Pumpkins and Parties

First up, Bogie’s Community Helper Parade.

Dr. Dunbar was a brain surgeon this year.  He was writing everyone prescriptions and telling them that doctor’s have sloppy handwriting. Great.

Can you tell class is populated with lots of girls?

Bye bye Doctor.

This silly guy, had an awesome party. It was a Madd Hatter theme and it was rockin. Here are the only two shots I got of these funny guys.

Bogie also had his Orange Party and Pumpkin Patch. Of course, baby brother’s just make themselves students. This is Bogie and his little bud this year. They are like 2 peas in a pod.

And then, last night we finally carved pumpkins. Joy. I need to take my camera in, only about 1 in every 4 shots is coming out clear. So here are just a few randoms.

Gramma was pretty crazy with the knife.

Tonight we are off to Trunk N Treat with our friends at a church across town.  Good times. Be safe everyone.

Hangin’ with our Peeps

Over the past month we’ve had the opportunity to hang out with some really great people in our lives. A few weeks ago we had some random thunderstorms. 

But they didn’t deter us from hanging with our cousins for a night of dinner and playing.

My cousins kids’ are really used to my camera, as you can see in the following two shots. Okay a more redeeming shot.

And yummy dinner, perfect for a night a rain. Pazole! I told her she was a grown-up because she made this all on her own. I’ve been married almost 9 years and have never made this by myself.

We brought over this Color Magic puzzle for everyone to play with.

This little guy doesn’t know he’s the little guy.

It was all fun and games until the electricity went out.

I thought this was a funny shot- oh these people and their iPhones.

Then Mr. Dunbar and I were able to go out to dinner with these cool peeps.

Seriously?

Our food was so good. This was fig and arugula pizza, OMG- it was some good stuff.

They had the polenta which was really good. Like straight from Europe good.

We ate at this really cool restaurant that was the Anthropologie of food. I started to take some shots but them my camera died. Again, seriously?

And then, this past weekend Cousin Jared and Bri came to town and brought Auntie Marian over.  We put him in charge of story time for the evening and he did really well, even with the Bible.

She’s 101 now, you know. And the sharpest tack in the bunch. She knows the kids by name, how old they are, what activities they are involved in.

Good times and lots of good people.

On and on we go…

A few weeks ago Monkey tested for his next belt in karate.

After the testing session, they were encouraged by their Senior Sensei to stick with things, stay strong, and to take on more responsibility and respect. It was an honorable talking to.

The kids were then presented with their belts.

Then the following Monday, someone else started their lessons. Can you find him?

I’m sure this Sensei loves the fact that the Dunbar boys don’t know how to tie their own belts, and evident enough, neither does their mom.

With Monkey’s new belt, he was promoted to the next level class. Combined with the fact that Bogie has now started his lessons, we are at the dojo quite a bit. Which means homework is done at the dojo twice a week.

It also means we started full-contact sparring. Don’t worry, he’s ready.

Oh, wrong kid. Okay, here’s the right one. The one above is pretty much ready as well. He knows how to kick, punch, and block pretty well. That’s the perk of being the youngest brother.

Monkey was having a blast out there.

How many fighters have you seen with smiles on their faces the whole time? This was a good match which gave him a lot of confidence. In his second match, he got the wind knocked out of him and was on the ground face down in a fetal-position for-quite-a-long-time. But he got back up and kept right on going. I was really proud of him. And man o man is it hard to see someone else hitting your baby.