The 5 year old built a No Construction sign in Minecraft for his uncle on a map they share.

We took a nice walk this morning and he had an absolute blast in the fog.
It was like running around in a forbidden forest or something. He loved it!
The fall is a wonderful season!
 

This evening we got together and played some Animal Crossing as a family. Grandpa, Uncle Jeff, Quinn and I ran around and had fun exploring. Mostly I think we just enjoy visiting each other's islands and seeing different things.  

 

In Covid cases, Michigan continues to be relatively flat (not decreasing or increasing too much), with flare ups at different campuses and schools. The governor just set the remaining businesses such as bowling alleys and theaters to open in a week. We shall see if anyone actually frequents many of those establishments. 

 The overall response the United States has had to the pandemic has been depressing. I appreciate how hard the governor in Michigan has worked to slow the spread, even if it isn't ideal compared to virtually all of there rest of the world. 

We spent a little bit of time before work (it's a conversion weekend) today on the Kano. This tablet is so adorable.

It's that time of year again, our favorite time of year! We started doing some decorating outside in the front and the back of the house for Halloween!
He set all of these up himself, he was so excited!
Definitely lots of fun and silliness over here today with setting up for the best holiday of the year!
 

I spent the evening making dinosaurs in the little one's Minecraft Jurassic World.

I came into the kitchen and found these two laying next to each other. I'm not really sure what was going on, but I didn't hear any meowing so it couldn't have been bad.

I'm just going to keep building sprites in Minecraft. 

This orange guy was all cuddles today. Some days Leki is all about snuggling.
 

It's my birthday! I took the day off to spend with these two!
They made me a delicious cake, which I very much enjoyed.
 

My carrots were interesting this year. But hey, for a first time I'm ok with them.
These two played together quite a bit while I played some video games, trying to get through Final Fantasy XV finally.
And in the evening we played some Minecraft with Uncle Jeff. I decided to just build sprites everywhere while those two built an elaborate minecart track. It's been great to have these games to play online with Jeff, and with video chat to keep in touch. Since we aren't really traveling or going anywhere due to Covid, the internet has been a great resource.
 

We had a nice lazy morning.
And a fun, exploration-filled afternoon at the park. Lots of mud, wet shoes, and exploring!
 

The 5 year old is getting better at sounding out words and spelling them. He's not too far off from Mario.

He's really enjoying climbing in trees. Every evening that's the first thing he wants to do.

He was determined to re-create some Clavin and Hobbes images he saw in one of my old books.
We spent quite a bit of time climbing through the trees at the nearby park this evening. He loved every moment of it.
 

Yesterday the sun was red from the wildfires out west. Today it's still a little red in the sky as the sun comes up.
 

I'm tired of swapping out batteries all the time, because they die in the xbox controllers. I can't believe I'm doing this but I'm playing with it plugged into the console. I've taken a wireless controller and made it wired...
 

Ever since Chris showed him the magic of climbing in trees, he's been loving crawling around in branches.

We worked more today on laying more bricks today. That's the 3rd and final one for this area. Now to actually get some plants and what not in place.
 

We had fun today playing with the Trogdor boardgame. We didn't play by the normal rules, but we did have fun.

We called my mother and wished her a happy birthday, but I forgot to take a photo. So you get a tomato photo! The first tomato picked for the season.

A smurf diorama someone built in the living room....

He loves to explore the various paths by buck creek after it's rained. And it's been rainy earlier today, which means mud!
Lots of climbing and investigating.
And seeing how deep he can get before water gets into his boots.
 

I'm off this week and today is a holiday, so bonus! I started digging to lay down some more bricks on one of the terraces by the house. I put some bricks down earlier this year and one area last year. Eventually I'll fill up the area with plans but for now, we dig!
I tossed a pork tenderloin in to the oven, following a recipe from a Harry Potter cookbook a co-worker gave me last year.
And we continued work in Minecraft on another base area the 5 year old picked out. We seem to move bases a lot...
 

He loves to sleep with a bed full of stuffed animals. Harry Potter plushies are even better still.

All summer squirrels have been eating the tomatoes as they grow on the plants. Finally one has started to turn red. I've given up on one plant and let them pick that clean. This one is off away and harder to get it and has quite a few green ones on it as well.

We spent the morning running around as Harry Potter at the park before I started work.
And in the evening when I was off, we finally watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He loved every minute of it.
 

We played more Minecraft and I spent some time gathering resources and building a track between a few bases that Jeff, Quinn and I have.

I can't complain too much when the sun is out. Soon it will be cold and snowy.
 

Minecraft themed mazes! He enjoys mazes so I thought he might enjoy this book.