My cowboy and my monkey trick-or-treating at Baylor

We wore Halloween out this year here at the Smith house. For weeks on end the kids wore their costumes and Eliza Jane practiced trick-or-treating. Around and around the house she went, knocking on my door, saying trick-or-treat and thank you as I ooh and ahh about her monkey suit. I actually tried putting real candy in her bucket a few times, but this was not the right thing. A happy development: pretend candy is just as good as real candy to this 2-year-old.  

Some little kids have imaginary friends, but I really think Liza's "candy" is her substitute. She does a pretty elaborate pantomime with her candy, which seems to be a constant imaginary presence in her little fist. If her tightened fist appears when I need her to do something with her right hand like, say, brush her teeth, I tell her to put her candy down first. She'll open her fist over her drinking cup and put the candy in for safe keeping. Then if I try to put water in the cup before giving it back, she'll say "My CANDY!" We have to be careful not to squish her candy by sitting on it or spill it if it's in a little bucket. It's tricky though...she's the only one who knows that it's there : ) 

I asked her the other day what kind of candy she had there in her fist, and she replied, "Ice cream, and cake, and milk...and candy and pink and purple." So candy = all the good things. 

Trick-or-treating in our neighborhood

It's been such a delight to experience the development of Eliza's imagination. For a while it was all mommy and baby. EVERYTHING could be a mommy and baby: 

big horse and little horse: "mommy! baby!" 

two paint sticks: "I found you, mommy!" 

deflated balloon and half-eaten banana: "At last, baby hippo!" 

The imaginary play has gotten more elaborate of late. Now she hands me a stuffed pig and says, "You be the mommy pig, and I'll be the baby frog" or "I want lamby to talk to me, mama,"  The truth is, I enjoy going in and out of this world for most of the day. But there is a point in the day when she brings me a toy and my eyes glaze over as I panic just a little bit inside: this is my life for the next many years and I cannot escape!  

And Ben is not much help when it comes to making lamby talk. As the kids continue to develop their own interests I am left with just a tinge of nostalgia for the last year in which they played together almost constantly. They still play together quite a bit, but I can see their interests differentiating. While Liza makes up stories with her animals, Ben is studying his lego directions, engrossed in building a plane. While Ben is hunting for snails in the garden, Eliza is making the snails talk to each other. 

Ben always wants Liza around when climbing trees

Maybe I am feeling extra nostalgic this week because Ben took us completely by surprise this week by losing his first tooth--and then the second one just this morning! I really thought we had another year or so on that!

Can't you almost feel the warmth of this blanket right out of the dryer? 

These last pictures are from our trip last weekend to the Dallas Arboretum with grand mommy and grand dad. That place. Wow. Arboretum is a bit of a misnomer for this outdoor adventure garden. The children's garden was truly a wonder. We could have spent all day just in that little corner of the arboretum. 

little bird 

Red birthday

Well, my son just turned 5 years old and his only request for his party was a red cake. He decided after some suggestions from his father that cowboys would be fun, so we're going with that too. Even as I write, Benjamin is out at his first rodeo with JB, both in their cowboy best: boots, hats and all.

And even as we speak I am looking at the results of the red cake. Poor Ben. Red is always his color of choice: red shoes, red shirt with red shorts ("Look, they match!"), red bike, red plate and water bottle. But red cake! We found out the hard way this afternoon that red food coloring does not equal red frosting.

Even as I continued to apply the frosting to the mini-cupcakes for school tomorrow, I was thinking that he would never agree to take what are pretty much pink cupcakes to school for his birthday. And so I said to Benjamin, "Well, this is the best I could do. They are not very red are they?" Ben kind of shrugged his shoulders and said with a little smile, "Yeah, that's the best you could do. It's ok. Yeah, I like it." I have to say that was very gracious of him.

Even for the birthday party, Ben wanted to mix orange and pink for the frosting. 

That gracious and easy-going spirit will lead to a happy life, my boy.

I think he enjoyed his cowboy birthday party, complete with all sorts of gear borrowed from the REAL cowboy that we know. Benjamin doesn't realize how lucky he is. I did not grow up in a world in which one could know a REAL cowboy. Since JB grew up going out to his family's dairy farm, I guess Ben comes by cowboy culture honestly (if a bit nostalgically) too. 

Panning for gold was a surprisingly big hit. 

Another thing that has become clear about Benjamin in his fifth year is his interest in mechanical things. There was no denying this after he and my dad spent whole mornings together sitting with an old coffee maker and then an old computer (below) taking it apart and (trying) to put it together again. I love to see him find so much joy in these kinds of projects even though heaven knows it's not my area of giftedness. It's good to have a grandpa who shares his interest (and who saves broken appliances!). 

Along the same vein, the birthday gift he's gotten most excited about seems to be the camera JB and I gave him. It's actually a compact digital camera that we've had for a while but don't use anymore--we mainly use our phones and then the big camera if we're feeling ambitious. He has discovered more about what the camera does in a few days than we ever figured out. I'll feel even better about this gift when the neck strap comes in the mail today or tomorrow : ) 

"And for MY birthday we're gonna have purple cake and balloons and..."

September things

Benjamin started his pre-school year a few weeks ago at a new school (extension of a parents' day out program, which Eliza attends twice a week).  The teachers are great and the program came highly recommended to us by other parents.  They take a field trip every Thursday and do lots of exploring and crafting.  

This week each child made a life size cut-out of his or her body to which were attached various paper body parts like the heart, lungs, intestines (!), etc.  The outside body parts said things like "With my arms I like to..." and "With my legs I like to..." with the child's answer to the prompt.  The sweetest to read was "With all my heart I love..."; most children said things like mommy or grandma or God or Jesus.  I am proud to say that Benjamin was the only child to choose a television show for his answer:  Dragon Tales. The show begins every time with two kids saying this rhyme: "I wish I wish with all my heart to fly with dragons in a land apart." With all my heart. Sheesh. 

At this age--almost 5--Benjamin was very aware of the transition to a new school and had to process through some anxiety about a new place, new friends, new teachers, and new routine. On our drive home from the first day of school, I was trying to coax any tidbits about his day out of my poor boy.  After quite a few non-answers, Benjamin said, seemingly out of the blue, "When are we going to see Aunt Amy again?"  I told him we could probably Skype with Aunt Amy some time very soon and decided to wait until later to talk to him about his day. The poor kid had a lot to process! 

Then it hit me. Aunt Amy is a child psychologist.  Benjamin knew (from an instinct based on experience) that Amy was the one who would understand his needs at that moment. And indeed she did.  We skyped that very afternoon and she played along with all of his silliness and just let him be himself. She asked him a question and when he didn't respond she just let it be and they had a great time connecting over just being silly together. Bed time is Benjamin's best reflective time, and after he got his pjs on, got in bed with his reading light, and read a book with me, he opened up naturally about his feelings. All pretty normal feelings for a big transition--feelings that it is my joy as a parent to learn how to guide him through.  

Here are just a few other moments of happiness from our September. Ben and Liza got to go fishing with their granddad in Sulphur Springs over the labor day weekend. In fact I think we did a lot of fun things that weekend--Texas Gypsies concert, picnic and swimming at Cooper Lake--but the stomach virus I came down with that weekend puts a kind of haze over my memories.  I was the only one afflicted, thank goodness, and there were many hands to care for the grands. The fishing pictures aren't the greatest, but there are llamas! I heard they had a habit of spitting a lot.  

My little one below was engrossed in washing the lid to a pot, and I just thought she looked so painfully dear standing there on her tip-toes at the sink. Those little arms.  She is a wonder to me when she gets serious about a task.  

Art is another thing she gets serious about. As Liza was doing the painting below at the art festival this weekend, I would occasionally say something like, "Would you like a different color? Would you like to use this white space over here?" To which: "No mama, I just want purple. No mama, I'm painting this part over here." JB and I try not to be too directive when the kids are making art--at this point I want to show them what can be done and then let them go. A mother next to us at the art festival we went to this weekend reminded me why.  Her daughter was painting and the mother suggested she put her name on it. The little girl happily started her name on the bottom of the painting, not leaving enough room for all the letters, but happily squeezing them in wherever. The mom started saying things like "Oh, that's bad. Oh that's very bad. You don't have room! Oh no!"  She said these things quietly, but with what sounded to me like a concern for her own well-being as reflected in her child's work. I guess I heard some of my own attitude toward myself in her reaction. So as I watched Benjamin gleefully muddy his yellow and Liza brush on yet more purple with great concentration, I felt a little prayer of thanksgiving well up that right then, in that moment, my children were being the people that God made them to be, and that was beautiful.    

I've been working on some art too.  I picked up some watercolors earlier this summer that mom had given me several years ago now, and I've been enjoying experimenting with them. Mom gave me a little art lesson in NY this summer, which helped me understand how to approach the lily pond picture I'd been thinking about but had no idea how to do. 

And here's more inspiration from mom: burgundy okra from the seed packet mom designed for the Hudson Valley Seed Company last year. What a beautiful plant and striking red okra!  

The fossil place and more outdoor adventures

the fossil place

A dry summer left the Wallkill River, just down the hill from our house, at a perfect depth for river walking one fine morning. The fossil place is just our entry point to the world of the river: a tiny trail leads to the water's edge and an expansive view up and down stream. We counted 10 white egrets (or herons?) a few great blue herons, many crayfish, and countless minnows as we waded out in the unusually shallow water and jumped from rock to rock. I think Benjamin could have stayed out on the river for hours longer hoarding treasures and setting them out to bake in the sun.  

We didn't find any real fossils this time--I guess that is now only legend.  When Grandy used to take us to the fossil place 20 years ago, we (probably mostly she) would find amazing fossils that we still have on a shelf at the house. For now Ben is just as happy with his golf balls and tiny clam shells.  And Liza is just happy to follow her Ben.  

made it to the other side of the river 

river walking 

Up in the mountains again:
the icy cold water at Split Rock is always a test of courage 

Hiking and wading at Lake Minnewaska 

Jack!

The great outdoors

An amazing old weeping beech tree at Mohonk 

Well, here we are after school has started, after labor day, about a month since our vacation in NY and I'm just getting to post pictures of our trip.  Since we take our NY trip pretty late in the summer, we always hit the ground running when we return.  We've also really lucked out on the weather by traveling in early August.  Our outdoor time is one of my favorite things about our NY vacation.  Now both children are old enough to really enjoy all the running, climbing, and even hiking we do in the Shawangunk mountains.  

Every year we spend a day up at Lake Mohonk and the Mohonk Mountain House.  Now that dad works there, it's more convenient than ever to visit.  And I think Sara and I have both left behind our memories of endless summers driving up and down the mountain serving food to resort guests.  It's very pleasant to spend the day there and tell ourselves "we'll never have to be waiters again!"  We hope now anyway.  

"hugging" the flowers at Mohonk 

Liza got to go out in the row boat with us this year 

Knocking on the door at the Three Bears house 

Mohonk's lily pond where we found a big, beautiful snake

Angel child

JB and I were excited to take Benjamin on a rougher trail at the Mohonk Preserve this summer--the Millbrook ridge trail.  I knew he would love scrambling up the rocks on the way up, and I was not wrong.  He's sure-footed in his climbing and all-too-fearless on our outdoor adventures.  He was also fairly patient when the trail started to get long.  What a great pleasure to introduce him to the mountains I've loved since my own childhood and on into my adult life.  

Millbrook ridge trail--up and up 

Made it to the top 

boy with a view 

Summer harvest

As we get ready for the last phase of summer--our trip to NY and back to school--let's look at how fun our summer has been so far!  It really has been a leisurely summer, and more fun than last year since the kids are older, but I am already looking forward to the structure of the school-year again.  

We had our first peach harvest this week!  Last year the squirrels took every one of the hundred or so green ones that had started on the tree. This year the squirrels bided their time.  We watched the peaches grow ripe on the tree, figuring we had about a 50% chance of getting most of those peaches.  So earlier this week, I went out one afternoon, and sure enough, the squirrels has taken their chance while the dog was inside and about 2/3 of our peaches were gone.  We quickly harvested the ones that were left and ready enough to pick.  We still got a big bowlful and they are delicious peaches.  

Earlier summer canoe trip on the rushing Brazos River

Father's day trip to Lion's Park 

Trip with Grandmommy and Granddad to the awesome new
Perot Science and Nature Museum in Dallas.  

Perot's heat-scensor TV.  Ben's tummy is the hot-spot!  

Klyde-Warren Park an easy walk from the
Perot.  Dallas is a different place with this
park.  

And then Benjamin had swimming lessons...

And his first camp! Farm camp every morning for a week.  

Liza and I had some quality time while B was at camp 

Liza Jane and her "rocket-ship." 

Silly girl

At our local popsicle shop

And so many trees have been climbed...

So many...

So many trees...

We figured it was time.  

Rest time reading in the tree house