Halloween

 Halloween will probably be low-key around here (for us anyway) they'll be plenty of trick or treaters. 

Kyle has a diving meet and I'm sure Reed will do homework and study.

Chloe is dressing up as Willie the pig this year. 

The boys had their own pumpkin carving contest and Kyle won (the pumpkin on the left).

Don't Pass Us By

 Jason has been wanting to redo our landscaping, and as a "more is more" kinda gal, I certainly never thought getting rid of landscaping would make the house look better.  

Boy was I wrong.  

It doesn't even look like the same house.  In fact, one of Kyle and Reed's friends parked at our neighbor's house because he didn't recognize ours! 

Before

After

Willie Update

 Willie is doing great.  All the pigs around him have pink eye, but so far so good for Willie.

He's doing a good job of learning to walk "off leash" as we call it. (No, he was never on a leash, he's just learning to walk with Kyle. 

And he seems to really love the grass.

At this week's weigh in he was 52 pounds! 

What Reed Wrote

 Reed is writing for our both our neighborhood magazine and his school magazine, both of which came out recently.

This was for our neighborhood

And this was for his school

What I Made

 I've been in a crafting mood, so I finally made Chloe a Christmas stocking to match the rest of the family.

Here's what she had before.

(No, my Christmas decorations aren't up, it's an old picture)

And here's her new one! 

Last 3

 Cross Country season ended last week, and Reed had 3 races since I last posted to wrap up the season.

He came in 7th place in a race he thought was awful. He said his whole body went lactic after the first mile.  I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it doesn't sound good.   A bad day for him, still gets you a 7th place finish.  Here's the start of that race. 

Then I missed the next meet because it was on a Friday and I was at jury duty.  

Did I mention I had jury duty twice in one week?! One for the city and one for the county.  I didn't get picked for either (thank goodness) but city jury duty is dream compared to county. 

Anyway, I had to rely on Jason for information about this meet, and all I know is he placed 6th and I got this picture near the finish line.

This past week was district and we were hoping their team would win, which they did (they won their last 5 meets in a row).  Reed wanted to run under 18 minutes, so he was disappointed with his 18:18, but that was still his 2nd fastest race time of the year. And he finished 10th at district. 

Holiday Weekend 2

 So what did Chloe and I do for the holiday weekend?

Well, we stayed home to take care of Willie.

And while I was sitting in his pen, I felt some nibbling on my back.

I turned around and saw this!

As you can imagine, Chloe was not particularly pleased with the smells coming off me when I got home.