Stuff with Friends

In late September, Evan and Corinne got a mystery illness.  They'd throw up, then be fine, then be feverish and fussy, then fine again.  After a week, Ryan started to get a sore throat, and tested positive for strep throat.  At that point, the little ones had rashes, and I put two and two together.  The pediatrician said they had classic scarlet fever!  Anyway, after a bunch of antibiotics, everybody felt a lot better.  In the meantime, (before we knew they had strep) we took a trip to the Arboretum in Arcadia.  Dad was feeling lousy, and the kids decided to mock him in his sleep.
  

  
After dropping Evan off at Joy School one morning, I backed into some guy's car.  I was pretty disgusted with myself.  Luckily, the damage was minor, and the owner said not to worry about it.
  

  
Now that there are at least seven LDS homeschooling families in our area, I decided to invite everyone to attend a park day on Fridays.  There is already a Friday park day for our ward after school, so I just tacked this on earlier.  On the first day, however, we got delayed by a rattlesnake!  We've had them before, but never in the backyard where the kids play.  Connor was walking around the pool as a consequence for something, and he saw it coiled near the sliding glass door.  We called animal control, and I had Connor watch it (to make sure it didn't go anywhere) until the guy arrived, which took quite awhile.  When our friends heard we had a rattlesnake, they sent their kids over to have a look.  Yeah, we were careful :-)
  

The rattlesnake was hiding under that piece of paper.

The officer gave a great lesson on snake safety.

We eventually made it to park day!

Monopoly and Dress-Ups

 
We had a couple of "late-overs" with the kids' friends.  Once was while the parents were at a late Dodgers game.  Connor and Isaac played Legos most of the night, and all the other kids ate candy and jumped in the crib.  The other night was a movie night with Elise's best friend and her sister.  Connor was gone to a birthday party, so it worked out really well.  We've started a Friday tradition of movie night for the kids while Ryan and I eat our take-out dinner in peace.  It's like a mini-date, but with a lot of popcorn vacuuming at the end.
  

Watching "The Nightmare Before Christmas"

Corinne finally got enough hair for a topknot.  I love how proud she looks!