Lego Time!

Both kids love Legos. When our friends Neilam and Jen came to visit, they joined in the fun. Ben was revising and rebuilding his American Ninja Warrior course. He had a lot of specific ideas for the obstacles he wanted to include, but had a hard time figuring out how to create them with Legos. Neilam came up with some great innovations, including using a series of wheels for the Door Knob Arch.

Door Knob Arch

Elizabeth usually tries to use the regular-sized Legos, but somehow Neilam convinced her that the Duplos, which are easier for her to manipulate right now, were cool, something neither Ben nor I had been able to do.

 

Elizabeth shows off her train

Our annual photo

More recent pics

Dave & the kids after he ran the Kansas City Half-Marathon

Cuddling with Elizabeth (shortly after she got mildly freaked out when Ben tried on his skeleton costume!)

Elizabeth desperately wanted to help vacuum. Also likes unloading silverware from dishwasher. Awesome!

Teaching Elizabeth how to knead pizza dough

All of that Play-Doh time comes in handy! She rolled a great pizza crust with little help!

Sadly, our Royals came up just a little short in Game 7 of the World Series. Ben had been keeping track of runs (for our halves of innings) and outs (for the Giants) on his Magna-Doodle. Dave got him a World Series/ALCS pennant to accompany the 1985 pennant for the 2 best Royals' seasons ever.

Getting ready for Halloween

The kids tried on their Halloween costumes last weekend. Ben wanted to be a soccer player, but having no soccer jerseys on hand or available at a reasonable price, he went with his second choice of a skeleton.

Elizabeth is using a Cinderella costume from the dress-up bin along with a homemade magic wand in her favorite color of purple. She earned the magic wand as a reward for finishing her last potty training sticker sheet and decided it needed to be part of the costume. She will alternately tell you she is a princess or get more specific with Elsa or Anna, although she and Ben have had bickering matches over Elizabeth's inability to tell the two apart. Not pictured: her new, beloved sparkly silver shoes.

We're going to the World Series!!

Well, we're not technically going to the World Series, as tickets are currently going for $750+ a piece. So we'll be watching from the comfort of our home. But our Royals are headed there for the first time in 29 years! We're hoping they got the extra-inning, tight score stuff out of their systems & we can just win in regulation 9-inning, large margin games so our poor nerves can get a break!


(Ben is currently muttering something about the Royals in his sleep as I type this.)

Ben's after-school program put the game on the cafeteria's big pull-down screen, which probably saved the poor staff from getting score request updates from Ben every 2 minutes. Even Elizabeth's day care had the game going on the radio in the common area and out on the playground!  Our friend Eric went out looking for American League champion shirts after the game. They were sold out of adult sizes, but he kindly picked up one for Ben. Ben's school is allowing Royals shirts for the rest of the week instead of the regular uniform.

So we can breathe a little until next Tuesday, when it starts back up again! What an exciting ride!