So, it's almost November . . .

Okay, so that's my adorable 2nd-grader marching this afternoon in his school's "storybook character" parade . . . not to be confused as one of those pesky Halloween parades. For those of you not up to speed on your 2nd grade literature, he's dressed as his favorite kid-detective, "Nate the Great." (And yes that's the literary giant, Jeff Gordan of NASCAR fame, following behind him.) And we are taking our boys trick or treating tonight . . . not really to celebrate or not celebrate Halloween or to just rake in the candy, but really to spend some time with the friends who are joining us, maybe to meet a few more of our new neighbors, and to let our kids use their imaginations dressing as some of their favorite characters. We don't have a big problem with that.

In other ramblings . . . we are loving fall at this house, but the leaf/acorn situation is out of hand. There is no way at this point we could catch up. We have 5 GIANT oak trees in our yard, as well as 7 walnuts, and some asst. fruits trees. Man alive. It's beautiful. but more work than we can possibly keep up with. Sorry, neighbors. We are "those people," the ones who don't keep our yard raked up nicely. Sigh.

In less than two weeks our little Liam will be turning 4 years old. I know science has proved it all, but I still don't understand how it's possible for him to have grown so quickly. I still think of him as the "baby." Sigh.

That's us these days.