Red Ribbon Week

This week was Red Ribbon Week at our kids' school. Among other things, this involved wearing lots of red, and also goofy outfits almost every day: pajama day, mismatched socks and shoes, sunglasses and the elementary t-shirts.

And of course, crazy hair day.

Dan helped Andrew with his hair. There's only so much you can do with boy hair, though next year I'm thinking we'll try dozens of tiny ponytails . . .

We went a little Pippy Longstocking with Evelyn's hair, with some help from pipe cleaners.

Of course, all the red hair spray did have a price. After dinner, Andrew was sitting (laying?) on the couch and ended up leaving a big red splotch all over our off-white couch. (Luckily, it cleaned off. Mostly. There's still a faint pink tinge if you look hard enough). After that, the kids were banned from the couches until they'd bathed.

This is what the bathtub looked like after they were out of it. And even now, after two additional hair washes, you can still see traces of red on Evelyn's scalp. The things we do for our kids!

I think this may be the first week with pictures where I don't have a new picture of Oliver. I did try--he was trying to help me mop my floor and I ran to grab the camera, but of course by the time I got back he'd moved on to something less interesting.

We tried to take advantage of some gorgeous "Indian Summer" weather this past week to get outside. The kids and I collected leaves for Andrew's school project on Friday; yesterday, after Andrew and I volunteered at Bountiful Baskets in the morning, we took the kids swimming. (And I just have to say here, for the record, that Andrew can be an amazingly had worker when he thinks he's being helpful. It made me very happy to watch him at the volunteer site. He was perky and enthusiastic and willing to help with everything.)

Andrew and Evelyn have always been big fans of the water. It's fun to see Oliver join them. Especially now that he can walk a bit, the aquatic center was much more exciting for him, since he could get around himself without submerging his face (crawling through shallow water doesn't seem to work as well). His big discovery this time? The slide in the toddler area. He could get himself up the stairs, wiggle his way around at the top, and slide down on his belly (feet first--usually. The one time I watched him go face first, he wound up completely submerged at the bottom of the slide. I grabbed him out of the water, and an older gentleman who'd been observing us commented that Oliver came out of the water with such a big grin, he couldn't have been much hurt or frightened by the submersion).

I don't know that we have much else to report. Aside from the break at the beginning of the week, it's been work as usual for everybody.

The kids are excited for Halloween. And, I have to admit, so am I. It's funny how having kids brings magic back to so many things.