Fall is my favorite time of year.

I like the the crispy cool mornings and the particular slant of the sunlight in the afternoons. I also like the food and festivals and family togetherness. Here is what all we have been up to so far this Fall...there's photos, slide shows, and video, so enjoy!

On Sunday afternoons I like to go exploring and see what parks we can find that we haven't been to before - these are some sweet shots of Bella at a park over in Summerwood. It's harder to get ones of Jacob - he's always on the move! A few weekends back I was awakened by a strange noise, it was very loud and very early. Jacob and I headed out into the dewy yard to check it out. Turns out they are clearing the lot adjacent to ours. This made us sad, to see the trees being ripped out like that. It was also exciting and neat to sit there like that, the two of us in our PJ's, at the start of the day. I also took these pictures of the trees that are behind our house because I'm sure that they will also be cleared eventually. All the rest of the weekend, there was this great smell in the air, just like fresh sawn wood (Oh, I guess it actually was fresh sawn wood - whatever) and leaves and sunshine. Did I mention we viewed all this from a new vantage point in our backyard? Jacob's birthday swingset finally arrived! Poor guy, his birthday got all messed up due to Ike. (Of course, we know that delayed plans are nothing in light of what others have gone through, praise God we are all safe and sound!) But he was very patient about the whole thing and it was one of those special moments as a parent to see his face when he first saw the new playset and ran up to it, saying "I love it! I love it!" Since then we have spent many evenings before supper playing on our "park" as Jacob calls it.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The other part of Jacob's birthday that was delayed was his actual official party. We had the party at Jumpin' Joey's and all the kids had a great time. We did have a bit of a meltdown when it was time to stop jumping and come into the room for cake and pizza. At one point Jacob actually hid under the table!Oh no! Luckily one of his school friends came to the rescue by saying "Come sit by me Jacob!" and all was well after that. God Bless you Will Lowe! I tried to get pics of all the kids but it was hard with bad lighting and kids jumping around so much. If you don't see your child here it is probably because they were just a blur in my camera!

Last weekend we went to our neighborhood's fall festival. It was our first big event since we've moved to Eagle Springs, I wasn't sure what to expect. It was so fun, they had a train, moonwalks, hayride, pumpkin patch, games and tasty things to eat. Jacob had a total blast, Bella's allergies were bugging her and it turns out her shoes were a little too tight (I just bought them in September!) After we removed the shoes and had some Mama/Baby time back at the car she was happy again and sat quite content in the wagon watching all the festivities. And introducing the fabulous - Tinker-Bella! Oh-oh, at one point the generator went out and the moonwalk collapsed, no worries, all the kids were fine! Here's Jacob safe in Daddy's arms! Of course we aren't always on the go - Bella can tell you there is plenty of fun to be found right here at home. Excuse me miss! I think you have toilet paper stuck to your foot....

Kids

This is totally just a “brag about my kids” post! The new gate is installed and works great! I feel a huge sense of freedom as now Bella can roam safely anywhere downstairs. She is at that age where she gets into EVERYTHING. She is very curious and patters around grabbing things and making messes – just what an almost 14 month old should be doing! She is becoming quite the talker, here is a list of words she is saying these days: Mama Dadda Frodo (“Brother”) Hi Bye Ball Shoe No, No, No (Complete with index finger shaking and disapproving face) Dah (Dog) What’s That? There she is! (in response to “Where’s Bella?”) Thank you Words she is signing: More Bye Hi Eat Drink Jacob is getting more and more grown up each day. He loves to tell very long, complicated silly stories and also to play pretend with his stuffed animals and action figures, he’ll come up with all these different voices and characters, it’s really funny. He’s also becoming more aware of his surroundings and generally how the world works. For instance he understands now if you tell him that something is coming up on Saturday or that we’ll eat dinner at 6:30. He has always called the fountains at the front of our neighborhood “water falls” but then the other day he told us, “I know that really they are water fountains and not water falls but lets make the choice to say waterfalls, OK guys?” Bella has been inordinately fussy and refusing normally beloved foods like goldfish and wheat crackers so we tilted her upside down and took a peak and poor girls back gums look like raw hamburger – she is getting in some monster teeth back there – poor baby! I guess it hurts her to crunch on things, it also explains something that happened the other day. I gave her some crackers spread with peanut butter/jelly and I went to change the laundry and could hear her saying “ah oh” (you know like “oops”) and I knew she was throwing food on the floor because she always chunks stuff off the high chair and then says “Ah oh” and peers down over the edge like “where’d it go?” . So I go in and sure enough the crackers are all over the floor – but JUST the crackers, each one licked absolutely clean of any trace of PB&J! She’s a funny baby. That’s really it, not a lot going on in our world, just gearing up for Jacob’s make-up birthday party this weekend and I’m reminded of how pathetic it is that I still haven’t blogged Bella’s birthday photos. Oh well, I’ll get to it when I can.

Hurricane Ike (our Hurrication)

When we woke on Friday morning and saw the size and position of the storm we changed our minds about staying home. It was Jacob’s 4th birthday and we wanted the best day possible for him under the circumstances. So we packed up and headed to Austin where we threw together a very impromptu party Friday night. It lacked none of the essentials – other children, balloons, pizza and cake. Randy even picked up a package of bubbles which were a huge hit! On Saturday Will and I took the kids out to a shopping center called the Arboretum that has an Amy’s Ice Cream and a huge park area with cow sculptures and a fountain. This was especially fun for me as this was a place that was a favorite hang out spot when I was a teenager. We ducked into one of our favorite fancy baby clothes stores, Janie and Jack where Bella tried on the most adorable pumpkin hat. I scoured the sales rack and was very pleased to pick up jeans, a shirt and leather shoes all for $24. It was such a beautiful day that we decided to completely wear out the kids by taking them to Mt Bonnel. Afterwards Jacob said – “My legs are TIRED!” We took them back home to Grandma Julie’s house and that night Will and I went out to dinner at, ooh big surprise – Z-Tejas. It was great to have an hour to ourselves! On Sunday the kids played with one of Jacob’s birthday presents, a giga-ball – which is a huge inflatable ball that children can crawl inside of and roll around – it was super fun. Needing to get the kids out of the house we took a drive on Sunday afternoon and ended up on UT Campus. Bella was happy to roam off on her own across the Main Mall, she would stop and look over her shoulder as if to say “See ya, I’m going to college now!”(I am glad I have a while to get used to that idea.) Jacob has a book about Bevo and so he was all excited to see the things in the book in person. He loved the clock tower and decided to call it the “Hook ‘em Horns Palace”. Monday morning we were up at 6 AM to head home, after stocking up on ice and milk and asking our good friends to pick up a box of diapers for us while they were in Fort Worth since I wasn’t sure what the grocery situation would be once we got back. Our tiny car was totally packed tight! As soon as we pulled into our driveway a neighbor came up and offered us a bag of ice. Neighbors on the other side had been feeding our cat and cleaned out our fridge for us (We didn’t want the brand new fridge to be full of rotten stuff when we got back). That afternoon we cleaned up the yard and unpacked. That night we drove into Houston to stay with Will’s parents in their townhouse in the Heights. By now Will and I had really had enough traveling and sleeping in other places but the kids were awesome and took everything in stride. Late Monday night we got the call that our power was back on. We were the only house on the whole street that had power, we don’t know why it is just our house and not those on either side but we are deeply grateful. I’ve been really impressed with my employer – they have provided meals and supplies to their employees, plus assistance for those with homes that were damaged. They have even been providing employees with fuel each day. Also we’ve had all kinds of kids here in the office since many child care facilities are closed. It was funny to be working and hear little feet running down the hall. Overall I had thought we had done a pretty good job of explaining things to Jacob without scaring him too much. He was crying on the way home from Austin, saying he didn’t want to go home and at one point he asked us if our new house was smashed to bits. I guess he’d picked up more on the news than we thought. Generally speaking though he is doing great and he certainly enjoyed the time with his grandparents and cousins. We walked around our neighborhood trails where several HUGE trees had fallen,a s you can tell by the picture, by this point Jacob was more into the "adventure" mode than the scared mode.

So now I feel kind of bad. Reading Romans today, was reminded not to avenge anything. To let God take care of those things. So maybe, given this type of customer service BabyAge will fall apart on its own someday but I'm feeling like I want to draw a line - I mean I want them to deal fairly with us but I'm not all riled up anymore. I just felt like I should let you all know that. I intend to post some reccomendations of those places that have AWESOME customer service in the upcoming posts, that seems like a more positive plan. Oh, and I can't NOT mention the most exciting thing to happen in Kingwood (other than the new Target) ... we are actually getting a CHUY"S!!!! I'm SOOOOO happy. For the whole time we've lived here whenever I ate at Chuy's (which is a lot) I would fill out the comment card and under the "What can we do better" section I always wrote - "Build a Kingwood location!" and they must have listened. Woot! Woot! I Can't Wait!!!!

The Gate

We have a staircase that has wrought iron and the banisters sort of open out at the ends. I wanted it baby proofed in time for Bella's party so we went to Right Start in Rice Village (they are awesome!) and bought what is called a configure gate. This is a gate that can stretch all the way across the opening, arch around the base of the stairs and connect to the walls on either side. It was easy to put together but it turns out it was about 4 inches too short. No worries, the gate company makes an 8" extension. HAH. As if life would be that simple. We go back to Right Start but they don't carry it. I search around online and find that the best price is on BabyAge.com. So we order it and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.

We call BabyAge customer service and it turns out that they use a service provided by the post office that autocorrects people's addresses. So even though I entered "Court", their system flipped it to "Lane." They refuse to fix their records, because the United States Post Office is the the grand poopah of all things address related so even though I can SEE THE SIGN ON MY STREET AND IT SAYS CT they don't believe me.

I embark on what I thought would be a most arduous task. I actually called the United States Postal Service. They were wonderful! I couldn't believe it when within just two transfers I was speaking with a real live person and she helped me! She called CenterPoint (oddly, Centerpoint is in charge of naming streets in Eagle Springs) and she checked with the county (to verify the sign really says CT) and it only took her a week to come back and agree with me, Why yes, you are right, you do live on a court and not a lane. I could have told her this, as my house is built on the end of the street and if it were a lane and not a court then I would have a road running through my family room. Truthfully, I was amazed that a government agency could move so fast. So, this will help us going forward with getting our packages. (Which is important because I have a bit of an eBay habit!)

But what of the gate we had already ordered? Well, the Friday before the party we get a call from UPS. Evidently they are confused because our address in their system says Lane instead of Court at the end. Sigh. We tell them it should be Court and they say OK, we'll bring your gate tomorrow. Saturday - no gate. Monday, no gate. We wait all week. Finally on Thursday we see a package at the door. We get excited. Only to find that it is literally MANGLED. I mean the box is bowed into a curve, it has a huge hole in it and the gate part inside is bent and broken and almost split in two (these are metal rods!)

You would think, that given the circumstances BabyAge customer service would replace the gate extension, maybe even overnight it for free. Double HAH. They told us too bad, if we weren't happy we could take it up with UPS. After numerous calls to them they finally grudgingly agree to refund our money. That was two weeks ago. We have had to call, and call, and call. Today, I get an email from them:

Dear Shaun Fisher A return has been recieved from order # 722235 placed on 8/7/2008 RA#:RA10944R2AC0 The following items have been received ------------------------------------------------- G80-8 Kidco Kidco Configure Gate Optional Extension Gate - 8 Inches -- Condition of the Product -- Damaged : No Open Box : No Missing Parts : No ------------------------------------------------- Your Return Process has now been completed, and we will notify you by Email the processing results Return Department Babyage.com *Please note this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming emails

What??? No damage? No Open Box, are you kidding me???? So because they file it as just a return, they don't refund the $7.95 I paid for shipping! I can't believe this company! So if you are shopping on the net I highly recommend NOT buying anything from BabyAge. They may be cheaper but I wish I had paid a bit more and gone with a company that had any semblance of true customer service.

I told them that I would blog about how awful this experience has been. And I have readership, I am a woman of influence and power, not to be reckoned with! OK, so maybe not, but I would hate anyone else to have to go through this. And Another Thing. They misspelled "Received" in their letter to me! I-before-E-except-after-C ! Triple HAH. I am SO getting my $7.95 back. $7.95 could buy important nutrition for my children, like bread, a gallon of milk and a largish handful of chocolate covered pretzels from the bulk bin...

Meanwhile, I ordered the part from another vendor last Tuesday. I paid for Two-Day delivery but is didn't show up today. I just called the carrier and they said it got sent to Waco by mistake. They said I can contact HappyMothers.com for a refund of the shipping costs. Oh my. I'd better scoot off to bed before I have some sort of mental breakdown. At this rate Bella will be coming down the stairs in her wedding gown by the time I get the gate up.