A guest post from a petite blogger.

The bug got a camera for her birthday and we've just pulled the first batch of pictures onto the computer, so she'd like to tell you a little bit about the best of her pictures.

This is me. Mom was trying the camera to be sure the buttons worked.

This is my brother in his carseat on the way to my school.  I took it because I like him.

I like this picture of him because he's being quiet.

This is my brother and my mom and my daddy. I like the way he's looking at my dad.

This is a picture of him happy after breakfast.

Bargain hunting.

Because so many of us are grappling with the downturn in the economy, and also because I so rarely post on fashion:

Zappos.com, which some of you web shoppers may use on occasion (free shipping both ways! for designer shoes...) has a secret sister website.

www.6pm.com has all the designer shoes that Zappo's can't sell in the first six months they're on the market, at 50% off or more.  Great brands--Dansko, Aerosoles, Uggs, Columbia--the kind of stuff that you might look at when you go to REI or the Walking Store and hope that it someday goes on sale.  Some of you may also wear high heels and dress shoes occasionally--that is not my current life, but hey, they have some pretty girly shoes too.

So if you don't care about having last season's shoes, check it out. I have yet to experiment with actually buying shoes online but the prices here mean I may look into it for my winter boots this year. End of consumer site plug.

Oh, and if you have any fave Christmas bargain-hunting secrets, pass them on in the comments, will you?  I tend to stay away from shopping on Black Friday unless I'm looking for something really specific that I know from ads I can purchase really cheap, but I'm always up for suggestions, especially for the kids.

Someone is 4!

For reasons of mail speed, party suitability, and overcleanliness, the bug's birthday stretched out over three days this year.  Here she is on the morning of her actual birthday:

We went out to breakfast at the Brewing Market and stopped for ice cream after school as part of her special day.  A few presents were opened, but the U.S. Postal Service was late in delivering her two non-plastic-gifts-over-$5, even though they'd been in Denver since Monday according to the "track your package" on Amazon...sigh.  Regardless, she enjoyed the jump rope quite a bit, and it's clear it's a skill she'll be working on for awhile:

Late into Friday night and early the next morning, we got ready for her birthday party, which we had at our house.  Most of the other children at her school have birthday parties at various local museums, pavillions, art studios, and the like, but we decided to go for the traditional at-home, play-games, sugar-overload approach to 4.  She had a lot of fun decorating with purple streamers and balloons, and helping make the pizza crusts and cupcakes. She had four little guests, two girls and two boys, and most of their parents stayed too:  

In addition to Play-Doh madness, there was pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey (now with stickers and no pins, for safety reasons, apparently--I tried to find an AUTHENTIC, possibly pain-filled, version but failed).  Other games and organized activities were planned but it was really nice out and that all sort of fell apart and they mostly played in the backyard:

That was Saturday.  On which I got a few phone calls from family who were wondering if we had opened her birthday presents yet.  My side of the family tends to shop for Christmas in, oh, say, March, and they're already all done with their present-buying before it turns cold and they might have to shop in the snow. (I did NOT inherit this particular pre-buying trait and I'm usually still out on the day before picking up something for someone I forgot.) 

Turns out the same thing happened with her birthday presents, and I'd put a bag of them away with the Christmas presents my parents delivered in late October when they visited.  (See, I get too much into tidying, and I start misplacing things I didn't even know I had.  There's probably an important lesson here.)  So, Sunday morning the bug finished having a birthday and opening her last few gifts.  I think this was optimal, actually--not the three-day birthday festival, but the slow discovery of new toys so she doesn't just have a big pile of stuff too overwhelming to play with. I hope four is an awesome year for her, and I know this is when she'll start having memories of childhood, so I'm looking forward to all the places we'll go.

All Hallows' Eve: the Dehatting.

This year we went with an unintentional garden theme for the children's costumes. The bug repeated her desire to be the same bunny she went as last year, and the monkey through no will of his own went as a peapod. Here they are at the bug's school, just after the Halloween parade:

The monkey deeply disliked the hat portion of his scheduled costume...



...and was not subtle about his displeasure...



...but he mellowed right out once I took it off:

I think the hat was reminiscent of a knight-of-the-round-table floppy plume, and perhaps he just wasn't up to all that chivalry.  Or, it might have been that he has a huge noggin and the velcro chafed under his chin even though it's supposed to fit babies up to six months.  Either way, he went forth to his sister's parade hatless.  She took off the bunny ears and threw them in the stroller as soon as she was allowed, so perhaps the temperature of the parade day also played a factor (76 degrees!).

Otherwise, he helped me distribute treats (or at least didn't protest while I did so), while the bug and Matt went after neighborhood fat lootz.  They came home an hour later, muchly candied, and with an oddly large number of Chinese fortune cookies.  I then discovered that the owners of the Chinese takeout restaurant in Niwot live right down the block, and are the sweet older couple I often see out walking in the mornings.  Neat to get to know the neighbors at last, and we saw a lot of cute costumes in the parade of kids that came by the house.

If you're wondering why it's taken me this long to post the Halloween pix, the next post may explain as it will be of the bug's birthday festivities.  Baptism weekend + Halloween weekend + Bug Birthday weekend = too many clean-house days in a row for me to post anything.  More soon--and I've loved seeing your kids' costumes, fellow mamabloggers!

For your election day enjoyment...

Get out there and vote, people!

In my house, we tend to cancel each other out, so participation is the thing.  Regardless of your party affiliation, you may be able to blame your great-great-grandparents for the policy failures of today...well, sort of:

Born to Party

Here at the residence we're between the monkey's baptism and the bug's birthday, so party planning and housecleaning and endless seas of spitup laundry have been occupying my days, rather than blogging.  Perhaps November will be a more reflective month once we get through today and see who gets to gloat in the morning.