German News

Josie's German preschool was featured on a recent newscast in Germany.

Click on the link then click on the tab in the lower right "Deutscher Kindergarten in Seattle."

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/1190480/ZDF-heute-in-europa-vom-15.11.2010

Dance Party

Josie often moves the ottoman out of the family room to make more space for her "dance parties" This time the whole family got in on the action

On the Move

No more sendentary lifestyle for Benjamin!! Although he has been able to roll over both ways for several months, he has stepped up his rolling techniques a few notches. He was really going for about 30 minutes (notice the missing sock) before I thought to grab the camera. By the time I started filming he had already slowed down quite a bit. Before, he was rolling the length of the carpet in about 30 seconds. Watch out, I think crawling is right around the corner. I'll try to get a video of him when he is fresh next time.

Halloween

Halloween lasted a full week around here.
We made Halloween cookies. Juli and I make a good team. I like to make the dough and she likes to cut them out and decorate. Josie likes to help with all of it. Thankfully, the old saying "too many cooks in the kitchen" does not apply here.

Josie helped carve the pumpkins. She came up with a face design and scooped out all of the goop and I carved... Benjamin just watched.

We had a PEPS Halloween party here.

Here is a photo of the same couch with the 10 original babies from the PEPS group

On the Friday before Halloween, we headed up to go trick-or-treating at the Admiral Junction. It was a gorgeous, fall day and Josie had a ball collecting candy. It was the first year she really "got it" It was like a light went on in her head saying - hey, I'm getting a lot of candy and it is all free and for me!

Here is the front of our house with the jack-o-laterns all lit up. Josie is raring to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

Knocking on our next door neighbor's gate.

Little Piggy

Benjamin LOVES food. He eats so much and is just generally excited about food. He has started on finger foods and is loving being able to stuff his own mouth with teething crackers and puffs.

He doesn't have any teeth but he just goes to town on this teething cracker. I had to put down the camera because I thought he was choking.. which he was but then he chokes it up and is right back at it. Now, if I could only get him to sleep as well as he eats :)

Nightly Band Practice

Playing Hooky

A few weeks ago Josie had her first experience with playing hooky. She was supposed to be at preschool but Marty was doing one of his first paid live broadcasts from dowtown. The whole event was sponsored by Toberlone Chocolates and they had free, small, chocolate samples and larger bars for those who participated in curling and who climbed the rock wall. Needless to say, we did both as well as were given a couple large box of Toberlone chocolate for ourselves. Josie gave a couple Toberlone bars to her preschool teacher and all was good with her missing class that day. Sheesh, teachers are so easily bribed :) I remember being bribed a time or two with a nice cup of Starbucks goodness.

Waiting to "play" curling? Or is it waiting to "curl?"

Juli on the rock wall

Josie desperately wanted to climb too but the harnesses were too big so she opted to climb as high as Marty could reach.

Juli at the top ringing the bell.

Marty's turn

And Marty made it, too. The thought of winning a free Toberlone chocolate bar kept him going.

My turn

I made it to the top, too, but the photo is even worse than this one. A harness doesn't do anyBODY any favors!!

Laughter

Josie can make Benjamin laugh like no other. There is never a dull moment when the two of them are together. He may not sleep much but he certainly is a happy kid with a quick smile and a contagious laugh.

Pumpkin Patch

I'm a little behind in my posting but a couple weeks before Halloween, we met Jen, Mia and Ellie at the coolest pumpkin patch/farm.
We went on a tractor ride to find our pumpkins

There was a cool hay maze with slides and games

A huge dried corn box

Making corn angels :)

A rubber ducky race

and "horses" to ride

I'm not exactly sure WHERE she learned how to lasso but she was quite good. At least her form was good.

We will definitely be back next year.