One set of my in-laws are always gracing the boys with artsy gifts. This is probably attributed to the fact that they are heavily involved with museums and my mil used to be (and maybe still is) an antique seller/appraiser. They live in a quaint little area of Connecticut where there are lots of little mom-n-pop toy stores, antique stores, etc. Very neat shops, to say the least. Anyway, for Easter, they sent the boys each a Nyokki egg plant pet. I’d never heard of this before, but assumed, from the description, it’s like a chia pet, but on a smaller scale for kids. We finally opened one up and started it a couple of weeks ago. It’s very cute!

Nyokki means “grow” in Japanese. And boy, once they start, they really live up to their name!

Here’s a pic from yesterday:

And here’s a pic I took this morning:

Once I compared the pics, I couldn’t believe how fast the grass is growing! A couple more days and the boys will be able to cut the hair, if they want. So far, we’ve really enjoyed them. It’s fun to see how fast they grow!

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Sunday was the March of Dimes March for Babies. It was a beautiful walk along the Erie Canal. Altogether, I’d say it was a much better walk than last year. More organized, more entertainment, more food, much better location. It was much harder to fundraise this year, though. That was my downfall. But as the family teams chairperson, I’m looking forward to calling people and getting feedback. Can’t wait to hear what they think of the new place, etc. I took several pictures, especially along the canal. I have never walked along the canal before, and would love to do it again in a different spot. There are lots of locations to walk along the canal. Anyway, here are the pics I took from the walk, in no particular order:

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We took the boys to the circus on Saturday. I remember going a couple of times as a kid and I loved it. It was the first time the boys had ever been and they didn’t really know what to expect. While on our way out, we asked the boys what they thought. The first words out of Zach’s mouth were “It was sweet! It was excellent!” I guess that qualifies as a rave review! His brothers had similar views about their first circus. All-in-all it was a great family outing. Below are some of the pics. I won’t post them all, as that would be too daunting. But I’ll post some of my favorites.

Keep in mind that the whole show was basically about the head clown taking the ring master’s hat, which made the ring master not do his thing real well and made the clown sort of take over the circus. It was cute banter back and forth b/w what kind of acts the ring master had and what kind of acts the clown had.

I’ll warn you: some of these are blurry. I had to sacrifice taking “action” shots for taking pics in night mode. I couldn’t do both. Either I could take action and they would all be dark, or I could take them in night mode, get some good shots but have some of them blurry. I opted for the latter, obviously.

DH tells me he’s really playing. Brian would know…he’s a trumpet player. Anyway, I thought that was pretty awesome. No way could I play like that! I give him mad props.

It’s a porcupine! He’s cute, isn’t he?

This was the view from our seats. Pretty good seats

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Once again, it’s been far too long since I have blogged. I find it much harder to even be in the mood to blog now-a-days. It isn’t that I don’t want to, I’m just not motivated enough to think of something to blog about, lol. Not to mention that for the last two weeks, I’ve been studying for midterms. I did very well on my midterms. I have two A’s, a B and a C.

Life has been crazy around here lately. I’ve found balancing it all a very hard thing to do. I think I’ve just finally figured out how. At least most day. School is getting a bit easier and work, well, it’s work. I love working in a cafe. Reminds me of college (the first time around, lol). The extra income is very helpful, too. We’ve managed to pay off quite a bit of debt and should be pretty well set for Christmas and the start of the new year. I’m looking forward to having two and a half months off, too

We’re getting into the busy part of the year. Halloween then Thanksgiving, two birthdays, Christmas, Matt & Jennifer’s wedding, then my birthday (see my previous post for my thoughts on that) then it’s back to school and everything the spring semester brings.

We bought Halloween costumes for the boys over the weekend. Zach wanted to be Indiana Jones, but since we found no Indy costumes (which surprised me), he settled for Anakin Skywalker. Ryan decided on a skeleton. Alex wanted to be Frankenstein’s monster, but we couldn’t find anything at Target so he originally settled on being Tony Stewart. However, when we went to WalMart, they had a Frankenstein costume, so that’s what he’s going to be. It will be the first year without at least one homemade costume. But, I suppose that’s ok. Maybe next year

I have a few new pics to share, too. Here goes

First day of school for the twins:

First day of kindy for Alex:

Alex’s first bus ride:

My beautiful new niece, who is a month old now!

Alex’s first lost tooth:

Other random kidness:

Ryan playing checkers with his friend:

Ryan’s monarch butterfly painting at school:

So, if I don’t blog for the rest of the week (or month!), have a great week (or rest of October!).

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As I follow the Kodak Chief Blogger on twitter, she posted a url to this story, which I find really cool! Here’s what the designer, Chueh Lee over at Samsung China, says about the camera:

“Touch Sight is a revolutionary digital camera designed for visually impaired people. Simple features make it easy to use, including a unique feature which records sound for three seconds after pressing the shutter button. The user can then use the sound as reference when reviewing and managing the photos. Touch Sight does not have an LCD but instead has a lightweight, flexible Braille display sheet which displays a 3D image by embossing the surface, allowing the user to touch their photo. The sound file and picture document combine to become a touchable photo that is saved in the device and can be uploaded to share with others–and downloaded to other Touch Sight cameras.”

It isn’t on the market yet, apparently, but I really hope it does make it there. What a totally neat idea!

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Ryan and Zach’s first day of school. Not too many pics since they start second grade. However, Alex starts kindergarten tomorrow and you can bet there will be lots of pics for that!

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Brotherly love

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Other than my post in CT last Sat, I haven’t had time to post anything! We’ve been super busy since we got back Sunday afternoon. Sunday evening the boys and I went off to the kick-off party for the Steve Tasker March of Dimes Golf Tournament. Monday was the tournament. It was a long day, but it was fun. Well, it’s been a long two weeks, really. My sisters shower went smashingly and our trip to CT was loaded with fun, even though it was during some of the hottest days of the year! I thought I’d show off some of our pictures from our trip to CT. I’ve embedded them as slideshows and there are 2. You’re welcome to click on them and see the stills in my webshots photo album.

These pics are from CT. The first half of the pictures are from Quassy, one of only 11 trolley parks still remaining in the U.S. We had a lot of fun, especially at the Saturation Station (the water park.beach area).

Connecticut 2008

These pictures were taken on Saturday when Brian and his dad took the boys to a Yankee’s game. They only stayed 3 innings, but in their defense, it was 100 degrees out that day! The boys said their favorite part was riding the subway. Funny, but no surprise since they love trains so much, lol.

Boys Day Out

Here are the pics from the Golf Classic.

March of Dimes Charity Golf Classic

Happy Friday! Enjoy your weekend

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I have no picture of the “before” for today’s tackle. It was sort of an impromptu thing. A few months ago, we bought a big potted plant with 6 different herbs and a tomato plant. In my kitchen window a basil plant has been sitting and so has Zach’s pea plant that he planted at school. All of these things have needed re-potting in bigger (or separate) pots for quite some time. The poor little kitchen basil plant looked all but dead, or dying, anyway. And Zach’s pea plant had nearly overtaken the basil plant and had grown up my window! There are even 2 little pea pods on it!

So, tonight while at WalMart, we picked up a couple of pots and some potting soil and decided to replant our herb garden appropriately. Here is the end result:

The kitchen window planter has (from l to r) rosemary, sage, oregano and dill

The left planter has the 2 basil plants together (the one from the kitchen window and the one from the big planter). The right planter has the tomato plant (with 3 little tomatoes!) and the parsley, which really took off and nearly took over the whole pot!

This last little pot is Zach’s pea plant from school. I really never expected a school plant to do so well! He’s so happy about it. As you can see, we had to rig some thin dowel rods and loosely tie the pea plant up. Maybe we’ll have a bunch of pods by the weekend?

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DH is at the Indy Car race at Watkins Glenn with a friend today. He was thinking about me enough to get me an autograph and a picture of one of my favorite Indy Drivers (or, past drivers), Arie Luyendyk. Isn’t he sweet? Here’s a picture of Arie giving an autograph.

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