Snapshot Sunday

Here is another long-awaited (ha ha!) version of Snapshot Sunday.
We had a peek from the sun for a bit so the little boy and the big boy ran around in the backyard with foam swords for a while.

We are starting to decorate for Halloween. This is Buck's favorite holiday so he goes all out. This year we decided to do a haunted Victorian mansion to be like the one from Disneyland. We have rounded up all the creepy old family pictures (of which Buck has lots :) and made a display in a bookcase. The big picture is actually Buck's parents and Buck (as the baby) back in 1970. His folks were actors and were in a play right around the time he was born so this was taken as a promotional photo.

Ian is getting into the Halloween spirit by drawing skeletons and specters and watching "Nightmare Before Christmas" about 4 times a day! He has plans to collaborate with me on a book version though.
Ah, I found a box of treasures and memories in some stuff that my mom dropped off for Nick. First I found some pictures of old houses and 15-year- old me. Man, I am glad I am not 15 again. I also found a date book from 1987, the year I was left alone at JFK airport (at age 9.5) and the year Nick accidentally burned down the house in the picture!

The last treasure is a mixed blessing. I found a really sad letter from Jensen (from 1991) with a bunch of his hair in it! It is the only physical thing I have left of him, so it was really bittersweet to find it. The letter was also heart-breaking.

See Sarah to play!

Chemicals and Concoctions!

Today we were treated to a fun, empty and cold park with some friends. Afterwards we had lunch at Chick-fil-A where Ian! got a beaker with his meal.

Okay, so here is a brief aside: last night Ian! and I were discussing exclamation points and how they work, and he thought it would be better if his name and my name had exclamation points after them from now on since we are cool and need some way to denote that. I love my boy!

So, he was pretty stoked about the beaker and told me he wanted to make chemicals once we got home. First it was simply milk, water, and gummies. I brought out some stuff I thought would be fun like syrup and vanilla and sprinkles.

I thought he might actually want to taste it so I chose sweetish things. Then it got chunkier with bread and vitamins and pumpkin seeds and protein powder.
Then it got so crazy that Ian! ran out of room in the beaker and had to move it to a large measuring cup. He added all sorts of spices and condiments and herbs. His favorite thing was adding a bunch of secret ingredients and then watching them sink into the chemical.
He discovered he could use his stirring straw to blow bubbles and that opened up a whole new way to mix his concoction.

All told he used over 30 different ingredients. We had so much fun together this afternoon listening to good music, pretending to be Chairface Chipendale's wife and son (any Tick fans out there?) and making concoctions, connections and good memories.