The last few weeks have been pretty busy and fun at the same time. October and Halloween we lots of fun and I just barely put on the pictures on Flickr that we took.

Marlene went with the kids (neighbors and preschool kids) to Pumpkinland for Preschool one morning and that was a lot of fun. So you’ll see some pictures from that.

Then we all went to Gardner Village to meet the Cahoons (Brandon, Dayna, and Kellen) for a good time just hanging out. Oscar and Lily had a great time playing with Kellen and Brandon.

Next, the Monday night before Halloween we carved pumpkins for FHE and you can see our doings there. Oscar and Lily enjoyed picking out the designs and then helping to pull out all the seeds from the pumpkins. Lily was methodical and just “kept on going.” She’s our little trooper. Oscar had fun but was a bit more lackadaisical about it, but he still did work and had fun. He has learned to say things like “I’m tired. I don’t think I can do that.”

Then for Halloween night we went to the Trunk-or-Treat for the ward and that was fun. We had some pictures taken of us all in our costumes. Oscar was Peter Pan and loved it. Marlene made the costume and I am very proud of her. It looked fantastic. She received many compliments on it. She received help from some of her ward member friends and they were a blessing so she got it done on time. Sewing…I don’t want to try to do more than repair a small hole. Too hard. Or my special froggy bean bags that Grandma Scoville showed me how to make for Christmas one year when I was a youth. That was pretty fun and I made them for everyone in the family. My mom made one for our kids for Christmas one year (it is made out on M&M material. It is a family favorite). Feel free to check out these photos and more on flickr.

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We will have some great pictures from our trip to New York and Philadelphia. I’ve posted the map of the journey from New York to Philadelphia. We fly on a Thursday night “Red-eye” into New York City because that was the best flight. Then we are driving a rental car to Philly for my conference (we are just staying the day in Philly but I hope to see some of the historical sites (e.g., The Constitutional Congress and Liberty Bell) since Marlene has already seen them) and then we are back to NYC. We bought tickets to “Cyrano”, a play with Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner, but we’ve heard that Broadway is on strike so we probably won’t be seeing that. Sad!!! We’ll have to figure something else out.

Many thanks to our parents who are going to be watching our kids for the 5 days we’re gone. This is the second time we’ve left them for this long and we’re a little nervous. Not that our parents are watching them but that Lily may decide she wants to pull her hair out more. (Any suggestions for trichotilimania – please send them our way). We are doing some behavioral interventions that have been working to help her stop, although it isn’t perfect yet. We are trying have her stop sucking her middle fingers at the same time and she just resists that part, but she hasn’t pulled her hair as much. Which is nice, because her hair is growing in and we can do little pony tails. They are so cute. I must say Lily and Oscar are very excited to see Grandma Schaefer and Grandma and Grandpa Scoville. They will miss Grandpa Schaefer and made him some cards that we’ll be sending soon. Lily said yesterday can you write “Dear Grandpa” for a card that she made. She is adorable.

Here are a few random honorable mentions from flickr.

We’ll post the pictures from back east (NY and Philly) as soon as we get back, which is just before Thanksgiving.We are headed to Delta for Thanksgiving. It will be fun to see all the family and cousins (Oscar and Lily are so excited).