October and November

So much good stuff has happened these past months!  Let me share some:

1.  Ellen, Flash, and Auntie Ree visited for June's sixth week of life.  They were wonderful: bringing crafts and snacks, making meatballs, replenishing our pantry, making special time for the boys and taking us swimming at the hotel pool.

The family ladies really stepped it up this year.  Karen, my mom, and the Wagner ladies made it possible for me to recover and step into mothering 3 little by little.  THANK YOU! I will pay it forward!

2.  Luke traveled to Denmark for a week/I earned my Mother-of-Three badge.  So glad he got to go, so glad he's home.  (OK, we saw Karen 3 of the 7 days he was gone, so I wasn't totally on my own ...)

3.  Scott says funny things
Mother of classmate: Is that little boy your brother?
Scott: Yes.  His name is Twenty-four-hundred.  He like to be called Mark, but his name is really Twenty-four-hundred.

4.  Mark says funny things
nail clippers = "Almost dones"
gloves = "Hi Hi"s (one glove is just a "Hi")
anything in the oven = "so hots" ... like "Wanna so hot?  So hot Mark?  Me? I? So hot PLEEEEASE."

5.  Karen got us in to the LLNL Family Day that happens once every 5 years.  It was amazing and I love her. Check it out:

My vote for Christmas card photo!  I love this picture.  My eyebrow shows that I think this is the coolest thing that has every happened.  June looks ridiculous.  Luke is bicep curling 80 lbs of sons.

This is Niffy.  The construction crew unearthed a mammoth bone building the NIF, so then our best and brightest physicists ... took a break to build this dude out of caulk?  Or maybe it was a LLNL preschool art project.

This is Luke's vote for family Christmas photo.  The supercomputer room is warm and filled with white noise and our kids PASSED OUT. AT THE SAME TIME!  I would like an audio recording of all those computers running, please.