Halloween approaches

All of us are looking forward to Halloween - although since we've already had our annual Rocky Horror party plus Jimmy's school party it sort of seems like the holiday is lasting forever.  Both of those gatherings went very well.  Shide'h and I (and Kirsi, of course) dressed up and went to help out at Jim's class party, which was a lot of fun.  The kids recited a Halloween poem and paraded through all the classes before sitting down to eat their goodies. 

House still not on the market, but at least it's mostly clean now.  Procrastination gets easier as winter closes in - we don't have much hope of it selling until spring.  But we'll put it on the market anyway, you never know.  Snow has fallen the last two days, and disappeared by midday.  We're looking forward to the warmer weather waiting in Oregon.

Jimmy is doing great in school - big surprise, right?  He's really enjoying reading and writing, his drawing is improving (not that it wasn't great already) and best of all is his increasing confidence.  He's much more outgoing than he was at the beginning of the year, and learning to be proud of everything he can do.  At home, he spends a lot of his time playing educational computer games and making robots out of K'nex, Legos, magnets, and anything else he can get his hands on.  

Kirsi has finally beaten her rash, so we're all singing Hail Mary.  She's crawling like a pro, sitting like it ain't no thang, and trying very hard to stand - not quite there yet, though.  She'll be six months old next week.  It really doesn't seem like she's been here that long, and yet the single child days seem like forever ago.  My milk is suddenly disappearing, so she's started on supplemental formula today, which has depressed me.  But hopefully she'll start gaining more weight now, as formula babies usually do.  Although of course she's just perfect the way she is.

Happy Halloween!

We finally finished painting the bedrooms, which is a huge relief. Now we're just scouring the house before we list it, which we can hopefully do this week. It turns out that Kirsi is allergic to peas, and she's been having a pretty rough time dealing with her reaction. The gastro-intestinal ills seem to be getting better, but she still has a mild fever and a truly diabolical rash. The rash is extremely painful, and she's been absolutely miserable during her diaper changes. A couple of days ago she sat up all by herself, straightened upright, lifted her hands - and put all her weight on that rash and burst into tears. I just hope the experience won't put her off of sitting.
Jimmy is still doing great in school, and finally getting a little more relaxed around the house. He's starting to write sentences to go along with his pictures, and seems to be feeling some pride in his reading skills instead of viewing it as a chore. We brought Ginger to his class for show-and-tell and she was a big hit with the kids.
We took the kids to an SCA event. They loved it and were a big hit with all my SCAdian friends. They all loved Chris, too, so there goes my vacation time :) Jimmy especially enjoyed watching the fighting and playing with the many children he met there, and he was very adorable at court when he was given his first event token.
Halloween excitement is growing...