My Guess is...

This video features _____ 

A)  A Broncos fan?

B)  A Ghost?

C)  A Kangaroo?

D)  All of the above?

My Eyesight

I have terrible eyesight.  This is a widely-known fact.  We're hoping and praying that Toby and Norah get BJ's perfect 20/20 vision, opposed to my 20/8000 (or whatever it is).  But recently I've had two things happen that have drastically improved my vision.  In August I had small plugs placed in the "drains" of my lower eye lids with the intention of keeping my eyes more moist and thus enabling my contacts to function better.  The result is fantastic.  I'm reminded of an old Brian Regan quote, about a friend who said he was delaying getting a glasses prescription filled: "How can instantly improved vision not be at the top of your to-do list?"  I'm so thankful that I can see so much more now--with the same old contacts and glasses.
The second event that has improved my vision is that I got a new camera for my birthday.  Hooray!  It's the most amazing thing since sliced bread, in my opinion.  It's not just that this thing can zoom and take HD movies (which I'm still learning how to get off my camera, let alone post here).  It's opened my eyes to see so much beauty and composition of light that I hadn't noticed while trying to capture shots of the kids running around the yard or dancing in the living room.
Perhaps it'll be my new hobby this year: using my newly improved eyesight to learn about digital photography with my new absolutely awesome camera....
Here's a shot from the other night while I was playing with the new camera: my birthday gift from a friend (To Say Nothing of the Dog) and water (I was hydrating up for race day).

My Soccer Man

Toby started soccer a few weeks ago. But this is the first picture of him actually on the field. The first week I forgot the camera and the second week, when I remembered to take a picture of him, the camera was later dropped and broke. So here you have it -- real photographic proof that my kid is enrolled in soccer. Along with a gaggle of other five-year-olds. He has a blast. And he's one of the few kids listening to the coach in this picture (you see his hand here), which is good.

My Cheering Squad

Tomorrow we'll be running in the Niantic Bay 5K for the second time together. While Toby and Norah will be at a friend's house for the morning they have said that they'll cheer us on from there.  I am excited to run this race again, and I've convinced my good friend and neighbor to run it with us.  Let's hope for better weather than last year!

My Thoughts...or fears?

Here's a link to an xkcd comic from last week that made me laugh out loud.  Mostly because this is the way I think, but also because I think I've said this very thing before (in a previous cat-owning life).

My Summer Harvest (The workers are eager)

We've been able to pull a large bounty of tomatoes and herbs from our garden over the last few weeks.  We just have to be wary of over-harvesting from our ever-eager workers!  Come on over for a caprice salad or pesto pasta!
Clearly, if the deflated ball in the background tells you anything about our house, it's that we're having much more fun with food than toys!

My New Task

While Toby is in school my next task is to get this cute kiddo potty trained. One method is to have Toby pick out a pile of books for her to read while she hangs out naked on the little potty. Sometimes she's afraid of being alone in the bathroom so we give her "privacy" in the hallway. Sometimes she sings.

My Kindergartener Goes to School!

Toby's first day of kindergarten was last Wednesday, September 1st. He was very excited! We met his teacher and saw his classroom the day before, and that night we picked out an outfit to wear, packed his lunch, and set out his nametag for the first day.
In the morning we snapped a few pictures in the yard and then went down the street to wait for the bus. We waited, and waited, took a few more pictures, and waited some more. After a half an hour (and who knows how many mosquito bites) we decided to pile into the car and drive Toby to school. I am so glad we did! We got to see a few kids from Toby's class that he met last year in preschool and over the summer. We gave him hugs and watched him line up and walk into the school with his teacher, Mrs. Young. Norah cried a lot that morning, but only partly because she missed Toby. She was also interested in playing on the kindergarteners' playground!
That afternoon we went back to the bus stop to wait for him to be dropped off. We waited for almost an hour! At 4:00 the bus pulled around the corner and dropped Toby off. We cleared up the confusion (the bus driver didn't have our stop on her route!) the next day and Toby has continued to be very excited to be in "big kid school" and is already wondering when he gets to go to first grade. (We've told him he has to wait until his next birthday to go to the next grade.)

Waiting for the bus..... When will it come take me to school?

"Check out my new shark backpack. I have the same one as a kid named Harrison and on the first day I took his backpack by mistake! Luckily my mom found mine and we wrote my name on a shark so I don't mix them up now!"