Halloween in downtown Walla Walla

Ethan's Lt. Commander Data found a kindred spirit in an adult Captain Kirk. Other costumes we enjoyed were an amazing dragon head, an adorable pilot, an extremely Wicked witch, a 2-year-old zombie Tinkerbell (sadly, not pictured), and the requisite weiner dogs in weiner costumes.

Preparing for the big day

The pumpkin was a little creepy for my taste, but Ethan did most of the work, so I couldn't complain much!

Quilt time again

To anyone who hasn't tried this, I highly recommend getting together about a dozen people to assemble a quilt top in an evening. It's a great reminder that many hands really do make light work. This is so important (and hard) to remember when you're going through a personal crisis and don't want to ask for help. Because all these people who love you are just crazy to DO something, and there are some pretty big things a group of crazy women can accomplish when they share the work. (In the case of this quilt, it also helps when you have Queen Sherri to cut out all the pieces and a professional to do the quilting! But still, the principle stands.)

My photo skills don't do this day justice

It was a perfect day to spend in Pioneer Park...and EVERYone had a camera! Ethan enjoyed sharing a leaf pile with some younger boys, and they seemed to love burying him. We aren't sure they spoke English, but it wasn't a problem.

Glam Dog

This dog deserves a lot more brushing than she's been getting lately!

Fall Fling

Yay, a costume party! I am such a sucker for costumes! (My keywording is terrible, but search for the word "costume" on this blog and you'll get a glimpse of how crazy I am...Ponce de Leon, Obi Wan, Sir Lancelot... I'm also crazy for theme parties.) But this year, I got off easy. When Ethan said he wanted to be Data (um, that's from Star Trek? The android? That's OK...no one else knew either) I started looking for patterns and found a whole costume for sale on eBay. About 15 bucks later, and no sewing whatsoever, I'm in business.

The high school students had some great costumes. The board-game girls took a well-deserved prize; I also enjoyed the Hannah Montana boys, the two-headed Elmo and many others. Ethan loved trying out the contra steps with all those high school girls. They are so patient and sweet with him--these are some pretty nice kids that Cliff gets to work with.

For the last song of the night, the principal made everyone get out and try a few steps, and I'm glad he was so...um, enthusiastic (obnoxious? :)) about it. We had a great workout and some good laughs as well--we needed the push!

Quiltin' bee

I got in on a fun project--making this quilt! It has me thinking that maybe I could actually get some of my piles of fabric made into something. Of course, it is easier to do with eleven people, two ironing boards, and half a dozen sewing machines.

P.S. Click back to August and scroll down a bit to see the pictures I finally got posted from our trip to see Brian and Spring.

Pumpkin patch

We used to dress Ethan up and take a zillion pictures of him at Klicker's every fall. We still try to go fairly regularly, but I suspect that more of the camera time is devoted to glamour shots of the dog.

Church barn party

Super fun time at the Dietrichs! Ethan got to do all kinds of good dangerous stuff like archery and riding the ATV. He was looking forward to the donut-eating contest most of all until the organizers decided kids would do it in pairs. I should have taken a picture of the nauseated look on his face. (The germs, Mommy! That's just gross!) See that kid sharing the gunny sack with Ethan, by the way? His mom and I had the same due date.

Cassie and her humans LOVE the dog park!

After half an hour at the dog park, we have a dog who enjoys lazing around the house and watching movies, kind of like us. Before the dog park, she paced a lot in the evenings, even with regular walks.

Of course, her favorite thing about the park is the sniffing. Oh, so much sniffing.