the pike boys

before it is too late...

just a quick pic of the boys in their halloween costumes. ronan was a ghost. he loved his costume, made from a funky black shirt i found in mark's drawer and frayed cheese cloth plus a little white face paint. odin was pleased to finally get to be a pirate for halloween.

i love halloween

a treasure map!

according to the map, the treasure is...

this way!

avast, what have we here? a treasure chest! filled with goodies, no less.

so odin is going to be a pirate for halloween. we've been having pirate golden deviled eggs, pirate chip pancakes, tri-corn hat sandwiches. you know, the usual.

so i made that costume, i am so proud of myself. i haven't sewn anything in ages. i reworked a pajama shirt of mine to be his pants and the vest is from scraps of upholstery from our new comfy bench. we made the eye patch and found that belt and bandana. so we spent a whopping $1.99 for a cool sword. i couldn't go for a foil wrapped sword, not when the rest of the costume looked so AWESOME!

Holy re-finished floors, Batman!

do YOU think it was time? This is the first pass with the sander and boy, it made me feel good.

this is the new look to our floor, please compare. it is fantastic! i repainted the walls at the same time. that made a monster difference too. i finally feel CLEAN in the kitchen. we are now accepting visitors.

corn maze

mark got tickets to cobb's ranch from his co-worker, lee, whose band was going to be playing the atmosphere music for the festivities. we had a blast! watching lee's band is great, they are the epitome of eighties wannabe rockers and it is such a kick to see them playing their hearts out and having a good time. never got a good picture of them, rats.
brad, it is fun to see your drums again.

the corn maze is a 2 mile long trip, that can take up to 2 hours for the less direction abled, but there is a halfway point of exit for which i was very grateful to hear. so after a bathroom trip for me we were off. no way that pregnant me was going to enter a corn maze and need a toilet.

here is odin in the lead, he took us to the half-way point in only half an hour. what a kid.

the best part of the bounce house-no one else was using it so the boys got their money's worth of it. ronan is a great jumper, he practices all the time.

oh yah, ronan is loving it.

a little slide action along with sandbox fun, horse tire swings and buried tractor tires and we are ready to head home. super kid friendly place.

SPCA

so today, the camp will be making its third run to the SPCA since monday. dad started it off with the tom. since sunday we discovered two more kittens and a momma cat. we caught and delivered the momma cat yesterday and last night we caught the adolescent male that has been lurking over by mom and dad's. only two more kittens to go. we think. they might put us on some kind of permanent watch file over there at the SPCA. we might be delivering the neighbor's cats!

he is very pretty. we have no idea if he is nice, he is too scared. i am afraid to let him out of the trap to test it. he isn't staying either way, so we'll let someone else tame him.

CATCH UP TIME

it has been very busy in this little household. not only with new things happening but also with little boys sprouting all kinds of silliness and fun. so i have decided to just make a mega entry.

first of all, mark has been busy selling things on craig's list so that we could have a few things happen here. we had wanted to go on a holiday for our anniversary but it just wasn't panning out like we hoped. thanks to a lucky sell in just enough time, we managed a weekend getaway that involved a little bit more than staying at home and squeaking through the trees to keep the boys from seeing us at home from my folks' place up the way. so we made it all the way to fresno instead. we had the best time-we knew where everything was, we went to our favorite restaurant, tried a new one that we had been eyeballing, saw a few movies and stayed in a fantastic hotel-all just an hour away! i highly recommend a vacation in your home town!

so on to the silliness and fun of this month, in no particular order:

my favorite odin line of the week:
ummm, mommy, can you clean up all the toys and i will sit down on the couch and watch you do it, um, all by yourself?

first we have odin doing his version of the incredible hulk as taught to him by mark, mixed in with a skeleton cross-eyed face.

the inevitable has happened: a kitten has been found at the camp and is now our new adopted pet. my mom and dad had just that same day set out a trap for an adolescent kitten that they want to tame. instead they caught a tomcat that has been harassing our cat thibodeaux. my dad took the tom to the SPCA, he is a stray that has been too much around anyway. mark found this little cat behind our freezer, it wasn't even on the list of to-be-caught's yet. a lucky discovery.

ronan in mark's shirt, i didn't feel like walking to the bedroom cabin just yet so he got to wear this after his bath. we tied it up in the back and odin thought it was hilarious.

i asked odin to walk ronan to grandma's house, they walked hand in hand the whole way!

kitten getting the thorough veterinary inspection, courtesty of dr. ronan pike. his orifices are clean.

this is the cheese i get every time i say 'smile'. ronan got a haircut, so i had to document that. he looks so sharp! by the way, he has officially made 20.5 pounds. a big deal for him.

enjoying wallace and gromit

one of the other new additions to camptime fun is this go kart that mark picked up through craig's list after selling a different vehicle the day before. he has been wanting one for a long time. we figured we should get it before it got too snowy up here. pre-christmas for mark.

odin 'helped' mark fix the brakes and the seatbelts on the go kart. he was sooo cold!

the first night that kitten stayed we kept him wrapped up. kitten claws! he is very good about everything now. he sits on my shoulder and sleeps on odin's lap. very sweet. odin named him "kitten", he is still so original with his naming....