we decided to have a little 1st bday party for griffin, and we had mostly family and a few friends (human and lizard).

ally was a great helper with the lizard lady, and she loved petting and holding the snakes and lizards.





griffin kept trying to grab the tails of the lizards and squeezing.














ally and daddy loved wearing the snakes on their shoulders, and mama was a little freaked out when one of the big snakes was staring her down.














all in all, griffin was quite stunned by it all, but ally and the other kids had a blast running around the room throwing rubber-footed lizards at the wall.

happy birthday rashy boy!

today is griffin's birthday. for his birthday, he gets to:

* have a lovely full body rash
* take benedryl and claritin
* gag on apple and spit-up on daddy
* stand-up in his highchair and almost jump off
* dive off the changing table and bite his tongue

happy birthday rashy boy!

Octopus's Garden

as you can see, we went with a sea theme for halloween this year.




















ally decided she wanted to be a mermaid. at first she insisted that she wanted to be a princess, so we were quite relieved when she changed her mind and asked to be ariel, the little mermaid.










we did trick-or-treating at our house this year. mark, irene, and the boys, and tommy, jessica, and damon all came over. we drove up the hill, hit about 10 houses, and drove back down for dinner. our neighborhood seems to have mostly empty nesters, so there weren't too many people out trick-or-treating. but all the homeowners were extremely friendly, seemed quite delighted to see us, and gave the kids handfuls of candy.