Katie and Max

 We enjoyed a long overdue visit from Meghan, Dan and Max a couple weekends back. Max is just a few months Katie's junior... so hopefully they'll grow up great friends. Most likely they'll get into some trouble together in 10-15 years, just like their moms did :) Katie took her chance during the photo op to grab a handful of Max's peach fuzz hair.

 But here they are looking nothing but sweet and innocent.

Brave girl

Katie has ear tubes! She went into surgery this morning like a trooper, and came out a very unhappy camper... But she's resting now and will hopefully wake up more comfortable and happy. The baby-sized hospital gown was a killer, just like when Ellie had to wear it for her procedure. Thanks for all the good wishes. And keep your fingers crossed for no more ear infections for the girls!

P.S. Here's Katie back to as-good-as-new a few hours after surgery. Love her :)

Belated Boo!

 OK, it's not yet Thanksgiving... so I've decided it's not too late to share these Halloween images. We had a very fun trick-or-treat experience this year now that Ellie is old enough to "get it." She was thrilled to hear that, in the words of Jerry Seinfeld... "Every one I know is just giving away candy?!"
And she's pretty much been on a sugar high since Oct. 31... so that's been good. Had a great time parading our bat and bear around the neighborhood. 

First haircut

Katie got her first haircut recently! She still has quite a mane, but now it's a little more under control. A little :)

Dress-up

 Not Halloween, but inspired by it. Ellie and I decided to play dress-up the other day... and then she picked a very large basket to take around the house for pretend trick-or-treating. Oh, we also decided to dress up Katie. Probably a good thing the dogs were outside...

Some things...

... are just more fun with kids. Case in point: Raking leaves. Elle, Brian and I had a fun morning chore on Saturday. Beautiful weather, some jumps in the leaf pile... hard to complain.

Therapy some day

In one of the rare posts from Brian:
Yes, we've traumatized Ellie. Again, you might say.
But if there were ever a reason to believe that our little girl would end up in intense therapy one day, our trip to Wolf Park is it.
Dorothy picked up some half price tickets to Wolf Park, which is a pretty neat place near us where wolves are kept on a large, fenced in tract where people can study how they interact with each other in as natural a setting as possible. So, we took the girls out thinking it would be great to see some animals up close.
When you walk into the park area, there's a set of bleachers and several times per day, a volunteer grabs a microphone and talks about how the wolves got here, how they're studied, how they interact and all that wonderful educational stuff. When we got there, one of these was going on.
During these presentations, other volunteers are inside the fence, playing with the wolves or whatnot. Ellie and I got a front-row seat and watched as the animals paced back and forth.
Then it happened:
"Well, it's about time for a feeding demonstration," the woman said into the microphone.
Oh, this will be cool, I thought.
The smell got to us before we saw it. It was a rotting deer, a roadkill deer, that had been dead for some time, gaping wound in its side. There it was, coming around the corner, being wheelbarrowed into the fence. The wolves paced faster.
And then, just a dozen or so feet a way - but still through the fence - it was dumped right in front of Ellie.
"Daddy," she said. "What's that?"
Um ...
"That's a deer, Ellie," I said.
Maybe she'd let it stop at that. Maybe that would suffice.
"Oh, no, Daddy! What are they doing to the deer?!?!" she squealed.
I panicked.
"Well, honey, you know how you like Mini Wheats? The wolves like deer. The deer is just like Mini Wheats," I stammered.
Ellie sat quietly for a second as wolves viciously ripped dripping entrails from the original hole, and now new holes that they'd formed in the deer carcass.
"That's not Mini Wheats, Daddy," she said.
No. It's not.
We may have gotten off lucky. She mostly thought the whole thing was just a little icky. She didn't put together that the deer had once been alive. We haven't seen Babmbi yet, either, and may delay that one for a bit.

Oh, the therapy.