Halloween Parade

Lots of excitement here for Halloween. Melanie counted down the days as if Santa was coming. During the day, Garrettford had a parade of students, and the local middle school band (for whom many famous musicians have played, most notably Chris and Nik Hawley). Currently, it's Julia's turn to flaunt her stuff in a purple wool suit.
Melanie's big appearance came near the end of the parade; this is after the marching is done. She is one cute cat.

Longwood Gardens

One of the most beautiful places I've been. Fills my soul with beauty and joy. Some parts make me feel like I'm in a Jane Austen novel. This trip, we came to see the pumpkins. Mostly we were excited to see the glass ones, but we were surprised by this gigantic whopper. 1070 lbs - and that was second place. Woah. I guess first place was off for a victory parade or something.
And so excited to go somewhere with my mom - here are 3 generations of McGinnis women.

These are the glass pumpkins - hand-blown. Amazing. You can check out Longwood's website for more details. Some of these are illuminated from within, some are not.
Check out the cornucopia built for the display. It is mostly grapevine wrapped around a form, but everything is made from things found naturally in the area. Beautiful.
And these are two of my favorite people! Aren't they cute together?

More pumkins, these colors are beautiful, and fanciful. Looks like they from a real Cinderella's garden.

I think I'm being threatened!

Julia took on a new sport this fall. She played field hockey and showed no mercy, on or off the field. This is a picture of her threatening me with bodily harm if I don't let her hang out with her friends later that evening.

Punk rock girl

Hey, we're finally into the October pictures (but not Halloween). Julia has been given some tshirts that she likes a lot and I have a bit of problem with their size, or lack of it. To illustrate my point, I put one on Allison one day and transformed her into our punk rock grrrrl. Julia didn't quite get the point, though, and now likes the shirt even more. (A tired punk rock girl, but it's hard work being so cool!)
And I just couldn't resist adding this one. I love love LOVE that smile!

Rare appearance

One handsome dude putting in a rare appearance on the blog. Sitting, as usual, in his favorite spot - at the computer, where else? Even Allison knows where to look for Chuck when we need him. She heads right to the computer chair, calling "Daddun! Daddun!" (tranlates loosely to "Daddy" or "guy who's butt print is in the computer chair"). Melanie took this picture - pretty good for a pipsqueak.

That SMILE!

You know that smile that just infuses your whole day with joy? Is this what you were thinking of?

Cluster Bloggin'

That's what I'm going to call this post b/c it will be a HUGE random assortment of stuff I should have posted over the past... month or more? It's been a long time, but well worth the wait. Let's start with just one of my favorite pictures ever.

When I look at pictures like this, I wonder how I could ever be upset or ill-tempered with any of the kids (from September).

Okay, so this isn't the best picture of us, but it represents a fun day we had just goofin' off together, wrestling and laughing and probably being really immature.
Oh yeah, here's Chris. He's always a big help with making sure Nik doesn't go too long without being tortured.

One day Julia and I went somewhere together and someone said, "You guys look SO much alike. I can just tell you are mother and daughter." Julia and I looked at each other, and just laughed and laughed.