The big switch-out.

Around here we have two sets of clothes, so one set is always in storage. This past weekend we got the winter boxes out, which is always super exciting for the kids because in their boxes are entire new wardrobes. All purchased last year end-of-season, of course.

It's quite a process of sorting through what might fit next year, what will definitely be too small and thus go into permanent storage, and what will be given away. Piled up on Alla's bed is Fisher's too-small pile, and I couldn't resist snapping a shot of all those little clothes altogether before they went away.

Someday I'll have a mountain of clothing to part with, but for now I'm too sentimental, which is why I take pictures of it all.

Ten on Tuesday: Five and a Half.

In honor of her five and a half birthday, which she's been looking forward to for quite some time, today's ten features my favorite girl!

1. Alla does not like jeans.
2. She loves to paint, write draw, make, create.
3. She could eat Trader Joe's gluten-free frozen pancakes every morning for breakfast.
4. She loves every movie she watches, declaring each one her new favorite. The latest is Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue.
5. She loves to use a baby spoon to eat her applesauce.
6. She is a wonderful big sister, she loves to make Fisher happy and to be the one who takes care of him.
7. She wishes there were more dresses (and therefore tights) in the winter box.
8. She is the greatest storyteller.
9. She loves music, always wants music on, is always making up her own songs, always singing.
10. She recently got a pink baseball hat from her Aunt Renee and she looks so dang cute in it. It just suits her, and she loves it.

Happy five and a half today, honey bunny!

The Stream.

Today is the perfect day to pay homage to the wonderful little stream just a quarter mile up the road, the spot to which I started taking Alla when she was wee and where Fisher has realized he can drive to in the pink car. It's pretty wonderful, just a simple stream with a walkway over top, and in the spring and fall when the foliage isn't too thick the kids can throw a stick in one side and then watch it come out the other. I think it's how Alla learned to count, waiting for her stick to come out. One, two, three...seventeen!

We visit in summer, but only briefly to avoid the "skeeters." We visit in fall, Fisher shoveling in piles of fallen leaves. We visit in winter, when the ground and water are frozen, walk out onto the stream, and listen to them marvel.

We return in the spring, to see green buds appearing, animals returning, water once again flowing.

We love our little stream, and what I love is that when the kids are grown and remembering childhood, it will be a special place for them. Nothing I really tried to do, nothing I had to force, just this simple little spot near our house that we visited all the time, that easily forced itself into their hearts.

Ten on Tuesday.

1. Today Fisher is 31 months old!

2. I have a recipe for pumpkin pancakes that I am dying to try. What sort of fall treats are you making these days?

3. The weather is getting chillier, highs around 60. Hence #2.

4. In other fall cooking news, I made my first apple crips (or "apple crips," as Fisher called it) this weekend, and both kids tried and then politely refused it. Tell me, what on earth is more perfectly simple than apple crisp?

5. Here's where I remind myself that Fisher loves roasted beets and Alla loves roasted garbanzo beans.

6. I am very close to being able to place an order for July through September photos. Then, as I stuff them into albums, I can listen to my husband complain about the volumes of photos we have and how our children will be overly documented and how our ancestors will find our albums and think we must have been famous because of how well documented we were.

7. Isn't he funny?

8. Fisher got a few new pairs of socks today after Ron commented that his sock drawer looked like we had not purchased socks for the poor lad since infancy. It is sadly true that he's gotten maybe one or two new pairs since his first winter. Sorry, bud.

9. I am so looking forward to Alla not having school this Thursday and Friday. So, so, so.

10. Craving a one-pot wonder kind of baked dish. That's a hard one - uh, let's see, no pasta, no cheese, and preferably something the kids would just die for. Ha! I won't hold my breath.

Today was picture day.

And of course it will be weeks before the results are in, but my guess is that the smile of the school picture will not be the smile I'm used to seeing. This one!

Ten on Tuesday.

1. We are STILL enjoying the amazing weather, as in above 70 every single day. The weather section in today's newspaper reminded us that on this day last year, we got 2.5 inches of snow. I seem to remember scrambling to find winter stuff for Alla who desperately wanted to get out there in it. I'm very glad that today we will be enjoying a nice warm trip to the Farmer's Market.

2. The vegetables Fisher likes: beets and sweet potatoes.

3. The vegetables Alla likes: carrots, red pepper, cucumber, peas, peapods.

4. Notice how their preferences don't overlap. Fun.

5. Something they do agree on: The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That.

6. Fisher is a no-go on the movie Cars. We've tried a few times, so I give up. He certainly knows what Lightning McQueen looks like but a movie about racing cars just ins't up his alley. Why can't Disney make a movie about diggers?

7. For Fisher's dinner tonight: brown rice and roasted beets. Another thing he doesn't like: grilled chicken. Who doesn't like grilled chicken?

8. Our neighbor's tree has lost all of its leaves; this is the time of year when I feel all high and mighty about having a late-faliing tree.

9. I have both the September and October issues of Real Simple to read. I need a day at the spa with my magazines, I think.

10. My favorite part of today: walking out of the library with the kids (and a bag full of approximately 89 books) and seeing my handsome husband walking toward us, surprising us. Knowing that the kids hadn't seen him yet, knowing how great their joy would be in just moments, and then seeing it on their faces as they catapulted themselves at him. And Alla, This made my day, Daddy.

Weather break.

I didn't plan to step away from my computer for all of Friday and Saturday, but am so glad I did because we had record [high] temperatures for October. I did not miss a minute of it, even with Fisher coming down with Alla's cold. He and I sat outside, just sitting, after nap both days. Just sitting, watching. Alla and I took to the grass on a blanket for afternoon reading, and when she went to play with a friend across the street, I sat and watched her in my bare feet with the last 100 pages of Mockingjay. It was just glorious outside.

And I'm sure we'll pay for it!

It's fall.

Most of our fall pictures will be taken when it's chilly out there, because our leaves don't fall until about Thanksgiving. Halloween might be our first raking. So we borrow until then, since our neighbors to the left have a whole lawn full of fallen leaves.

And right now we're back in summer gear, for as long as we can, rolling in their leaves, throwing, piling, shoveling. Loving.

Ten on Tuesday.

1. On Sunday we were coming home from dinner with Pappi, and it was getting dark. Alla said to us, It's so cool, the letters on all the buildings light up! In between grown-up chuckles, we said to ourselves, We should take them out more.

2. Fisher's new word is gorgeous, as in The dentist is gohgeous.

3. Fisher's favorite book, as in we read it every naptime and bedtime, is Just Going to the Dentist by Mercer Mayer.

4. Last Friday, I did not change a single poopy diaper, and that's cause my son pooped on the potty twice that day.

5. But we're over that now, apparently.

6. Last Friday when Alla came home from school, she and I watched the movie Babies, which was such a wonderful lesson in culture. I loved that she narrated the whole wordless wonder for me.

7. I need a game for the two and the five year old to play together because we can only play so many rounds of Animal Bingo. Ideas?

8. We are in the midst of a string of lovely sunny seventy-degree weather. Awesome.

9. I have broken so many of our dinner plates that we are now down to five. Seriously. FIVE dinner plates, that's it. So now I'm forced to make a decision, which I hate. Either decide to get more of what we have, or just toss all the chipped stuff and get something altogether different. Like white. White?

10. Guess where we're headed Friday morning when Alla's off of school? To my Mom's, that's where. Yes, folks, The Killins Family finally has family in Minnesota to go visit.

Killins Family Twenty Questions.

Print out a copy of this fun questionnaire and bring it to the dinner table tonight and enjoy everyone's answers, then make sure to post so we can all read, too!

D=Daddy, M= Mama, A=Alla, F=Fisher

1) What is your favorite color?
D: Blue
M: Red
A: Pink
F: Brown

2) What is your favorite food?
D: Chinese
M: Mexican
A: ff’s and crispy chicken
F: blueberries (booberries)

3) What is your favorite show?
D: Seinfeld
M: Parenthood
A: Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That
F: Mighty Machines

4) What is your favorite restaurant?
D: PF Chang’s
M: Nick + Eddie
A: Red Robin
F: Red Robin

5) What is your favorite movie?
D: The Matrix
M: The Princess Bride
A: The Wild
F: Wall E

6) What is your favorite season?
D: Spring
M: Summer
A: Winter
F: Playing

7) What is your favorite class?
D: Math
M: [Modern] Dance
A: Science
F: Miss Sara

8) What do you want to be when you grow up?
D: Video game tester
M: Mama
A: A Mommy
F: Pirate

9) What is your favorite sport?
D: Running
M: Running
A: Biking
F: Biking





10) What is your favorite game?
D: Modern Warfare
M: Apples to Apples
A: Monopoly
F: Animal Bingo

11) What is your favorite song at the moment?
D: Sugarlumps
M: Half of My Heart
A: “If I Had You” (Adam Lambert) and “Anyway You Want It” (the Glee version)
F: Ram Sam Sam

12) What is your favorite book?
D: The Passage
M: East of Eden
A: Harry Potter (#1)
F: Machines Go To Work

13) What is your favorite character?
D: Mr. T
M: Harry Potter
A: Adam Lambert
F: A320

14) Where is your favorite place to go with your family?
D: California
M: the beach
A: Nana + Pappi’s
F: Home Depot

15) Who are some of your best friends?
D: Ralph, Adam, Josh
M: Catie, Nicole, Andrea
A: Leigha, Fisher, Carter and Canton (but Fisher is my “best best best best friend”)
F: Lovey, Alla, Carter and Canton

16) What is your favorite animal?
D: cheetah
M: giraffes and dolphins
A: zebras and lions
F: skunk

17) What is your favorite holiday?
D: Christmas
M: Christmas
A: Christmas and Halloween
F: Park

18) What is your favorite instrument?
D: saxophone
M: piano
A: guitar
F: Ram Sam Sam

19) What is your favorite activity to do alone?
D: video games
M: read
A: draw
F: [play] firetruck

20) What's your favorite toy?
D: iPhone
M: camera
A: Raggedy Ann and Andy, Lily, and Bodie
F: Lovey and pink car

Thanks for the idea, Marie!