Child labor made this happen

In my never-ending quest to be the world's best snow shoveler, I made a discovery this winter. They have a display at the grocery store the day before there's snow in the forecast. Every time. The display must be on wheels. Anyway, it's some sort of magic chemical that you sprinkle on your driveway when you shovel. Well, I happened to go to the store CHILD-FREE the day before our last storm, and so I took advantage of the blissful quiet unrushed time to actually read the label. It suggested sprinkling it on the driveway either pre-snow or with a light dusting. I threw caution (and my $3.95) to the wind and bought a bottle.

Holy moly, it worked! I'm a convert. I shoveled in my usual shoddy way and when I came out an hour later, the driveway was totally melted. Yay for chemicals and technology.

Since we've no place to go

We had a New Year's Eve snowstorm -- just enough for sledding:

My big two love love LOVE the snow. Truck? Not so much. He's more of a sit-inside-and-drink-cocoa type. He did catch a few on his tongue though.

Be a Light

This song has helped me today. We came home, made challah, let the kids have seconds on grape juice, lit candles, opened presents, and let them take too long in the bath (yes, with bubbles tonight). What can you do?

Over the river and through the woods

Sunday it was 70, which was amazing, so we took a bike ride through the "forest park" by our house:


Well, two people rode. One locomoted on his Spiderman scooter.


It was just spectacular. Hard to believe that in a month, everything will be cold and brown til spring!

Pumpkin Party

Trucko went to his friend Gabby's pumpkin patch party this weekend. She was turning three.

He got his face painted with a pumpkin.

He got to be a witch with two of his favorite ladies.

He got to ride a pony named Lightning (as in, yes, McQueen).

Plus, pumpkin decorating, pizza and cupcakes and general preschooler mayhem. A wonderful party!

Cheertime

The local high school sponsors a cheerleading clinic each fall. The girls have 2 hours of practice where they learn cheers and a dance on a Friday afternoon. Then, they come back for the home football game and get to cheer on the sidelines for the first half. This was Noodle's first year doing it, and I am certain we will be back. So fun! And what a group of amazing high school girls to put this on for the little ones.

uh-MAZE-ing

Nothing says fall in the midwest like a corn maze. The Liberty Corn Maze in Liberty, MO, is the largest corn maze in Missouri. It's about 45 minutes from our house

Truck made it through one (of the 4) maze and declared it boring, so I took him next door to the pumpkin patch. Couldn't blame him. At his height, that's a whole lot of, well, corn.

The big kids did three mazes, for a total of almost SEVEN MILES. Like I said, a LOT of corn.