Country Livin'...

...in the city.  Someonepleasebuymeafarm.  After Adelyn took a nap we headed outside to dig up potatoes.  First off, this is a bumper crop of potatoes.  I haven't planted potatoes in 2 years.  Last year I got enough to add to one pot of chicken soup.  This year=bumper crop.  I started digging with my pitchfork and Adelyn was supposed to pick out the potatoes.  Then I dug up a worm.  Adelyn was through with the potatoes.  She was on a worm hunt.  And made worm pie.  And promptly declared them her friends.  I had to get her a small bucket of dirt because her worms were looking a little dried out from all the sand.  Yes, they were still living, just looking dry.  I was on the phone with my sister while Adelyn was making her pie.  Adelyn told me I need to tell Auntie.  So I did.  Then Adelyn said she would save a piece for Auntie.  I told Adelyn Auntie couldn't wait.

That was our excitement of the day.  A potato dig and worm pie.  I'd say they go hand in hand.

POSH Fall Mini Session

The amazing Kasey took pictures for us again.  She ran a special for some mini sessions and I jumped on it.  She also told us to bring some props.  That's where I went "Uhhhhh..."  I don't have good props.  So we grabbed the hay bale and the pumpkins off the front porch and rolled with it.  I told her that it was probably the 17th hay bale she saw that day...but nope!  It was the first.

Don't Brecken's shoes just kill you?!  I saw them on the clearance rack at Old Navy and HAD to have them.  He is pretty obsessed with shoes and was wanting to wear them for the longest time.  I told him he had to wait because I wanted them clean for our session;)

Love this one.

Loving the close ups

No one would look at Kasey for these...she would get someone's attention and then someone else would look at the ground.

Hugs for his sisters.

Kasey asked me how I got them to cooperate so well.  Smarties.  Seriously.  Stuff a roll or three in your pocket and dole out one smartie per kid when they behave.  Works like a charm and there is no mess involved with smarties.

Look forward to seeing one of these on our Christmas card ;)

Oh Yes I Did...

I was looking at the pictures on our fridge last night and Joelle's picture from last year is sooooo cute with her short hair.  Looking at them side by side I decided I liked her better with short hair.  I asked Eric and he said "Long."  Which is what he always says.  I have always thought she looks cuter with shorter hair.  Don't ask me why but it's true.  So I asked her if I could cut her hair short and she said "Yes" so off we went.  We went upstairs to pick out a bow and I showed her the new do.  Oh my word.  She is such a cutie.  I kept telling her "THERE'S my Jojo!"  She thought she was hot stuff.

 

Love our little lady with short hair.  Sorry babe.

Fitz Funnies

Me: Mommy’s pooped.

J: You gotta use toilet?

Eric had something in his eye and was trying to get it out.  Adelyn said to him “Maybe your eye is getting pink.”  Then she said “Maybe Curious George is in it.”  Eric said “What?!  I don’t even get it.”  I was giggling in the background.  Clearly Eric has never seen the Curious George episode about germs.  George shrinks and travels up the Man with the Yellow Hat’s nose and sees all the germs.  After I explained, he thought it was funny.

My disgruntled, misbehaving children's response to my resounding "No" per their juice request::

Adelyn::I got an idea! Let's steal her coffee!

Brecken::I will drink all your coppee, Mom! I will!

Joelle::Waaaaaaaahhhhhhh Please put some in little cup! Please I drink your coppee! Waaaaahhhhhh

Brecken and Joelle were playing and Adelyn asked me if they were “wrestle-housing.”

B and J were cuddling in my bed and I hear B sniffing.

B::What’s that smell?

J:: Smells like Mommy. (Awwww)

B:: Noooo.  Smells like poop!  

Eric bought the kids a bag of chips while I was gone this weekend.  Adelyn loooooooooooves treats.  She said to Eric “Don’t let Mommy eat all these when she gets home.”  Thanks.  Thanks a lot.

We were driving home and I had a heavy box on the passenger seat.  I hear Adelyn gasp back in her car seat and she says “The light is blinking!”  

Me: What?

A: The little red light is blinking! All the children’s don’t have their buckles on!  They are going to get hurt if we crash!

Me: Ohhhhh.  Hahahahaha!

Adelyn was sneezing when she woke up and she said “Oh no.  The bless you’s are back.”

I was encouraging Brecken to eat by telling him Joelle ate it all.  Eric said “The garbage disposal rejects more than Joelle.”

Pumpkin Picking

We went to our favorite pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins this fall.  They had a buy 2 get the 3rd free special.  And it was unlimited.  Score.  We went the last night and whatever Joelle ate did NOT sit well with her.  She was complaining about her tummy hurting all night.  Poor baby.  Here she is tromping through the weeds.

Sometimes I really HATE blogger code.  Over and out.  I'm sure no one gets it but I can't even tell you how many times I put these pictures in and out.

We had each of them try to pick up their pumpkins and carry them.  In the first one Brecken is saying "I caaaaaaaaaan't"  The second he looks like he just pooped out a pumpkin.

 

 

This is my he-man daughter.  She is, seriously, so strong.  Always has been.  Go Jojo!

 Adelyn wasn't about to be out-done ;)

 

Daddy picked out his monster pumpkin.  Don't let him fool you.  He had a HUGE pumpkin picked out.  Carried it to the sled.  Looked at it again.  Calculated the price in his head and put it back.  He exchanged it for this one;)

All my loves in 2 pictures.  They are the cutest.  Brecken and Joelle think they are pretty hot stuff that they get to ride in the sled and Adelyn loved pulling.

Fun little plug for Fun Pumpkins...for next year.  We love going there.  They are super flexible, very reasonable and have a lot to pick from!

Apple Picking

 We had to make our annual trip to Crane's to pick apples.  We go through so many apples it's ridiculous.  Yum.  Trying to tell people who don't know their colors (ahem, Brecken and Joelle) to pick mainly red apples was slightly challenging.  And they are ever OCD, at Crane's, about wasting apples.

This little one has taken to wearing my headbands.  I'd say she pulls them off well.

Such a handsome little man.  I realized I didn't have any pictures of him so I had to go back and pick this one.  It was the only halfway decent one.

Outside Painting and Melons

The kids have been begging (and begging) to paint.  We do watercolor stuff inside.  This kind of painting is reserved for outdoor use only.  I have terrible visions of someone escaping their chair and running around the house painting the walls.  So outside we went.  I gave them apple halves, sticks and leaves from the yard and they went to town.

This is my butternut squash plant.  I had this vine growing out of my compost pile and I didn't know what it was for the longest time.  It got flowers but never any fruit/veggies.  I started ripping it out where it was growing in the yard and patiently waited for something to come.  Then came the butternut squash.  Then I was mad at myself for ripping it out.  Butternut squash is one of our FAVORITE vegetables.  Since it was growing out of my compost pile it was a monstrous plant.

One of the leaves::

A picture of our homegrown watermelon.  The girls really wanted watermelon plants so I laid down some black plastic, we planted them and prayed for the best.  Once again, I didn't get actual watermelons for the longest time.  We ended up with 4.  Here's out first one.  Eric stuck the knife in, to cut it, and it just fell apart.  It was DEEE-LICIOUS.

Last Day in NC

This is the part of the post where I tell you we drove 2,500 miles in 10 days with no TV in the car for the children.  It can be done, people.  Not that I'm bragging about our lack of television just that I'm saying we entertained ourselves with other things.  We do have one portable TV/DVD player and I DID bring it with.  I just never hauled it out.  On the way down most of our time was spent sleeping or hiking.  On the way back we did have a lot more awake time in the car but I had lots of forms of entertainment stashed in the van.  Crayons, stickers, paper, books, snacks.  Looking for letters on the road.  Seeing how many McDonalds signs we can see, etc.

This is a Harrier at the entrance to the base.  The sign says "Pardon our noise, it's the sound of your freedom."  Amen.

We hung out at Uncle Josh's after we checked out of our hotel.  We watched quite a few episodes of Dinosaur Train.  At least, some of us did..

Exhibit A::Paper airplanes.  We folded them all up and decorated them for the kids.  They had fun looking at all the decorations, folding and unfolding them.

We did have a rougher time sleeping on the way back.  Adelyn really struggled, which is unusual.  Then she had to go potty at 4 in the morning.  Do you know how difficult it is to find a rest room at 2am?  Very.  All the 24 hour McDonalds are drive-thru only.  The stores we stopped at, that were all lit up, were closed.  So I ended up hauling our portable potty out, plunking it in the parking lot and having Adelyn and Brecken sit on it.  And they filled that thing to the BRIM.  I proceeded to dump it all out, in the middle of the parking lot, wipe it and continue on our merry way.  Priorities people.

We stopped at the Meijer in Columbus at 4 for a potty break for Mom and Dad.  Brecken is demonstrating how he sleeps while traveling.  With his blanket over his head.  I can't even make this up.  And he totally does it without any encouragement.  After our 4am potty break and still having a rough time sleeping, we stopped at McDonalds for some promised "fries."  Don't judge.  After we promised the fries, we pull into McDonalds.  News flash::They don't serve fries at 4am.  They serve hash-browns.  We had a few minor tears and then they were happy with their hash brown.  I'm sure the drive-thru lady spit on them after she heard me cursing through the intercom about the lack of fries.

After their hash-brown in Columbus they slept soundly until we got to Lansing.  I'd call that a successful hash-brown.  We got home shortly before 9am.  Successful and uneventful.

I did hose their car seats out.  Which is why they are upside down in this picture.  Joelle leaked through her diaper more than once, Brecken has a habit of dribbling and I don't have to mention how many snacks get smashed in the seats and sprinkled with water.  Or urine.

All the shells we collected at Shackelford.

Adelyn and all of her "special" (broken) shells she collected and HAD to have ;)

Parks and Planes

We went out for breakfast this morning with Uncle Josh.  After that we headed to a park right by his house that I had spotted.  It was a pretty sweet one.  They had a wooden plane and a huge jungle gym.

Josh and B.

Pretty girls climbing through the tubes

 Handsome little man

Loving all the twisty ladders

 

Getting daring in her old age

I wanted to grab some pictures with Uncle Josh.  So we headed over to the shade.  And found this.

I got lots (read it: lots) of pictures.  If the kids weren't making funny faces, Josh was.  Like this one.

Semi-decent

The only two halfway decent pictures.

Then I tried to get a picture of the three kids.  Ha. Ha. Ha.  Adelyn looks the same size as Joelle.  Brecken's thought bubble reads "Oh brother.  Not again."

The ONLY semi decent one.

"Make a crazy face!"  They got the memo.

I wanted to get some cute ones with the kiddos.  These turned out great:)

B was pretty dis-interested.  But this one is good.

I told Eric I wanted to try and get a couple of him with the kids.  Of course they would behave the best for him.

Seriously.  Oh well.  He deserves a cute picture now and again ;)

After the park we headed back on base to go the food commissary.  Cheap food.  Yes please.  Right after that we headed to the movie theater on base to catch Planes.  It was Brecken and Joelle's first movie.  They all loved it.  Clearly Joelle thought it was amazing.  There is a slight trend with Joelle falling asleep when we do things...  Please notice the drool.

She slept through the last half of the movie.  And Brecken walking back and forth 19 times to throw one piece of trash away at a time.  And he got up to pee 3 times.  Then I waited with her until they kicked me out so they could clean up for the next showing.  Then she woke up and was a bear.

Another fun day with our Unca Josh.  The kids keep asking to watch Planes again.  Not understanding that it's still in theaters..sigh.