Shannon visited us last weekend. It was great to see him. We visited some spots in KC, including the Nelson-Atkins art museum. Jonas enjoyed the art as it was his first trip to an art museum. Jonas loved meeting Shannon and can't wait to see him again.
Holden enjoyed reading to Shannon. He is quite the reader these days.
Halloween and Politics
I will explain these pictures of a creative and informative Halloween costume in just a moment, but first I have to congratulate all the non-republicans out there that voted yesterday. We finally see some change. Six years ago I went to sleep thinking that Gore was our new president only to wake up the next morning with Bush as the president. Last night I went to sleep thinking that Talent (republican) won the state senate race. While I slept, Kansas City and St. Louis voting results were tabulated and McCaskill(democrat) won the senate race. This was a nice surprise. In fact, there were quite a few nice surprises that came out of the Kansas City, MO election day.
The pleasant surprises included an iniative to bring light rail to Kansas City. This iniative had been on the ballot 7 times in previous elections. I am not sure if this will lead directly to light rail in KC, but at least we know the voting public wants something like this in Kansas City. This issue reminded me of Shannon and Matt's Halloween costume (in the pics above). From Shannon:
Matt and I decided to be a public service announcement for halloween--global warming. Matt made an accurate, 10 foot long reconstruction of the last 1,000 years of the global mean temperature. He also threw in a projection for the next few decades, which goes straight up his face. I stayed close at hand as a melting glacier and the rising sea level. At the gay bar we were met with stares that read: "that costume makes you look fat" and "I don't understand at all," but at some house parties we were looked at admiringly.
Creative. And thought-provoking. I still haven't seen the Al Gore movie, but I plan to as soon as it is out on DVD. Having a child does make me think about those future generations more. I need to make some changes to be more environmentally friendly. I just looked up from the computer screen and noticed that there are lights on in empty rooms.
Back to election news--the iniative to raise the minimum wage and the stem cell iniative passed in MO. The stem cell was close...like the senate raise.
In college I was active in lots of political stuff--campaigning for state races and stuff like that. I miss that involvement. Even though voting was a small act yesterday, I felt like my vote made a difference since MO can go either way and often goes republican. Here is to positive change. I hope November 2008 brings more positive change.
Halloween got off to a scary start for Jonas (get it, scary. Halloween. hilarious). His fingernails, which grow fast and are impossible to trim, drew their first blood Halloween night, which would have been no big deal and quite timely, as he was dressed as a vampire, but unfortunately, he spilled his own blood. 
Once we got that mess cleaned up, we ran into another tiny problem. His costume was too small (get it, tiny problem. i'm on a roll). He apparently outgrew the costume in just a few weeks, so I had to take the scissors and hack off the bottom of the outfit to give his growing legs some room to kick.
Next Halloween, we're stealing Whitey's longstanding costume idea: Jonas is going as the two-headed baby. 
Lights out for this toothless vampire (lights out -- you're killing me! wait, you're killing me -- enough!).
It is hard to believe, but Jonas is 5 months old now. Here are some pictures of Jonas eating leaves in our front yard yesterday. As you can see we have lots of leaves for Jonas to eat. Jason spends a big part of fall trying to figure out how to keep with all of these leaves. This is just the beginning. If you look up at the tree, it looks as though no leaves have fallen yet. It has been a beautiful fall in Kansas City. 
Sunday may have been the best day of the year in Kansas City -- temps in the 70s, sunny and Fall leaves in full color. We decided to hang out for part of the afternoon in Loose Park, about a mile from our house, and one of better parks around with its wide-open spaces, duck pond, turtles and many, many trees. It's so picturesque, we guessed half the people there were amateur/professional photographers with fancy, Abe Iverson-type cameras. Speaking of amateur ...
the only downer of the afternoon happened when Tricia spotted an ideal place for our photo shoot (noted below) when some chump who had been hired to snap family shots barged into our space. His assistant stepped on and kicked our blanket, and the whole kit-and-caboodle hogged the area for about 20 minutes while we patiently waited to regain the spot. So angry was I that I stalked the offending photog, and clicked the shots below of him tearing limbs off a live tree for his next shot. The pics are on their way to the park service as we speak, and if there is justice, he's headed to jail, or at least some serious, back-breaking community service.
Here is the scenic scene that Tricia picked out. No wonder that fool and the richy-rich family who hired him wanted the spot.
Tricia often loses her glasses at home. Things were no different at the park. And like at home, I somehow found them, lying amongst the acorns and leaves. 
Holden leading the way back home.
I took this picture about a month ago one Sunday afternoon while Jason was out mowing the grass. I dressed Jonas in this white outfit from Sarah, Jeff and Hannah. They brought this ensemble back from their trip to various countries in Asia. This particular outfit was purchased in Vietnam, I believe. Isn't it cute? I took a whole series and will share a few more. I took these right around the time of the Black and White challenge on Project Runway and was inspired by their black and white designs. At that time I was rooting for Michael to win, but I have to say I am happy with the Jeffrey win. Anyway, let's continue with the Jonas Black White series.
This picture was taken at the end of our Black White photo shoot and I believe Jonas was done with the picture snapping. I had to include this picture, because I love how expressive Jonas is. As I have mentioned before that backdrop is a Liv original.
Afterwards he slept. Here he is smiling in his sleep. Sorry about the picture being crooked. Photos are rotating in the uploading process and I am giving up on getting it right for now. But, I can't leave this photo out of the series.
