Of weddings and school pictures and tree stands and rainy days.

A week after Finley's birthday, Jojo still reigns supreme and Finley thinks that every package that arrives from amazon is for her. Imagine her surprise when she got a deer stand. 

(Side note, Seth already owns like 12 deer stands, why did another one arrive at my doorstep? Perhaps there was some mistake?)

Deer season also means school picture season (these are fuzzy proofs but, in our unbiased opinion, the most adorable thing ever even if both kids' expressions make them look like the undead in a Scandinavian horror film)

and, according to Sacred Walters Family Tradition, Christmas lights/ tree season. I was proud of my early November setup even if- as per usual- Sara beat me by a few hours.

Veterans' Day weekend was Barksdale-Fleming wedding weekend, which meant long-overdue dance parties and other shenanigans with Aunt Jackie,

THE most beautiful, fun, thoughtful wedding, which Jackie and I managed to not ruin,

and recovery days which included lots and lots of soccer (no kidding, Handsome Ford is a prodigy and I'm not sure how I feel about that),

playroom time,

and a rainy day, Dad-has-to-work-and-Aunt-Jackie-left pick-me-up trip to the dollar store

and the completely incredible Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh.

Unstructured play is always a funny underscoring of the differences between Finster and Handsome Ford. For example, when given a half hour to themselves, Ford scaled the top of a very dangerous pirate ship and then had a swordfight with a gang of eight year olds,

and Finley planted beautiful "flowers" and then held a whole "presentation" to explain her work.

(She also modeled park ranger hats and made artisan pizza.)

I just love that, all differences aside, they're still best buddies.

As evidenced by the fact that Ford "shared" his beloved fire truck driver's seat with his big sis. This is my favorite photo from the week, and my favorite way to wrap up any rainy long weekend. Happy Veterans' Day to everybody who has served, in any capacity. We are grateful.

Finley is Four!

Well, Finley's fourth birthday is officially a wrap.

I think I speak for at least 3/4 of us when I say, "phew!"

We had just recovered from Halloween when the Birthday Week hit with a vengeance.

We managed some time for "kid date morning" on Saturday (I'm pretty sure I got the better end of that deal)

and for acting like terrorists at the polls while performing our civic duty this morning,

but other than that it's been the all-Finley-show-all-the-time.

Her gymnastics party at The Little Gym was money incredibly well spent

and the stuff that little girl dreams (and tired working parents') dreams are made of.

The Jojo factor was out of control,

(even Ford got in on it, and I caved and bought him his own Jojo doll to avoid World War III),

Finley's actual birthday Monday included both the Disney store and the Cheesecake Factory (with a side trip to Lush for bath bombs),

and Seth- naturally- surprised Finley with her first gun. (What is, I'm sure- I haven't had the heart to check yet- the nicest .22 [plus scope!] on the market.)

There had better be a lot of early weekend morning hunting with Dad in their future, to make up for the fact that this scene occurred before 8am Sunday, daylight savings notwithstanding.

All in all, our first baby turned four with a bang, and I only silently called her a Birthday A$$hole (and audibly threatened to cancel birthdays indefinitely) a handful of times.

But hey, we got cupcakes- my favorite photo of the week- for breakfast.

More times than I care to admit. 

All the Halloweens.

In the aftermath of Grandma's departure, at least we had Halloween. It's my least favorite holiday, but my Mom has always loved it, as do F+F. 

So does, inexplicably, Seth, who invariably conspires with Finley to con everyone into family costumes. But I digress.

At least we got our money's worth of sweatshop spandex. First, there was my work fall festival, to which Seth did not make it and at which I was too mortified at being clothed in spandex in front of my senior rater (a three star general) to take any pictures.

Then, Boo at the Zoo for our local rescue zoo, which we adore. Where the kids can feed Stretch the giraffe,

pet revoltingly enormous Burmese pythons,

stand back to avoid being in spit radius while Dad feeds the camels,

play on seriously dilapidated and probably dangerous playground equipment with old friends,

and dote on their real favorite animals, the owners' dogs.

Pre-Halloween weekend also involved Finley's first "big girl" birthday party, a roller skate party which included approximately five minutes of actual skating

and a couple of unseasonably warm fall nights on which Dad was- unusually- home. Which meant evening bike rides (we love where we live)

and trips to see the hit of the season, our Dutch neighbors' contribution to American Halloween: this large inflatable dragon. The kids adore it, and ride their bikes to say hi to the dragon every night. As a result, Halloween being over is going to really kill our bedtime routine, and I'm trying to figure out a way to convince the neighbors that there is such a thing in America as a "Christmas dragon." Any and all ideas appreciated.

Halloween itself was idyllic. Upper 70s and sunny. The family costume, sudden mask aversion notwithstanding, was a hit.

Thanks to Jayne, the house looked festive.

Seth got home in time to drive the kids around trick or treating on the golf cart (along with the rest of the neighborhood) while I handed out candy and sipped pumpkin beer. (Don't feel too sorry for him. The golf cart has cupholders.)

And F+F consumed a reasonable amount of candy and were down for the count by 8pm. (This is them pretending to sleep when I checked on them at 7:45.)

We're enjoying this calm version of Halloween while we can, and know it won't last.

Nor will this, my favorite photo of the week. In a post-Halloween coma (and inexplicably missing some PJ items), F+F climbed in our bed early this morning. I woke up Thursday to go for a run and saw this:

Here's hoping everyone's Halloween included pumpkin beer, a decent bedtime, and sleepy snuggles.

Goodbye to Grandma, and zoo adventures.

I guess all good things must come to an end, but we had gotten super spoiled by having Grandma Jayne around to handle daycare pickup and dropoff and- because she's awesome- the bulk of the laundry, cooking, and potty training.

We had one last farewell weekend before she left, during which I snagged a rare night away. Which for some reason, I opted to spend running a 200 mile relay across Eastern North Carolina with a van full of sweaty cops, for the Tuna Relay. At least I got to share space, and some unlikely campsites, with Michelle. (The one on the right is us crashing midday at Bentonville Battlefield, dodging fire ants and overly enthusiastic park rangers.)

We eventually made it to the beach, and grabbed a few well-deserved morning beers. It had been a long time since I had been kicked out of a van to run 9 miles in the pitch blackness at 2am, and it felt good to be back in the saddle.

I made it home just in time for the first round of holiday parties (we have so far massively lucked out on weather) and costumes.

And as Grandma Jayne's last hurrah, we made a Sunday run for the NC Zoo in Asheboro- my favorite zoo of all time-

where the kids made new friends

and enjoyed the very last vestiges of summer.

Followed by a trip to the Flying Pig for food and arcade game throwbacks

and, naturally, trains. An Asheboro (and Ford) fave.

My favorite photos of the week are of the Nieman men, checking out the elk exhibit at the zoo

and this- completely candid- late night photo I snapped at Lowe's Foods in Asheboro. I swear Seth was only pretending he was going to punch Ford. Who loved it. Finley, on the other hand, was actually dancing like a paid performer on the tabletop.

I'm sure Jayne's going to miss this band of crazies as much we we're going to miss her!