This afternoon, Curt cleaned out our garden (the frost from last week ended it). We have had an over abundance of tomatoes and peppers, so we weren't too sad to be done with it for this year. I'm not sure what we'll plant next year. We had trouble with squash bugs this year and they were really gross. I hope never see them again! Ben, Lucy, and I played in the yard and enjoyed the fresh air. Lucy really wanted to crawl around in the grass. She had no fear and just crawled all over the place. The feeling of the grass on her hands and feet did not bother her at all. Ben used to hate it when he was a baby. She also LOVED the swing! We'll have to get her a baby swing for next year, she was too little to use one this summer.  Lucy having a good time getting around all by herself. Having fun on the swings! 

 Lucy likes to scrunch her nose and make funny sniffing sounds.  It makes her look tough! :)  There's a smile.  She is sitting up and crawling all over the place. The gates are going to have to come out of the attic soon!  She also likes to "fake cough." She learned that courtesy of Curt and Ben. Gotta stretch out for the next crawling session. 

This is the story about how I got acquainted with Basal Cell Carcinoma...skin cancer. Several years ago I got a bump on my forehead. I thought it was a pimple at first. It never completely went away and I had a little bit of a bump in that area. I didn't really think much of it. Once in a while (maybe once a year) it would get irritated when I was doing something (like scrubbing my face). It would get red and then after a few days the redness would go away. A few months ago it started bleeding/getting irritated every couple of weeks or so. I had an appt with my dermatologist to have a mole reevaluated and I pointed out this spot to her. She could hardly see it because it was not red at all on this day, but she took a biopsy and asked me a lot of questions. She thought that it was either Basal Cell Carcinoma or a cyst. I wore a band-aid on my face for a couple weeks, then got the call that is was indeed BCC. I was really shocked and scared. Then I do what most of us do when we have...

Since I've been doing a terrible job at updating lately, I thought I'd add a few new pictures of Ben and Lucy. Ben is loving preschool and his teacher, Mrs. Miller. We are getting into the groove of our new schedule. It's nice to run some errands with just Lucy or give her some one-on-one time at home while he is at school. Ben has been pretty open with sharing the details of his preschool day. It's fun to hear all that he did each day. I hope he is always so chatty about what he does at school! :)  Brother-Sister Love  My sweet boy  Lucy decided to try to grab the camera. She thinks she's pretty big stuff now that she can sit up all by herself!

Ben started preschool on Tuesday. He was so excited for his first day of school. In the morning, I found out there was a 2 hour delay (because of fog), so his schedule is changed and shortened by an hour. Then, we had another delay this morning! He was really bummed because he wasn't sure they would have time to play on the playground. I hope we can at least try out the normal schedule tomorrow. I'm so excited for what Ben will learn this year and the friends he will make. The school that he goes to wants the kids to use tote bags that they provide. You can decorate them however you want, it just needs to have their name on it somewhere. Ben loves Mario, so we had this great idea to use paper that you can print on, then iron onto a tote bag. I read the directions and even did several tests, but on the real bag it was a DISASTER! Parts of the pictures and his name came off or were loose. I discovered that it would scrape off of the bag, so I spent forever getting the bag ready...

I've been terrible at taking pictures lately. I took our nice camera with us when we visited family/friends up in Michigan last weekend and I never took it out once. :( I have taken a few photos here and there with my phone. The picture quality isn't great, but at least I captured a few memories.  Ben's friend Olivia has morning kindergarten, so we were able to meet one afternoon at Bounce Mania. They were the only kids there! They spent most of the time going down the biggest slide over and over.  I met my friend Erin (and her kids Will & Lauren) at Parkview Park on a beautiful sunny morning. Ben had fun running up and down the hill with his friend Will. (They are the little specs at the top of the hill).  When we recently visited my family, Lucy had a good time hanging out with her Uncle Joe. She was so tired (she would not take a nap that day despite all my efforts) that she was practically falling asleep on him.  Lucy loves pla...

Last Friday I spent the morning at the zoo with the kids. It was a perfect day for the zoo. The sun was shining and it was in the 70's. Since most kids were back to school, it was not very crowded. It's never fun to be rushed through certain spots because there is a huge crowd waiting behind you. I like to let Ben take his time at whatever he's interested in that day. In the African section, the swamp monkeys were really active. Ben enjoyed watching them jump around and wrestle with each other! I hope we'll be able to fit in a few more zoo days before it closes in October.   No long wait for the safari car!  Lucy did a good job in the stroller for about half of our visit. Then, I had to switch to the carrier. She does love being able to see everything going on around her.  The leopard was walking around and jumped right up on this branch while Ben was watching. He thought that was so cool!  The giraffe area only had a couple people, so we were abl...