A Cerney Periodical

Carving pumpkins! Yay!!  This year, Brock was very impressive. Except with some goo-scooping assistance, he designed and CARVED his pumpkin himself. A pumpkin guy person pumpkin being is what we have here. Alice was amazing and haunted us in Matt's sweatshirt. And documentation of her spooky visit. Brock's Mine (a severed eyeball) Day shot. Alice's is a wee mouse with some cheese. And Matt's is a waffle!! Amazing 3d effect! Halloween? Check. Now bring on the turkey! 

Yes. We have a Woddler! It's official. Here she is chasing after "Sphero" a robot ball from my library. You will also hear one of her new words, "ball".  and she can dance too. 

Weird title in reference to the fact that it snowed for 24 hours the night before and into the day for All Hallows. Green trees crusted in ice and snow beckoned confusion when you knocked on peoples' doors, was I caroling? No, no, I'm here for Snickers. Yeah. Ok, now onto the goods. Despite the 11 day teacher strike, despite a move the week before, WE MADE HALLOWEEN. As ever. Brock set the stage, and this year was inspired by the immortal tail of Willy Wonka, which his class is reading. Matt and I were a bit disheartened, only because we don't really like to dress up as "people" and I am really more of a crafter than a seamstress and the thought of a confronting what is basically a small tuxedo was quite daunting. Sooooooo..... I found a Joker costume at a reasonable price and snagged the purple jacket and embellished the hooey out of it. Any how, I'm struggling to decide if I should tell you who we all decided to be or just show you. Ok, show... Ma

Hello! Alice here. My family took me out for burgers and fries, which I always enjoy. Today we got something new called a milkshake. It must be ok, cause it has "milk" in the name. Let's try some.  Oh man. This is good. mmmmmmmmmm.... Hey wait a second... Where you taking that shake? Hey, I was drinking that!  NOOOOOOO!!! Not the brother!! He's drinking all the shake!!! Oh thank God. It worked! The shake is mine again all mine!! Sooooo goooood. Must finish.... What?! Why?! I'm not done. GET OFF OF ME!! GIVE ME SHAKE!!!! HE'S DRINKING IT ALL!!! WHY ARE YOU DOING NOTHING TO STOP THIS??!! What is.... Ok. Everything is good again. Sorry for that outburst.   Heaven....    And what, exactly, do you think you are doing?    Oh the humanity!!!    This is the worst day of my life....

Oh I am not a fan of soliciting, but I'm dong my part for Brock's school to get new bathrooms. A humble request indeed. No pressure, but now I hath put it out there. Here is a link to his fun-run-d-raiser.  Pritzker Walk-a-thon and here is a cute picture to make this blog post less smarmy. Thanks for considering!

Brock has been building some cool stuff with Magnatiles. I have been documenting some of his work. He now wants to be a rocket engineer when he grows up with his best friend Theodore. Awesome. He said that was because he likes to build stuff and that it makes a lot of money. We obviously have been talking about the cost of things these days (holy $@$!!!! don't build a house :) ). Oh yeah! This post is about Magnatiles!! Note that these are 100% Brock's construction and design. It also helps him to destroy and clean up if I take a picture, which is how this all began.  Maybe not as impressive, but he told me it was an underground bunker.

Alice has been ready to walk for some time, but when it comes to walking, she's a pretty careful lady. She has impeccable balance, but prefers crawling for locomotion. It is only when she is distracted by holding something, or trying to lift something heavy, that she takes some steps.  Here's a clip of here taking a few steps holding mommy's purse.  This video was shot in my attempts to get a video of her walking further, but it mostly just shows off her insane balance and body control skills. She is determined to wear that purse.  I also caught her running off with Brock's backpack. Give her some gear, and she's on the move. This very night (10/8) she actually took her first walk of more than 4 steps and she wasn't even carrying anything. There was a little panic in her eyes near the end, and relief when she reached a solid hand again, but she's on her way. 

My mom grew up in Indiana, along with five siblings. Three sets of those siblings were wed in the same year, and thus all were celebrating their 50th this year and decided to do so with a get together back where their seeds were planted. All but one of mom's sibs and their families came, so it was a great turn out and opportunity for them to re-meet Brock as a person and Alice as a cuteness.  Brock impressed the fam with his engineering of his sneaky sipper.   Luckily, we had the room essentially to ourselves.  Here is the whole gang!   And some cake that I drooled over and put in a to-go for the following day (our diet "off" day). Brock said he didn't like chocolate! But Alice was getting and eating cake from all angles. Not to waste one of our few weekends free, we made the anniversary brunch in Indiana into a camping trip! Any I had to add in a vintage market along the way!  Highlight for Brock was cracking open a geode (what c