she showed them some candy.
Two tired trick or treaters taking a break back at home.
This morning I heard them sorting through their candy, which is one of my favorite memories as a kid as we needlessly compared our piles to each other. I had to take a video.
We said good bye to my last grandparent, Grandma Matthews, who has otherwise been known as great grandma Grace by Henry and Bryn. We are all so lucky that we got to celebrate her 95th birthday with her this year at my parents house.
I will never forget her beautiful knit sweaters she made for us when we were little, waiting for her and Grandpa to finish golfing so we could show off how we could bike down Whippoorwill Drive, or the look of fright on my Grandma's face when I showed off my basement living quarters of a lovely student house I lived in with friends when I was an undergrad at UW.
Grandma, we all miss you but we are so happy that you and Grandpa are playing a round of golf, a game of bowling or some cribbage together, wherever you may be.....
Below is a pic of the great grand kids minus 6!
The kids had so much fun playing with all the relatives we don't see enough of.
Grandma's 4 kids!
Henry and the boys playing some football at Uncle Greg and Aunt Shiela's house.
Due to my relative lack of free time lately as I am trying to cram for my upcoming boards, I have been avoiding the blog. I figure I can take an hour away from re-learning endocrinology and post some pics from the last month or so.
Their first kindergarten field trip took them to a working dairy farm. They learned all sorts of farm life tidbits from Farmer Dale who was our guide for the whole day. He even took all of us (half as many parents as kids!) on a tractor ride to the corn and pumpkin patch to start things off. They each got to pick an ear of dried corn that they were able to feed to the goats and geese later on. The milking barn was full of action. As the kids were lined up I heard some squeals of laughter as they had a clear view of a cow's backside as she emptied herself and thought it was hilarious.
They each got to try milking one of the cows and below Bryn was trying it out as her friends waited patiently. As the long day at farm was wrapping up and we were hanging out in another cow barn I looked over to see Henry and his friend Ellen holding hands as they checked out the cows. It was precious and as they walked back to Farmer Dale they were still holding each others hand. A couple weeks later Henry was talking about how hard it was to let go and said "It was like we had glue on our hands."
Walking out of school today Henry unrolled this sheet of paper and read off all the sports teams he jotted down during his free time. In case you can't read "Henry style" I will help with the not so easy ones.... obviously starts with a W and G in correct colors for the Badgers and Packers. Memorial -daddy's school. LES is for the JETS, he sometimes flips the J around. Bokis is the Buckeyes for Ohio State. Now he is downstairs with Bryn and they are yelling for me to tell them what city the Cowboys are from... really? 
