Pumpkin Patch 2011

Our 2nd annual trip to Kathy's Pumpkin Patch. It was just as fun as last year (in fact I think maybe it was a little bit more fun) and the weather was just as beautiful.

I tried to take some of the same shots as last year just to compare.

A sweet little preschool teacher was admiring our wagon full of cuties and offered to take our picture.
The corn box
The slide
One of the favorites, the barrel horses
The horse swings
A little playhouse. Lydia's favorite. She set the table, the entire table top was covered with plates, and she was setting food out from the little basket.
Eating lunch
Duck races
We made a spur of the moment decision to go five miles down the road to the Appleberry Orchard. The kids liked looking at all of the animals and I got some apples to make applesauce.

I could not get either of my children to look at the camera ALL day. Too much other stuff to look at I guess.
I think (hope) Clae is just itching his nose, not picking it. The end of a long day, they all got a sugar cookie for the trip home. This is our view from the front seat. Aunt Chi Chi and I took a moment to enjoy the view of all our cute little pumpkins.

Comments

So, I am curious who is reading this blog these days. My ticker at the bottom of the page shows that I get several hits every week, but not many of you who are reading are leaving comments. I opened up comments to anyone, so you don't have to be a google user to leave a message. Just wondering who I'm "talking" to when I'm writing this thing. I would love to hear from you!

(And just a confession, I have a tendancy to be a blog stalker, so I'm going to try be better about leaving comments for other people as well!)

Checking In

I haven't taken the time to blog for the past couple of weeks, mainly because our life has been a bit abnormal. Last week we "moved in" with Kirby's parent's so Kirby can get our house DONE!

We have lived in an unfinished house since we've been married. I won't say how long we've been married, but many of you came to our wedding so you can try to do the math if you want. Anyway, we moved in right after our wedding, thinking that we would work on our house little by little, which we did, but it was a lot slower process than we thought it would be, then we had a kid...then another kid...and life just...happened. Resulting in living in an unfinished house. Some days it about drove me to the edge, but most days I didn't really mind it much.

I don't really know what pushed us to our breaking point, but we decided late in the summer that Kirby would take a few weeks off and hire his dad and brother to help him and they would just get the thing done.

Last week they painted, hung trim and crown moliding, and starting installing the fireplace mantle. This week, more painting, and building the staircase railing (so we can go up to the loft without risking our lives). By the time we are done we will have carpet in the loft, all of the trim hung, window blings installed, a spare room/tv area in the loft. Right now the kids share a room on the main level, but if we have another baby someday we will have to move the big kids to the loft so the baby can have the room they are in now...someday.

I've been busy decluttering, getting stuff ready for a garage sale I'm going to have in few weeks, helping Kirby in any way I can (mainly keeping the kids out of his hair), trying to keep up with preschool activities, and maybe starting to potty train a little girl in the very near future.

Never a dull moment, but we are SO hoping that once our house is done a big burden will be lifted and we will be able to enjoy our life more and not have that daunting project hanging over our heads.

Labor Day Weekend

For some reason I took very few pictures over the weekend. I may be able to come up with one or two, but I'm mainly just going to ramble...

Friday:
I don't usually babysit on Friday's but I had Alyson all day.

5:30 pm
We celebrated Evan's FIFTH birthday, still can't believe he's five.

9:00 pm
Kirby had his first softball game of the weekend.

10:45 pm
Tucked the kids into bed...didn't hear a peep out of them (I can't imagine why)
Kirby stayed at the ball field because he had another game at midnight and another at 2 am.

Saturday:
9:30 am
Kirby took the kids to town to ride with him in the fire truck in the parade.

10:30 am
I went to watch the parade it was SO hot and both of the kids cheeks were bright red and they were so sweaty as they drove by me!

11:30 am
had a quick bit to eat, my mom took the kids to her house to nap so I could watch two of Kirby's games in the afternoon.

12:30 pm
I went home and put on a tank top because I was too hot in the outfit I was in.

1:30 pm
Went to the ball field. It rained and dropped about 20 degrees and I froze in my tank top.

2:00 pm

Kirby's team won a ball game

3:00 PM

Kirby's team lost a ball game

4:00 pm
came home and took a shower to wash the mud off of my legs and feet from standing in the dirt while it was raining.

5:00 pm
went to mom and dad's for a family gathering with my dad's side of the family. My aunt and uncle were in town, we had a nice visit with everyone.

8:30 pm
got home, Kirby had games at 9:00 and midnight.

9:00 pm

Kirby's team won a ball game.

Midnight:

Kirby's team lost a ball game.

1:30 am
Kirby got home from his last game. I was still up reading Her Daughter's Dream by Francine Rivers. I had read Her Mother's Hope the week before and had to run to the library and get the sequel right away. I LOVED both of these books, the first one a little bit better than the second. I got nothing else done during the two weeks I was reading them. I was so glad to finally be finished with them so I could move on with my life!

Sunday:
10:30
Church in the park.

12:30
Lunch and naps

4:00
Left for Old Thresher's in Mt. Pleasant to ride the train, see the tractors, and the animals.

The kids had a lot of fun. We went a little bit late and it was getting dark so we missed some of the things we could have seen, but we had a good time.

9:30
Home and in bed.

Monday
Wonderful that Kirby had the day off. He took the kids all day so I could clean the house. I got SO much done, the weather was perfect, it was a very productive, enjoyable day.

End of Summer

It's sad to see summer winding to a close, but we had a lot of fun over the summer and we're looking forward to fall. I'm hoping to spend a lot of time swimming this weekend while it's still hot and the pools are still open.

Lydia is now back in her big girl bed at night, but still in the crib for nap. She's doing a great job.

Clae rode is bike half way to town yesterday. He was determined to ride all the way to Grandpa Bob's but got too hot and tired to make it all the way. I was very impressed considering the fact that a couple of weeks ago he couldn't pedal more that 3 or 4 pedals at a time.

I watched to 1st graders for the last several weeks. They went back to school on Monday and it has seemed very quiet around here with only 3 or 4 kids here during the day. But it's very much a welcome quiet!

They are playing in our little hand-me-down playhouse we were given in the pictures below. Kirby hopes to make them a real playhouse one day, but for now they are just as happy with this one.

You can see all of Lydia's "home" accessories, her pack and play, stroller, car seat, and ironing board. They had fun playing house most days. Lydia was always the mom, Payton was the "sister", her age ranged anywhere from an infant to a teenager, depending on what she felt like being that day. And the girls pretty much just told the boys what they were going to be on any given day. One day I heard Clae say, "Get in the truck, we're goin' ta church!"

Clae getting his hair cut. Kirby has always cut Clae's hair since his very first haircut. He does a great job.

One of their favorite things to do lately, go fishin' at Nanny and Papa's pond.

Lydia is totally fearless when to comes to touching animals, no matter how slimy.

Papa caught a bullfrog for them.

Lydia with her pink Barbie fishin' pole. Most of the fish she caught were almost as long as the pole! Love it!

We are starting preschool next month! I am so excited. A friend from church and I ordered curriculum from FunShine Express. The materials came last week and I've been having a blast getting everything organized.

My friend, Evanica, has a daycare in her home has well, and two of her kids are three year olds. I have Clae, who is three and Keagan, who is also three. We are going to try to get together once a week and let the kids do preschool together. I'm so thankful that God has put these other kids Clae's age in our life so he can have some interaction with his peers. I've had my doubts about homeschooling, but God keeps showing me that if I am obedient He will provide, and He has, every step of the way.

We've had this antique wardrobe ever since we got married, I bought this shelf, a long time ago, to go in it so I could use it as storage. When I started collecting homeschool materials I converted it into my homeschool cabinet.

Themes for September:

Back to School

Apples

Dinosaurs

Letters: A,B,C

Numbers: 1,2,3

Color: Red

Shape: Circle

Bible Verse: "Obey God with all your heart" Deuteronomy 30:2

(This is the verse that they recommended, but when I looked up in the Bible this is really just a paraphrase of the verse, so I might look for a different one. If they are going to memorize scripture I would like for it to be word for word, not a paraphrase.)

We will observe the weather every day and do a weather chart.

I'm hoping to go on a field trip to my in-laws apple orchard since one of the themes is apples.

I love the FunShine Express materials. They provide a very detailed daily lesson plan and they provide most of the material for the crafts and special projects. I'm really looking forward to getting started and I hope the kids enjoy it.

Bed Time Updates

I posted earlier that we were going to try to put Lydia in a big girl bed. She did well for a few nights, but on night #4 I found her roaming around the house int he middle of the night, that made me a little nervous, so she is back in the crib for now. And with four other kids here for naptime I really needed to be able to put her in her bed and know that she was going to stay there. She's perfectly content to be in her crib so I'm fine with it for now.

I also mentioned that Clae is going through a "scared" phase. Which meant we would stay in his room with him until he fell asleep and then he would wake up multiple times in the night and we would sit in his room until he went back to sleep, or he would end up in our bed. Obviously, this was not working, so we decided we had to make some changes.

We told him that if he slept in his bed, by himself, for 5 nights he could pick out a toy. He said he wanted a car like Evan's with a ladder on the back. It took us a while to figure out what he was talking about, but we finally figured out he meant this Wingo from the movie Cars.


Night #1 went ok. He would randomly burst out crying, I would go check on him and ask him what was wrong. His response was "I'm just cryin'. " It was a little rough but he ended up falling asleep on his own, without us in there. Tonight will be night #4 and things seem to be going better, the Wingo is on order from amazon (you can't buy it in stores anymore because now all of the Cars 2 stuff is out). So, it's going pretty well and we hope he keeps it up!

Big Girl Bed

I had decided a while ago that I would not be putting Lydia into a big girl bed until she was like... I don't know...seven. I mean, why put yourself through that before it is absolutely necessary?? BUT yesterday my mother-in-law had the kids for the day and I guess I had too much time on my hands or something, because I set up her toddler bed.

My reason is, Clae is going through a "scared" phase right now, so we end up staying in their room with them until they fall asleep anyway. So, I thought it would actually be a good time to start trying with her, since we are in the room anyway we can work with her while we're in there.

I'm still quite uncertain that she's ready (you can see that the crib is still set up right next to the bed, not ready to take that down quite yet) but we'll try it for a few nights and see how it goes.

Last night (night #1) she did really well BUT we got home late from grocery shopping, so she was really tired. Today at naptime she didn't do as well. We'll see, I may not have the patience to stick with it when I know kids are coming the next morning and I have to get up early, so I may give up if she doesn't catch on quickly.