Boo!

Yesterday morning we went to a friends house for a playdate. The kids played great together and the mommies got to have a great conversation. One of the moms made these yummy cookies...



- Posted from my iPhone

Pumpkin Head

- Posted from my iPhone

Choo-Choo Park

Today we went to the “Choo-choo Park” with Reese’s friend Harrison, his brother Davis, and my friend Jenny. This park is right next to the railroad tracks and we have never been there when a train has gone by. Today that changed! We heard the train coming and the kids got so excited but as soon as it was blowing it’s horn next to the playground Sam was crying and Reese was covering her ears. Once the engine passed they were fine and had fun watching it go by.

After eating lunch and playing on the playground for a little while we went across the street to play on the old caboose.

Harrison driving the train.

I don’t know what it is about this old car but the kids LOVE playing in it.

I just love this picture. I brought the camera out because I wanted to snap some pictures while the weather is still nice and warm!

Cute little Davis walking around the caboose.

I love that the kids play so well together! What a fun time. Now we can welcome in the cold weather after taking advantage of the nice, warm weather today.

Busy Saturday

Saturday was a busy, busy day. I woke up early and got going. We were all dressed and ready by 9:00 so we went to get breakfast. After a yummy breakfast we headed to Owen’s first birthday party. It was a monster themed party and he was super cute. I was so mad at myself because I forgot my camera. The kids had a lot of fun running around and playing. We had fun visiting with everyone. I just wish we got to see them more!!

After the party we headed to Lance’s sisters house to visit a few minutes and then headed to the fair. This was the first time our kids have been to the fair and they had a lot of fun. Reese is pretty timid about rides, etc but she had a blast. I took pictures with my phone so they are not that great.

When we first walked in the big swings were right there so the kids wanted to watch these. I asked Reese if she wanted to ride them and she shook her head no with force. To be honest, she probably wasn’t even tall enough.

If Sam was big enough, he probably would have been in to everything.

The first ride they rode was this little fish ride that went up and down. They laughed and waved every time they went around.

They actually rode it twice in a row. The second time around Reese got in her own fish.

After the fish we talked Reese in to getting on this little roller coaster. Sam wasn’t big enough for it and I wasn’t quite sure Reese was going to do it. Once she was able to watch it go one time she decided she wanted to have a turn. She is so funny because she doesn’t trust us that these rides are FUN! She just wants to be stubborn I think. Once she finally does it though she loves it!

Next we were off to watch their cousin Brody and his friend ride on this flying Superman kind of ride.

They loved just standing at the fence at watching them.

After the boys rode that ride we went over to the “Spinner” or something like that…can’t remember the name. It is the ride that has four arms and each of the arms has four cars. Each arm spins around and the whole thing spins around really fast. At the last minute Reese decided she wanted to ride and LOVED it. She giggled the whole time. She said it was fun and faster than she thought it would be. I thought I was about to toss my cookies. Ha! Being older and still having a little bit of a cold didn’t help. It was so fun to hear my little monkey giggling and having fun though.

Sam rode the fish ride one more time while Reese rode the carousel before we left.

As we were leaving I remembered we hadn’t had a family picture taken so we got Lance’s mom to snap a quick picture of the four of us.

We had a long, fun, and busy day! But it was a blast!

Movin’ On Up

This week we moved Sam up in to the level five at Gymboree. Reese was very excited for him and begged for me to take pictures of Sam in his new class. In this class they use more imagination.

This week they talked about mail, mail trucks, and the mail man.

Sam enjoyed this week just as much as any of the other weeks…ha! He didn’t notice any difference.

He isn’t sure what to think about the parachute though. When Reese did gymnastics at this age she wasn’t sure about the parachute either. He isn’t a big fan of being under the parachute.

I love this special time that I have with Sam. I feel like I don’t get nearly the kind of one on one time with him as I did with Reese.

Silly boy

This week Sam and I have been fighting a pretty mean cold. Because of this we have not been going to the gym. Instead of the gym, Tuesday he and I ran some errands while Reese was in school. We were done a little early for carpool so we just sat in the school parking lot and I let Sam get out of his car seat. You would have thought he won the lottery by the way he was running around inside the car.

The windows were down so he was especially excited about that.

He would run all the way to the back of the car where one of the seats is laying all the way down for storage and the middle seats of the middle row is out. He had all kinds of space to exercise.

And then he would run back up to the front and climb in Reese’s seat.

He started hanging out of the window and yelling, “Hey everybody!”

It was too cute and he had so much fun!

Bored = Fun

Last Friday we had a follow-up visit at the ENT for Sam. Every six months they check his ears to see if the tubes are still in there and to make sure there are no problems. While we were waiting for the nurse to come in the kids started getting bored so I pulled out my camera. We have done this before where we will pick an emotion and take a picture of us all expressing this emotion. Both kids get a huge kick out of this game and giggle and giggle.

This was just a group shot.

Reese usually picks the emotion to call out and then we all go for it. Silly faces!

Sad faces. Sam obviously didn’t get the memo on this emotion.

Surprised!

Sad faces again…Sam got it right this time.

MAD!

Crazy!

This is such a fun game for the kids with instant gratification because they can see themselves on the screen of the camera. The giggles are enough to make me play this game over and over again.

Our week so far

We have had a busy week so far and I am surprised that it is already Wednesday night.

Monday I watched a friends two boys while they had some exciting things to take care of. Reese was at school for the morning so it was just the boys. Sam wasn’t quite sure how to handle this. On one hand he loved having the boys there to play boy things with. On the other hand he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to share his toys with them. On a few occasions he would cry that one of the boys had his trucks, etc. We all went to pick Reese up from school (thank you minivan), came home for lunch, and then Reese and Tucker ran off to play. After an hour or so of playing it was time for naps/rest time for everyone. Both little boys took great naps and Reese and Tucker had great rest times. I set up a cot in Reese’s room for Tucker and they just talked the whole time but were not too loud. Their conversations cracked me up when I went up to check on them.

Reese received a trophy at school on Monday. Over the next couple of months they are going to be working on knowing their birthday, phone number, and address. Once they know all three they get a trophy. Reese knew her phone number and birthday already so we had to work on her address. She knew the street name but we needed everything else so we practiced. She seriously picks things up so fast it surprises me. She was the second kid in her class to get her trophy. I am a proud mommy!

Tuesday Sam had his Gymboree class. He really enjoys this class. Starting next week he will be in the next level up where they start doing imaginative play. I am excited to see how he does in that class.

Each evening when I am making dinner I turn on Sesame Street for the kids. This sometimes gets me a few minutes to get things done. Tuesday night I looked over and Sam was sitting in Reese’s lap. Seriously, how cute are they?

Today after school Reese had a play date with her friend Sydney from class and the neighborhood. Sam stood at the screen and just watched them play for a little while and then finally decided he wanted to go out for a bit.

The girls were so good about taking turns driving the Jeep. What is funny is that neither one of them knows how to drive the Jeep straight. Both of them kept driving it in circles.

We also had small group and a new babysitter. We have had the toughest time with babysitters this school year. Our sitter from the last few years has a full time job so we have been on the hunt for a new one. I recently met a girl who shared her babysitters name with us to try. Taylor is AMAZING! When she left tonight I looked at Lance and said, “Is she for real?”. She is definitely an answer to our prayers and I am so grateful to have her with our kids.

Apple Picking

Saturday morning we headed to Ellijay’s Hillcrest Orchards. They seemed to have a lot of fun things to do as well as apples to pick so it looked like the perfect place to spend some family time. I was surprised at how much closer it was than I thought it would be. We let the kids do all the fun things first before we headed out to pick apples.

The first thing they did was to jump on the big jumping pillow. Reese loved doing this but it was a little too intimidating for Sam so he didn’t actually make his way up the pillow.

Then Reese wanted to ride on the little John Deere tricycles. She made it about 3/4 of the way around and then gave up and pulled it the rest of the way.

We then “toured” their Moonshine “Museum”. I say both of those in quotes because there wasn’t much of a museum to tour. It was more like a bunch of creepy mannequins and hand written descriptions on poster board. Lance actually took way too many pictures in there because it was just too funny.

Next we waited in a short line to milk this poor cow. She looked so unhappy and not interested in being on display. Reese did not want to milk her once we got to the front of the line so I sucked it up and milked her.

This is a picture of Sam who was so scared of the cow. He wanted nothing to do with her…even looking at her made him cry.

We then jumped on the wagon ride to go to the back side of the orchards. There were a few things towards the back that the kids were too young for. There was also another trail set up with creepy mannequins set up. I really don’t know what the point of it was.

We found a big slide that both kids loved going down.

They probably could have spent the whole day going down this slide.

After all of the playing we went in to the market to taste test the different apples they had there in the orchards. Once we tasted several different ones we went back out to fill up our bag. We went with the middle size bag.

The kids liked picking the apples off of the tree.

They were so well behaved and enjoyed being outside on such a beautiful fall day!

Unfortunately our family picture did not turn out well at all. Oh well, here we all are.

After filling up our bag we went back up to get some lunch. While we looked at the menu the kids played on this old John Deere tractor.

We decided that it would be better if we headed home and picked up some lunch in the car. So that is what we did.

We had a great family day. I love all of this time that we have been spending together lately! My goal for this fall is to do a lot of fun fall things and I think we are off to a great start!