Leaf Wreath

Yesterday, we made a leaf wreath of all the things I am thankful for. It took a little bit for me to get the idea of what is truly worth thanks and what is kind of.....an extra perk in life. Like listing my new ruler and cup is cool, but maybe something I could live without if forced. So my first choice was of course, toys. Mom grimaced and felt a bit irked when I said this, but hey, I'm only 5 and I do really love my toys. Next answer...Barack Obama. Upon further probing about why I am thankful for him, I said because he lives in the USA and I love America. After some chit chatting, I listed off the usual -- family, health, love and found a few creative ones on my own. I said I love the earth because "no matter how big of a rocket ship we have, it is the only planet we can survive on, so I better take care of it". That made Mom proud. I also was thankful for my great school and teacher.

Speaking of school, tomorrow is an early release day at 2:30, so Mom though I can just stay the entire time so she can get some cooking done. I packed my own lunch tonight (for the first time!) and am SO very excited to get to stay through the afternoon. This will be a good practice day before I make the switch in January.

That's all from here, hope you are having a good, short week!

K

Headbanger's Ball

I think there is someone we've kind of forgotten to mention lately. Daddy? No. My dinosaurs? No. Santa Claus? No. Oh yeah....Zach!

So Zach isn't too upset with us for leaving him out. He was looking at the pictures today and you could kind of see he had this perplexed look upon his face. We were hoping he would have his own Disney experience on the farm, but alas the weather was too cold for him to ride on any "tractoos" and he ended up with some cabin fever. The only remedy was for Grandma to take him to the playland at McDoo one day to burn off some energy.

He's developed this charming new "quirk" since we've been back....headbanging. When he doesn't get his way it goes something like this:
1) Scream and flail arms around
2) Find nearest available hard surface -- any wall, table or floor will do
3) Bang head against chosen hard object over and over
4) Look up to see if anyone is noticing his fit
5) Bang head some more until it hurts and he cries real tears
6) Get swiftly transported by Mom to a carpeted area
7) Bang head some more

This is a definite act of seeking attention. So we've chosen to calmly tell him no and move him to a "safe place". He usually stops after a minute or so and ends up being transported to time-out until he pulls it together. Anything can instigate this -- not wanting to eat, being told no or just when he feels like no one is paying attention to him. This is a new one for Mom, she sure hopes he grows out of this quickly.

Other than that mild little act of defiance, he's been really good lately. He's definitely a walking tornado -- he gets into stuff quicker than Mom can put it away. He loves to "drive" his cars, trains and tractors on the wall and he LOVES to grab one of my toys and run away giggling as fast as he can. And he loves to throw stuff when you ask him to fix it or put it away. He climbs and runs and sneaks up behind you constantly. He's saying a few more words, pointing to most of his body parts and very, very affectionate. If you ask him where Daddy is, he says "Mamaws tractor". He knows. His attention span is lengthening and even though meal times are still tough, he's getting better. So Zach, if you're reading this 10 years from now, know that you are not forgotten -- I just run the blog around here, so tough luck.

We went out for some shopping today. It felt SO good to leave the house. It has been hard being cooped up after our busy week. I got my Christmas dress today and am really excited for that. And excited for school tomorrow too! Did I mention I did all my homework already for the week? Yeah, I'm pretty smart like that.

Lates!

Disney Details

The posts below are a VERY detailed day-by-day account of my vacation. Mom typed it all up for future reference since she's pretty bad at remembering things! If you want to skip it all and get to the good stuff, HERE are the 200 some pics from our trip. The professional ones will be uploaded later once Mom has time to enhance them. I had a wonderful time and made many special memories! Enjoy!

Day Six -- Goodbye Sunshine!

We were not very excited to head home, other than seeing Zach that is. Tink had left me one last gift, a princess box to put all of my belongings in.

We checked out around 9am and hopped on the Magical Express Bus to Orlando International. Mom and I cried pretty hard on the way to the airport, we really were sad to go. It is so awesome that they took our bags at the hotel and gave us our boarding passes in advance. All we had to do was to go through security and get on the plane! Very simple and nice after a long week of planning and fretting over details. Our flight was delayed by 40 minutes, but we made up the time in the air and had a decent flight. It was quite bumpy and Mom gets really nervous, so she was pretty frazzled. We got our bags, found our car and paid for parking (ouch!). We then got to sit in Chicago traffic for nearly 90 minutes. I slept through it, but Mom and Dad were very frustrated. We finally made it back to Grandma's at 7pm. Zach was SO happy to see us! He wasn't there yet, but when they got back to the house from dinner, he gave us all hugs.

We spent the night there and got back to our house Saturday morning. Dad stayed up to help farm. It was the least he could do for Grandma and Grandpa. Zach was a good boy for them and other than a little cabin fever, he did just fine. Grandma is going to miss her little buddy, that's for sure. So we're home now, doing laundry, unpacking and playing with the new toys. Zach got a monkey from Animal Kingdom, but he's afraid of it, go figure!

I had a magical trip and really enjoyed alone time with Mom and Dad. I hope we get to go back soon, this time, with Zach of course!

Day Five -- Dinosaurs and Yetis

I woke up to find that Tink had struck again! This time, she left me some nail stickers that went with my pretty new painted princess nails. That sneaky fairy!

Today we were looking forward to a nice, relaxing day at Animal Kingdom. No strict schedules, no must-see rides and no early reservations. We even got to the park half an hour after opening time! Mom must have been going nuts. First stop, DinoLand USA (duh!). This place was a ghost town! We literally rode the rides over and over with no wait. I had fun running around the place without having to worry about other people or their strollers. I did Triceratops Spin twice, played in the Boneyard and did fun carnival games with Dad. Mom left us and walked to Asia to get fastpasses for Expedition Everest. I was relieved that I was too short for this ride so Mom and Dad couldn't force me to try it. I did let them talk me into the "Dinosaur" ride. We knew ahead of time this was scary. That was an understatement. Mom screamed a lot, closed her eyes and almost puked a coupled times. There were meteor showers, scary meat eaters and a lot of jerking, jolting and bouncing around. Very uncomfortable! I was proud to say I tried it, but never again!

So we headed off to Asia. Mom and Dad took turns riding the Everest roller coaster alone. Dad didn't tell Mom about the backwards in the dark part. She looked like she saw a ghost when she got off. The photo shot of Mom on the ride had her screaming with her eyes shut. She was afraid of the Yeti on the ride and kept her eyes closed. She coincidentally rode with a young girl who lives only 10 miles from us! She helped calm Mom down. They said it was a pretty awesome ride.

After almost losing our lunch, we went to have lunch at Yak and Yeti. It was yummy chinese food in cool take out boxes. Definitely our best counter service meal of the trip. We then went to Kali River Rapids. Mom and Dad expected to get a little wet, but seeing the people in line in their swimsuits, should've given them a clue. They totally lied to me and said it was a lazy river ride. They should have been punished. It was a wild ride down a river that had all 3 of us wringing water out of our clothes the rest of the day. We had to buy a brush just to get the tangles out of our wet hair. There was a small waterfall, but I handled it ok and reluctantly admitted that it was fun. We then went to Africa for the safari. This was a really cool 20 minute safari ride that had lots of real African animals roaming around in a nice habitat. I enjoyed this a lot, too bad we were all wet and chilly! We then caught a quick performance of Bug's Life 3-D, which was way too realistic, complete with effects that made you feel like you were getting stung by bees, swatted with flyswatters, sprayed with bug spray and having spiders crawl on you. Mom HATED this show. We were wet and grouchy, so we headed back to the hotel. We swam for a couple hours in the big rock pool (our building had a small pool, this was the giant one) and had lots of fun. It was a hot day and the sun felt great!

After getting cleaned up, we had to figure out how to get to a hotel way up by the Magic Kingdom for dinner. As fancy as our resort was, it was a considerable distance from anything other than Downtown Disney. We ended up having to take 2 buses and it took an hour each way. A major pain and we're glad we didn't do all of our dinners this way. We ate at the Whispering Canyon Cafe which is in the Wilderness Lodge resort. Here, the waitstaff is super-silly and loud! If you ask for ketchup, they bring every single bottle of ketchup to your table to embarass you. The food was BBQ style and they had all you could drink milkshakes. They even had singalongs and a stick pony race! I was SO cold from my Cotton Candy Milkshake, our sweet waitress wrapped me up in a blanket. Mom and Dad ate way too much and moaned and groaned all the way home. The Disney Dining Plan was a bargain to say the least. Everyday, we got one counter service meal, one sit-down meal (including character meals) with everything included and one snack per day. We ate SO MUCH food, we were never hungry and had to get creative to use up all of our snack credits. Mom had ordered some groceries from a delivery service, but we ended up taking most of it home, we never went hungry, that's for sure. And after adding up the receipts, we literally saved hundreds, maybe even more by doing the Dining Plan. Granted, we would never have eaten so much had we been paying per meal, but it was nice to not have to count pennies at each meal. The tipping part was a bit frustrating -- having to tip 20% on a meal that Disney says was worth $120 was a little misleading, but we sucked it up.

Back to that night, getting home was another crazy transportation adventure that ended up with us walking in the dark across the Epcot bus lot searching for our hotel bus. Long, long story, but Mom will never forget it. We finally got back, did some packing and sadly got ready for our departure.

Day Four -- Not so Magical Kingdom?

I woke up to find that Tink had left me a camera to take my own photos of Disney. Just what I wanted! Today was the much anticipated Magic Kingdom Day. Mom had purposefully planned for us to go today, after the kids were back in school and the crowds were supposed to be low. She had NOT anticipated that we would be SO tired and sore from our Epcot day. We all started off the day grudgingly and the weather was super-humid and cloudy. Off we went. We got to the park shortly after opening and rented a locker to store my Princess Dress in. We went directly to Fantasyland, in hopes to beat the crowds and lines for Dumbo and the rest of the rides. It worked, the lines were non-existant and I was able to ride everything in Fantasyland with no wait or worry. There were a couple technical issues, but nothing major. Mom and Dad tried their best to smile along through 4 hours of kiddie-rides. Just for the fun of it, I'll list them off:
Dumbo
Cinderella's Carousel
Peter Pan's Flight
Small World
Snow White
Mickey's Philharmagic 3-D (super fun for adults)
Tea Cups
Goofy Rollercoaster
Old Fashioned train to Frontierland

Upon arriving in Frontierland, we grabbed fastpasses for Big Thunder Mountain and had lunch at Pecos Bill's cafe...not bad food -- wraps, salads and chicken for me. Then it was time to get in line for Thunder Mountain. I was not excited. I cried getting on the ride and closed my eyes the whole time. Mom loved this ride when she was my age, so she was a little sad that I was so resistant to trying to have fun. We then got fastpasses for Splash Mountain, but I put my foot down and refused to ride it, which is fine given my fear of waterfalls. So Mom and Dad got over it and we headed to Adventureland. Here we did Pirates of the Carribean (lame), the Jungle Cruise (lame) and got some ice cream. The lines were short, except for the Jungle Cruise which none of us liked and it started to downpour. So we waited out the storm and then headed towards the castle.

Yep, it was finally time for my Bippidi Boppidi Boutique appointment. I was so excited. Too bad we had to go all the way back to the park lockers to get my dress. And then the Wishes Parade started, which made it impossible to walk to the castle. So we watched that near the Hall of Presidents, had front row seats and it was really cool! I spilled my popcorn on the road and the Baloo Bear came and gobbled it up. After the parade dismissed, THEN we went to the castle. I got my own Fairy Godmother in training who was so sweet to me. I chose the "classic" look of a bun and tiara. Mom was going to let me get hair extensions, but I could see she was relieved when I said no. They were kind of trashy looking with pink and purple highlights. My godmother did a very tasteful job with my make up and hair. When it was done, I looked just like Sleeping Beauty. For the rest of the day, people kept calling me princess and stopping me to say how cute I was.

After my makeover, we went to TomorrowLand to do the 2 things we missed. First was the Monster's Inc laugh floor where Mike made us laugh to help power the town. Then we rode Buzz's Space Ranger Spin twice, since it was raining. Yet another spin around, shooting laser gun game. I even gave Buzz a kiss and got his autograph. We ran through the rain to the nearest restaurant to have dinner. We had a great view of the castle. It was all lit up for Christmas with icicle lights and changing colors. We decided to camp out there to watch the Spectro Light Parade and Fireworks. We found out though that the view was horrible, so we braved the weather and snuck back to Dumbo for the fireworks. We were literally right behind the rope where they shoot them off. We had phenomenal views of the castle and both sets of fireworks. Watching them shoot off above the castle is something you can never explain or replicate, truly magical. After the display, we headed out of the park with the crowds. When I say crowds, I mean thousands of people all headed for the exit. It was a long process, but we made it back to the hotel around 9:30. I was again exhausted and went right to bed. I fell asleep on the bus again and Mom and Dad had to take my tiara out while putting my jammies on. It was a fun day, despite the initial grumpiness and evening rain. I should've taken a picture of Mom's hair at 9pm! She was looking rough. Go figure we left the ponchos back at the hotel! Coming up next, our last day at Animal Kingdom!

Day 3 -- Around the World in a Day

I woke up to find that Tinkerbell had visited us again! This time, she left me Minnie Mouse Ears with my name embroidered on them, how sweet. We got to Epcot right after the park opened. We immediately went to the Character Spot so I could meet and greet a few. Mom once again got sent off on a fastpass mission. This time it was to score tickets for Soarin'. She got them and came back to see me getting photos taken with Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy and Donald. We then went on the Nemo ride where you hop in a clamshell and ride through the movie with all the Nemo friends. After that, we walked around the real aquariums and saw sharks, dolphins, turtles and of course, clownfish. At 10:00, it was time to go Talk with Crush. This was one of the coolest things we saw. We sat in a small theater with an animated Crush the Turtle. Amazingly, he was able to see us, ask us questions and respond to them. He was so funny and very interesting to chat with. Mom still hasn't figured out how they did that. Finally, our fastpass window had arrived and we headed to Soarin'. Here, you sit in a hanglider type thing and "fly" over the world. Complete with breezes, swings and ups and downs. You feel like your feet are dangling over the mountains and oceans. It was pretty cool -- really cool that Mom didn't barf on us. It is the 2nd most hyped new ride. Again, not what we had anticipated, but still neat. Next we went on Ellen's Energy Adventure. It was an interactive ride through the dinosaur era to learn where energy comes from. Very educational, fun and even a little scary. Lunch time already, so we walked to England and ate at a pub. Mom had bangers n' mash that tasted just like the plate she had in London, Dad reluctantly had fish and chips. Mom forgot that it counted as a table service meal, so we had to cancel another reservation -- long story, but it was good.

We liked our lunch so much, we risked having it come back up at the GM Test Track. Another fast pass ride that we had tickets for. Here, you ride in a "test car" and get put through rough roads, extreme weather and handling tests. At the end, you are shot out on to a race trac and whipped around at 70 mph. I had fun and once again, was happy Mom kept her lunch down. We then went on the Spaceship Earth ride (inside the giant golf ball) and I played around at Innovations. I was exhausted after that, so I crashed in the stroller while Mom and Dad toured the world. I slept from the U.K. to Italy! Mom and Dad liked France and had some wine and pastries. Too bad I was sleeping, I missed seeing Aladdin and Jasmine in Morocco. After I woke up, we walked around some more and then went to Norway. They talked me in to riding Maelstrom which is a boat ride through Norway. I did NOT like the waterfall at the end!

Finally, it was time for our Princess Dinner in Norway. This was money well spent. I got to see all the princess in one spot. They came to my table, gave me an autograph and took a picture with me. The Norwegian food was not our favorite, but the price you pay to see the princesses. After that, we went to Mexico, rode the boat ride and shopped around. I loved the Kidcot stations at each country and had fun making my masks. We then found our spot for the fireworks, we had to secure it an hour early. We sat in front of Norway and were soon surrounded by hundreds of people. The show was incredible to say the least. We then followed the masses to the buses and slowly made our way back to the hotel. I think I fell asleep again. 13 hours in Epcot would do that to you too! I did wake up to see that Tink left me a sleeping beauty nightgown for the night. I was so happy. This was definitely the most magical day of all. But can it compete with the Magic Kingdom?

Day Two -- Thrills and Chills

I woke up to find that Tinkerbell had left me a gift! A new cup and a Minnie Mouse t-shirt! She sure is sneaky. She also left me a little purse filled with money to make "pressed pennies" with. I ended up doing about 20 different kinds. We got an early start off to Hollywood Studios again to wrap up what we didn't do the day prior. We had a breakfast reservation at 9 am at Hollywood and Vine. It was pretty sweet to walk past the lines of hundreds at the turnstyles and walk right into the park -- ALONE! Something magical about being in the park with no one else. We were seated right away and the characters from Playhouse Disney began coming by. We filled up our plates from the breakfast buffet and Mom ventured out to score fastpass tickets for the Toy Story ride. She was allowed to go about halfway into the park and wait behind a rope with a few other people. At exactly 9 o'clock, the guard let down the rope and the chaos began. There were literally hundreds of people, all running towards Toy Story Midway Mania. Elbows were flying, kids were crying and adults were yelling. Fortunately, she was already halfway in the park and one of the first ones at the ride. She immediately got 3 tickets while probably a thousand people were coming up behind her. Good thing we got the tickets, because the ride sold out by noon. So we finished up breakfast and I was able to see all my favorite characters and get their autographs. I even danced with them. The food was good and we were ready to go.

We had a few minutes to kill before our allowed return time of 10:00. So we walked around and got acquainted with the Pixar area of the park. Finally, it was our turn to ride the most hyped-up ride at Disney. We breezed past the stand-by line and got on in about 5 minutes. The ride was cool --- an interactive 3-D game where you shoot at carnival games with a little gun on your car and score points. Mom beat Dad and I hands down! It was a very dizzy ride with lots of stimulation! Was it cool? Yes. Worth all the pandemonium and crowds? No. After that, we headed to the 10:30 showing of Playhouse Disney. It was neat to see all the TV characters playing out the shows live and I had fun singing and dancing along. Next was another show -- this time Beauty and the Beast musical. It was a great 30 minute compilation of the movie, full of beautiful singing and dancing. We were debating going, but glad we went. Next....the Tower of Terror. I had said for months that I would NOT go on this ride, but with a little bribery and coaxing, I agreed. Mom said it wasn't that bad. Either she forgot or she lied to me. It was terrifying! I didn't cry, but I was pretty ticked off at Mom and said never again. She felt pretty bad and really didn't remember it being that scary. C'mon Mom, a 13 story elevator drop NOT scary? Impossible. After our stomachs came back down out of our throats, we had a really cruddy lunch at a burger joint. Not good. Then we saw a quick stunt show and headed back to the hotel around 2:30. We took a quick swim and then cleaned up to catch the boat. This time we headed to Downtown Disney where Mom assured me I would be pleasantly surprised. I sure was! We had dinner at the coolest place ever....the brand new T-Rex Cafe. It cannot be described in words very well, but imagine a Rainforest Cafe filled with robotic dinosaurs, meteor showers and ice caves. Grandpa Miller and Betty were kind enough to drive there to meet us. It was awfully loud in there, but fun. I loved walking around and seeing the realistic dinos. They even had a dino-dig area. More surprises after dinner followed. Mom let me go to the Build a Dino workshop and pick out anything I wanted, no limits. So I picked out a cute triceratops whom I named Trixie and dressed her in the cutest little winter outfit. I had fun putting sounds in her, stuffing her and making her birth certificate. I even got a baby dino and egg to go with her. After some shopping, Gramps and Betty left for home and we caught the next bus back to the resort. I had a great day and was eager to go to bed. Coming up next, Epcot!

Disney Day One -- Happy Birthday!

After a good night's rest at a hotel near Midway Saturday night, we got up bright and early and headed to the airport. We were a little too laid back and nearly missed our flight. Ironically, we had plenty of time, but we were eating breakfast in the food court and not really thinking about boarding the plane. As we started to walk to the gate, we heard our names over the intercom -- "final boarding call for Alan D., party of 3". So we RAN to the gate and were the very last ones on the plane. How horrible could that have been?

We had a smooth flight to Orlando, it took about 2 hours and 15 minutes. I listened to my headphones, played Go Fish with Mom and loved looking out the window. When we landed, it was warm and sunny. There was a bit of a delay with the Disney Transportation bus. We had to wait about an hour between checking in at the bus desk and actually getting on the bus. That's what you get for free service. The bus ride to our resort took about 30 minutes. We finally got to Saratoga Springs Resort at about 2pm. We had a quick lunch at the restaurant on site. We checked in, but our room wasn't ready, so we hopped on the first bus to Hollywood Studios to start the fun. When we checked in, they knew it was Mom's birthday, so they had a birthday badge for her and she got a card from Sleeping Beauty and a call from Goofy. All day, the Disney Staff made sure to say Happy Birthday to Mom and make her day extra special. She even had balloons waiting for her back at the room.

So on to Hollywood Studios. The bus service was smooth and we made it there by 3pm. Our first stop was the giant sourcerer's hat in the center of the park. Then we did the Great Movie Ride, which Dad thought was kind of lame, but I liked it. After that, we rode Star Tours. I was scared, but I quickly proclaimed it to be my favorite ride. It was a bumpy, flight simulation through Star Wars. Next we saw the Muppet Show in 3D. It was so cool and realistic, we had front row seats. The park was fairly quiet and we didn't have to wait much. Our first dinner was at Mama Melrose's Italian Restaurant. I had chicken and mom and dad had pork and steak, it was really good and they even brought Mom a special birthday dessert. After dinner, we had to hustle across the park to get good seats for Fantasmic. It was a huge show that had lots of special effects like movies superimposed on the water sprays, fire and explosions. Mickey saved us all from the dragon. I liked the floats with the princesses on them best. It was a show like none of us had ever seen, truly amazing to think Disney does this every night. After the show, the park closed and we went back to the hotel, tired and ready for bed. I fell asleep on the bus and went straight to bed. Our luggage was waiting for us in our room as well as our grocery order. The whole process was so smooth. We were very happy with the resort so far. Even though we weren't vacation club members (we bought points), we were treated very nicely and felt extra special staying at our resort. It was definitely worth it to have the comforts of home in our room.

Catch you on the Flip Side

And we're off! We're heading to Grandma D's today and staying in Chicago tonight. Our flight leaves early tomorrow morning. Where you ask? Why Disney World of course! Mom won't have much internet access, so check back next weekend for pics and fun stories!

Hasta la Pasta!
Katherine

Real Change

What were you expecting?

Last night was a great night for America. Mom recorded some of the events in Chicago for me to watch on TV. This morning, I came running down the stairs and asked who won. Before school, I had time to watch some of the speech from last night. I had a lot of questions at lunch about what the red and blue meant and about the Senate race they talked about on TV. Overwhelming. How do you grown ups sort it all out? I really liked watching the First Daughters on TV. Sure wish I was getting a puppy.

I hope someday I look back and remember - through reading or stories from my Mom - about this great time. Whether the outcome of the next 4 years is good or bad, it is certainly historic and worth appreciating.

In other news, Mom went to her first Parent Teacher conference last night. Poor Dad had to stay home and watch sick Zach. Everything went well -- my handwriting and academic skills are top notch. The things we need to work on are forgetfulness and following directions the first time. Looks like I'll start going full days in January to help me transition to 1st grade. Mom is very proud of me and really likes my teacher.

Happy day to you all!
Katherine

The Votes are In

No matter who wins tonight, John McCain will be President over our school. We, the children voted and our voices were heard. Mom tried explaining to me that it doesn't work that way, but I'm pretty convinced he'll be our President. I hope he improves the lunch system. I voted for Obama. I told Mom and Dad that last night out of the blue (no pun intended). Dad was worried that I'd been hearing too much of Mom's liberal rhetoric, but I told them I chose him because he is from Illinois.

We just got back from voting. I carried my American Flag with me and was very excited, although disappointed I didn't get a ballot. Zach isn't feeling well and was miserable to say the very least. More like a possessed dictator enraged by democracy. He screamed so horrible loud that Mom got more dirty looks than Sarah Palin at a Pro Choice rally. Mom couldn't even listen to the worker's instructions, he was screaming THAT loud. So Mom had to vote quickly. Hopefully she chose the right people. It was beyond frustrating. Mom's face was so red she looked like a Republican. BUT, if people in war torn countries can cross villages full of terrorists and gunmen on their way to the polls, surely Mom can handle a screaming toddler. Oh Zach, if only you knew.

So there's my experience for Election 08. Hopefully the election will go smoothly and we'll know the results soon!

Yay America!
Katherine

Bewitching

Hi all, sorry for the late posting. Dad had us up at the crack of dawn Saturday to go farming. They have internet there, but it is SLOW, so Mom had to wait until we got back. We sure had a great time trick-or-treating Friday night with my friends, Addie & Adam. Zach fought putting on his duck/chicken/turkey costume with every ounce of his being. But once he got outside with us big kids, he got over it really fast and forgot all about his troubles. He had fun following us up to the doors, but he didn't do the candy part. He was pretty darn cute waddling up and down the street. Addie and I got a *little* competitive about racing to the door and had to be reminded to wait for the little ones. After my pals left, we loaded up the wagon and went out some more! We ended up just leaving our bowl of candy on the porch so people could help themselves. Surprisingly, we had over half of it left at the end of the night. I had to dump my bucket into a bag 5 times. We got home and weighed the loot -- 5.2 pounds! Ridiculous! Times may be tough, but people around here are still handing out the good stuff. Better hide it from Mom and Dad! My costume was cute, but Mom swears that is the first and last time she buys a costume from Wal Mart. The piece of junk was falling apart by the end of the night and my lights stopped lighting up before the night was done. Plus the hat wouldn't stay on. Bet they must not have Halloween in China.

The rest of the weekend was fun. We spent a LOT of time in the combine with Dad. He can't steer too well with the 4 of us crammed in there, but he likes it. Later, he bungeed the carseat into the combine for Zach to ride shotgun. Zach had a blast. The worst part about farming is keeping Zach content when we're in the house. He wants to be outside constantly. It is the first thing he says when he wakes up "Let's go tractor!". The combine broke down late Sunday, so Dad stuck around to fix it. We got back late last night and went right to bed.

Only 6 more days till Disney, woohoo! We've got lots to do and pack. Not sure how Zach is going to do with Grandma that week. Sure hope she has the tractor keys handy!

Have a good week!
Katherine






Ol' Waddles bringing up the rear

















Me and my tricer-a-lantern, can YOU see him?