More of the same...

Oh look! Another gratuitous weekend update! Yay!

First, for you weirdos who keep requesting more pictures of me to appear on here (I do not know what is up with that. I, for one, would rather look at the children!), here you go. My new obsession is Jersey Mike's. For some reason I had refused to try it (I'm not sure why, it just didn't sound like it would taste good), but my friend L somehow got me to go there (she drove, I was too tired to resist), and now I LOVE it. Specifically the #13. Mike's Way, extra tomato, light on the the lettuce and onion. And yum. Yum, yum. Anyway, guess what we ate for lunch on Saturday? And here we are looking very pleased with ourselves.

We had errands to run of course, it was a Saturday after all, but we crammed in some fun too. One of the local parks was having a pumpkin patch and we checked it out. We did not linger at the Patch, partially due to the fact that they wanted to charge me $2 per child to bounce in their bounce house (of course I paid $3 per child quite contentedly later that night, so go figure), and also because the pumpkins, after apparent days of roasting in the heat, looked minutes away from melting into moldy piles of sludge.

Wait, "Heat?" you say?

Yes indeed. I know my Northern friends wish their late October looked like this:

We just thought it was hot. And unexpectedly sunny. What parents of two very fair easily crisping children forget the sunscreen? It seems that we do. Fortunately, proving that all is not lost with the Youth of America, the workers at the ice cream shop let us borrow their bottle of sunscreen and slather our children (I may have also slathered myself with it) for free. Naturally we returned their kind gesture by purchasing their ice cream. Me- Butter Pecan (which was actually pretty fantastic). Elizabeth- Chocolate, of course. Lilli- Superman. Also of course. She is totally hooked on the Supah-man. Which I have confirmed is brightly dyed vanilla. There is no accounting for taste. David, of course, abstained from ice cream. Considering they had egg-free raspberry sorbet, his self-control when it comes to dessert is kind of annoying.

So, we had ice cream, and said hi to the Pumpkin Patch, and we rode on their little train, which they have year round.

Here's Elizabeth and David:

I took that over my shoulder. I'm kind of amazed they're even in the picture, so let's not criticize the quality.

Want to hear my gripe about this train? I know you dooooooooo.

So, of course Halloween is next weekend. They tend to theme the train ride, and the miniature village that the tracks go through to whatever Holiday is closest. Even though adults can ride this train, it's really for the children. Or so you would think from the signs. So I was prepared for scarecrows and jack-o-lanterns, and all sorts of fall decorations, but when I saw my first "Beware!" and "Turn Back!" signs on the tracks, I started sighing heavily. I've mentioned it before, but I strongly believe that the first few years of life should be kept pretty innocent. We try not to expose the girls to anything scary. They're sensitive as it is, toddlers in general are plenty creative enough to find all kinds of things scary (I went into Lilli's room pretty quick after nap yesterday because the afternoon sunlight had shone through her blinds in such a ways to create a little face made of light on her cabinet, and it had freaked her out and she was standing up in her bed, clutching her doggie, yelling at it to go away), I don't want to give them new material, and I don't believe in toughening them up or trying to de-sensitize them. So we haven't explained skeletons to them, they have no idea why a head or a limb would be severed, why blood might be splashed around, why someones boot heels might be sticking out of a graveyard, what a graveyard even is... Basically we spent a lot of time drawing their attention to whatever side of the track had less scary stuff on it. Even in broad daylight it seemed a bit grown up for the intended (or so I thought) audience.

Oh well, they had fun anyway.

Especially when we stopped making them DO stuff, and just let them play at the playground.

After nap time we checked out a pizza place we hadn't tried before. As I have also mentioned, our family routine includes pizza at least once per weekend. I am so tired of the normal place I could scream. So I'm really hoping that one day we'll find a good alternative.

Unfortunately this wasn't it.

The girls did like, however that they give you a lollipop.

And we like lollipops.

THEN, as if we hadn't packed enough into a Saturday, we took the girls to Oktoberfest. Having cleverly eaten before we went, we were not sucked in by any of the extremely expensive but delightful smelling German cuisine.

We were sucked in instead by the $3 per pop kiddie rides.

This was Elizabeth's favorite:

Fortunately (or unfortunately), Lilli had been traumatized by a different kiddie ride (little tug boats), and refused to go on anything else after that, so that considerably lowered the cost. In her defense, since I've never known her to refuse a physical challenge, they were a bit rickety, went around in a circle at a dizzying rate and frantically rocked back and forth in an attempt to simulate ocean waves. She hated it. Elizabeth loved it. About halfway through the ride, every time they passed me I could hear Elizabeth's hysterical laughter and shrieks of glee accompanying poor Lilli's sobs.

She felt much better once she was safely on "land" again.

And then we went home to bed. I was glaaaaad to be there.

So that was my weekend, or at least my Saturday. How was yours?