Is This Thing On?

I'm dusting this site off, at least temporarily. M. is winging his way to AFRICA* for work (god, he gets to go to the coolest places for his job), and I'm holding down the fort at home. While he's out for the next week, I'm hoping to post a few photos here from him (so we can all be jealous when he has dinner with a KING), and some photos of us (to remind him of the glamorous life he's missing).

Since he's still en route, and the kids and I did nothing interesting after he left this afternoon, I don't actually have anything interesting to post right now. Instead, I thought I'd put a few recent-ish photos up, since it's been so long that you may have forgotten what we look like :-).

Here's one from the first day of school - Finn as a second grader, and Lucy as a kindergartner:

 

 I missed documenting a few other big milestones on this blog, two of which happened on the same day - on October 20th, Finn turned 8, and Lucy lost her first tooth. If I had been laboring under any lingering illusions that my kids are still babies, I am now quite thoroughly disillusioned.

The year has been speeding along. Can you believe there are Santas and wreaths EVERYWHERE already? Even Christmas lights!?! Before we forget that fall happened (is still happening, damn it!), here's a quick snap of the kids during Halloween. Note that Finn (zombie) is sporting homemade guts spilling out of his shirt, lovingly prepared by M. using paper towels, flour, water, food coloring, and a pair of panty hose. Rather creative and gross, no?

I forced everyone to take a "picturesque fall walk" so I could try to capture photos for a Christmas card. I let the kids try taking pictures of us. This was the best of the lot, and spoiler alert, it did not make it into our card (which I have already ordered, by the way, in the only act to date that has given me any sense of feeling prepared for the rushing onslaught of Christmas):

Finn, at eight:

Lucy at five and a half:

Still the cutest things I've ever seen:

The End, at least for tonight.

*Not the ebola-ridden part, in case you were wondering. Morocco, in fact.