Halloween

Minnie Mouse and Barbie Princess


Miranda was a vampire of some sort

I like her eyes in this picture.

Paul and his friend Tom stayed home and passed out candy (and played a computer game).

Smokey has had enough of this holiday!

Bloggin' Blues

I'm having a hard time motivating myself to blog lately....I haven't actually taken very many pictures, either, so that's probably the main problem. But I guess we have done a few things this past week.

We celebrated Aaron's birthday last Sunday....he wanted a fruit pizza, so Miranda and I worked together on this creation.

Here he is....36 and proud...which means I'll be following in 2 months...yikes.

We had some extra days off this week, as so many kids in our school were out due to illness. We took an overnight trip, a definite rarity since we've had kids. It was fun, although I didn't take many pictures. Here's the rest of the fam sitting in the hotel's hot tub.

Aaron made us these 'Napolean Cannoli Stacks' for dessert last night. I was impressed!

The kids did a little pumpkin-carving with Aaron today.

Homecoming

Olivia got to be a crown-bearer at homecoming last night. I think she enjoyed herself quite a bit. She had been a little confused the last week or so, thinking this was the night when she'd wear her Minnie Mouse ears and dress. I finally convinced her that, no, that's Halloween!

With her classmate Joshua

Out on the field, waiting to do the very important job

I think she was saying, "I'm cold!" She kept doing a little dance, which made me wonder if she needed to go potty, but I think it was the cold.

This was her favorite part...riding in the convertable with Tori and Joshua. Peter would have been in this picture, too, but he was sick.

Snow, Sonya and Pigs

The remains of some snow that we got over the weekend...today it's just drizzly and chilly.

The many faces of Sonya.....happy....

silly....

occasionally grumpy.....

The cat does a great job of "guarding" the pigs. We're really thankful that we had him de-clawed.

Sonya wanted me to take a picture of her with each pig.

Squeaky

and the rebel pig who had escaped. Now he seems to be the more timid of the two babies.

Surprise!!!

Read my previous post if you haven't already....

Ok, so after school a high school kid, Peter, stopped by to see our new baby Guinea Pig....he was downstairs with Aaron and they could hear squeaking coming from the cage that Squeaky and the new baby were in....but Peter thought he was also hearing squeaking coming from somewhere else. Aaron thought it was an echo at first. He looked around a little and finally found another baby Guinea Pig....on the floor under one of our recliners....You may wonder how it got there, and we sort of do, too, although the best guess is that it got out of the cage that Squeaky had previously been in, which is one that Aaron built....it has metal sides that have sort of a mesh-type construction....so it's entirely possible that he/she escaped somehow, although there's a plastic ridge that covers the bottom and goes about 4 in. up each side, so he/she obviously had to climb on the cedar chips a little bit to accomplish this feat. Once the babies are a little bigger, they won't be able to fit through, but until then, we'll use a glass aquarium (with a very solid lid to keep the cat out). What an adventure!!! Speaking of the cat, Smokey is very agitated by all of this, and it's a minor miracle that he hadn't killed baby #2!!!

baby #1 and baby #2....we are going to offer one of them to the kids' cousins in CO (if one is a boy, that will be the one we'll offer!)

Two-for-one deal

You may remember that back in July we were given a Guinea Pig. A family from church had a litter of them, and gave us Squeaky (who they had named Fred). They were SURE it was a boy. Ok, fast forward 2 months, and this morning Aaron went downstairs to give Squeaky "his" food for the day, and found this critter in the cage, along with Squeaky.

Well, you can imagine our surprise. When he showed it to me, I wasn't even sure what I was looking at. It freaked me out just a bit. Aaron was sure (and I agreed) that it looked to be about 2 weeks old, so all we could imagine was that someone had come into our house and given us a pig that they didn't want. It sounds silly to me now as I type it, but we couldn't imagine another possibility, given the fact that it looked so old, and Squeaky was a boy!

Well, someone on Facebook asked me if I was 100% sure that it was a boy.....I mean, who among us knows how to tell the sex of a Guinea Pig?! Plus, I was thinking, "well, we've had it for 2 months.....what would the gestation period be?" Also, we'd gotten Squeaky when she was a baby herself, so I didn't see how it was possible. So, thanks to the good old internet, I looked up that very question, and it turns about that about 60 days is average, and that a female can get pregnant at as early as 4 wks. old. Hmmm....And then I saw a picture on the internet of a newborn Guinea Pig. They are born with lots of fur, and they're actually fairly big....they look just like a full-grown one, only smaller. I was envisioning that a baby would be pretty hairless and ugly, and would look like a little mouse or something. So, I have come to the conclusion that this is, indeed, Squeaky's progeny. Now I need to research how long I should leave them in the same cage, because, yes, we could end up w/more pigs if we're not careful. I know, I know, that's a whole other issue, but it's a distinct possibility if this new one is a boy....which I'll let Aaron try to figure out!

Oh, and I guess I'll have to admit that I'm glad Squeaky only had one baby!!!