Apples

On our way back  home from San Diego I decided to stop at this place called The Red Barn. They have lots of apples and hay rides and pumpkin picking and stuff.  The kids needed to stretch their legs and I had always wanted to stop at this place, so I did. We didn't stay long and just walked around the building part and got some yummy apples to eat and I took some pictures.

I asked them to kiss her...she didn't like it too much.

 

It's been a crazy last couple of weeks. We've been sick and we have missed stuff. We thought that Daddy and Grace had missed it but last night K got sick. (Poor guy) and I am praying Grace does not get sick tonight, she said her stomach was hurting when she went to bed. And tomorrow is our last Sunday to serve for October.
Poor Peanut she is teething so bad and just driving me nuts with her constant whining and not sleeping. I finally got her down for a late nap this afternoon and they slept so long. So tonight I didn't put them down until 8:30pm. I was sitting here on the computer and I heard a weird noise from the girls room. I thought they were all asleep as it was 9:15pm. I go into the girls room and Sarah has her feet on the wall through the bars of her crib and she was sliding them on the walls. As soon as she heard me come in she quickly flips over on her tummy and lies still pretending to be asleep! I had to chuckle to myself because it was like she was 12 in stead of 1 1/2!
Then 2 minutes later Aaron comes into my room to tell me his covers are messed up.
Hopefully tomorrow everyone feels good and we can have a nice Sunday after church.

Cornbelly's Pumpkin Patch

We decided to take the kiddos to Cornbelly's today since it was perfect weather! 60 degrees and sunny in fact we all got a little bit of sun on our necks. I thought it was going to be cooler and brought jackets but we didn't need them. I wanted to get some fun fall pictures and I got some decent ones, goodness kids are so hard to take pictures of. They never look at the camera!
 

Who do you think was behind be for this one? Hardworking Daddy of course!

 

After I got the obligatory picture taking out of the way we set about in the corn maze. I had never done a corn maze before and always had thought it would be novel and fun. Boy was I ever wrong. Of course maybe they are more fun when you don't have preschoolers with you and you should wear comfortable shoes. Mine started out comfortable but didn't end that way. :) Grace wanted to be the map reader which she is typically very good at, unless she is in a corn maze.

 

Luckily for me Daddy was a Marine, which means he had the necessary skills to navigate us out quickly to more fun and could carry lots of stuff for me for a bit.  Daddys' sure are great aren't they? 

And we quickly made our way to the end, thankfully, because it was my bright idea to do it first!

After the corn maze we had a shaved ice snack and then we played and played and bounced and slid. Until we were too tired and cranky...and Mommy's feet hurt and I was tired of carry all the stuff around. :)
We got and early dinner of chicken wings and Buffalo Wild Wings and then walked around Scheels for a tasty fudge treat. Pretty great fall day!

 

 

Picture upload!

My phone has been acting wonky lately and I decided to clear some pictures off of it and so I needed to get them on my blog so I can erase them off of my phone. I think most of these are recent.

This was in SD and I had been working out and Aaron was drawing on this magnetic pad. He was driving me a little crazy so I told him that after I was done I would teach him some letters. So he learned the letter H and I. He was very proud of himself and I of him.

 A few weeks ago, Grace wanted to take my picture (which she did as you can tell because my face is a bit blurry) after I finished my T25 workout. Thumbs up!

 Recent face pic, sans makeup for the hubs...my bangs are growing out, I'll probably try and cut them tomorrow.

 This one was on my birthday this summer. I decided to take the kids to the zoo and we had a great time! Right before the bird show which I hadn't seen before and the kids loved.

 Oh some of these pictures wouldn't send either...tried sending this to Memaw like 3x before I gave up. We found cowboy boots for her for $5 at Savers, of course now Aaron wants a pair.

 My trio, the baby is all too quickly becoming a toddler.

 New pjs and laughing it up on the couch for Daddy-io.

 Getting pumpkins in San Diego with Papou.

 Daddy went to wake her from her late nap a few days ago and she fell back asleep. Loves her daddy so much!

We have been busy busy busy. Trying to get back into a routine here with Grace's dance class and our small group starting, and serving at church. K had to go to Denver on Monday back Tuesday and then again early this morning until late Friday. He basically has been traveling for about 3 months straight now, poor guy has had enough of it. I'm actually doing OK with it, at least this week! I just feel terrible for him because I know he just wants to be home with us.
Poor Aaron woke up late this morning and then he drank a ton of juice and wouldn't eat his bagel. He kept saying he was cold. I could see that he was and so I brought a blanket for him to cover his legs. Then he was still cold so I got another blanket. I fed him a few bites while I read some Bible stories while we ate breakfast. Then I decided to lay him down on the couch with his pillow. I thought he must have finally caught the cold that I had had. He lay there quietly for awhile and urp, all the juice came up. Poor kid. Funny thing was like 5 minutes later he was in a terrible whining crying state about how hungry he was. (Well I'm sure because you have NOTHING in your stomach) but of course I'm not going to feed him anything. After fighting this course for maybe 30 minutes he finally snuck the bagel he never finished and quieted down. I realized that he wasn't whining anymore and saw him eating.( His, 'I'm caught face' was really cute though.) But shocker he kept everything down! So I don't know what little bug he got or whatever but he was back to himself the rest of the day. Which was nice, because I had to clean a lot.

Grace is going a TON of reading lately. She is really impressing us with her reading. And she is really enjoying it. Her face lights up the first time she reads a new book by herself and says, "Mom, I read that all by myself!" I'm so proud of her! Oh also I need to get some pictures of the girls room. A few days ago, Monday night actually I decided to finally move Grace into her room with Sarah. I had mentioned it to Aaron on Saturday night (knowing he needed a place for his train table) and he was very upset by the idea of not having Gracie with him. Which was what I was afraid of, and it just broke my heart. So I told K lets just wait until after he gets his train table and he will be 3 and feel like a big boy and then he might want it more. Which he totally did and moving him was a breeze. Kind of made me a little sad because those big kids are just peas in a pod always playing together. But I like how I moved the furniture around in the girls room and it's looks right Grace's bed in there too.  It's funny too, because Sarah has been really difficult to put to bed lately and needed lots of snuggles and comfort, the second night with Grace in there she just fussed and fussed and just wanted me to hold her. I think part of it is she is teething and getting her bottom molars.

I'm looking forward to the weekend, I don't know what we are to do yet, but I know I want to do something as a family and get some good fall pictures! I think it's supposed to be around 60 and sunny here on Saturday so perfect weather for being outside!

Blowing it Up

These are the last of my pictures from San Diego and I just realized when I was uploading these I didn't get any of the big kids with Memaw and Pepaw (sorry guys!). However, I LOVE this genuine smile of Sarah's and my moms'. And for the record I uploading these pictures in the order I took them, so I wasn't torturing my child to make her make the following faces.

Obviously unhappy about sitting there or something. 

Then the death glare over at Memaw (remember she was just smiling previously!) I should probably pray more regularly for her husband.

Then the shocked 'If you get any closer I will be so scared that I might just have to shank you!' look.

Then something appealing on TV.

And then she felt really cool knocking knuckles and blowing it up.

But she can't just do it once....

No she has to do it lots of times typically. But hey, her smile came back!

She is such a joy and I can't wait to see how her personality will come out more and more. She knows what she wants that's for sure and has no problem voicing her opinion. She is our little Tasmanian Devil, fearless, but loves her cuddles too. I can't believe she is almost 18 months old! They change so fast between 1 and 2 don't they?

Surprise, Surprise!

On Sunday of our trip we were able to surprise my grandparents and it was such a blessing to me. We had Grace and Aaron open the front door and I was in the background like a paparazzi snapping pictures. I think she was surprised. :)
Of course I had to bribe my stubborn last child, but worth it....and before you knew it Nana had a lapful! 

 

I just love this picture, (I think Grace was playing with her tank top right as I took it) I can't remember what he was teasing her about, her tongue or something?

See?... a lapful.

It warmed my heart and an answer to prayer to watch my children snuggle with their great-grandparents.

 

 

Love You Nana and Papadaddy! 

Aaron's 3rd Birthday Part 2

I guess blogger didn't like how many pictures I posted, but here is a quick wrap up of the rest of the presents. Batman...

Spiderman... (and Sarah is holding Ironman from us) 

My best present his first toy gun bought for .25 at a garage sale, it clicks when you pull the trigger. 

 

Happy Birthday my son! I can't believe how quick 3 years of staying at home and being your Mom has flown by. You are so precious and such a thinker with so much imagination. Mommy and Daddy love you to the moon and back! We can't wait to see what things you will do as a big 3 year old!
Smooches Handsome!

 

Aaron's 3rd Birthday

I'm going to try to keep this short and sweet as there are a lot of pictures I posted.  The day started off with the big kids sleeping in, which was hard becase Sarah was awake at 7 and I couldn't let her loose because she would have found the train table and un-sheeted the surprise.
I had to go wake them up at 8:30 as we needed to get going because we are serving at church and can't miss, but we wanted to let him play with his train before hand. I went in to wake him and he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I pulled him into my lap and was holding him while he stretched and fussed and then I whispered into his ear, Happy Birthday Aaron. His eyes opened wide and he said, "Today is my birthday?" Yep. "I 3 today?" Yes you are! "Is Maliya and Macin here?" (His friends. I had to chuckle that that was the 3rd thing he asked about when he woke.
Then of course he got up and was excited for the day and was even more thrilled to take the sheet off and see his train and table. Best present ever. Even though it was kind of a 'recycled' gift as he had already gotten the train set 2 Christmas's ago (I think) he of course didn't remember and now he can actually play with it at his height. All of the kids loved it, as you can tell.
 

 

I just LOVE this picture of Sarah and her little pooched out Choo Choo lips. And she was choo chooing away with that train.

 

 

Later tonight we had family and some friends over for a little dinner. I made "Cheesy Noodles" Aaron's favorite and it was a hit as you can tell. I was worried with having his cousins over that little eating would happen but no he scarfed his food, which makes a mommy happy.

And so did this one.

Cousins

This big sister has such a generous kind heart that makes her mommy proud. Today at church her Pre-K class made Oreo turkey cookies with Candy Corn feathers. She saved her 'treat' for Aaron since it was his birthday. At first I thought that she got to make two and she ate one and asked to make one for Aaron, but no she only made one.  And her teacher told her she could give it to whoever she wanted. She is always thinking of him and always brings an extra Dum Dum sucker back for him from her dance class too.

 

My sister in laws...Crystal and Rachelle they are pretty awesome.

This little doll baby Abby is just about 3 months now and pretty happy!

 

Ed and Curtis 

Loved holding baby Abby, and was so happy that Abby could wear some of my favoritehand me downs from my girls. 

Grandma was saying something very important. 

And of course Sarah is a big girl now and wanted to hold the "Bebe." Which just killed me, she looks so big. Sarah your MY baby!

Opening gifts

He loved this Mickey Mouse watch from Nana & Papadaddy.