Fall Photos

We took the kids Saturday night to do some fall pictures. Some of them turned out really well and some of them you can really see their personalities. Like this one of J. He's usually a happy child and is always willing to say "cheese" even if it ends up making this face.

Then we have M who poses for everything. She loves to have her picture taken and we always end up with way more of her than J just because she begs to keep going.
And again, she just sits so nicely and pretends to be so well behaved.
And again...

We got a few nice ones of them together.
And some more of just M...


And a few of J just being a boy.

A few more of them together.


J watching as some other kid got to ride their John Deere gator through the park while he had to sit and take pictures. Poor kid.
And of course this one is just perfect because I took it and my husband actually sucked up his pride and it made the final cut. :)
Poor J just got too tired to continue so we went out for pizza. He kept saying, "I'm tired dad!"

Do Real Firemen Do This?

Approximately every five seconds I have to answer the same question. My conversations with J pretty much go like this:

Mom: "Please brush your teeth."

J: "Do real firemen brush their teeth?"

Mom: "Yes, absolutely."

J: "Ok."

Mom: "You need to wear your helmet on your bike."

J: "Do real firemen wear helmets?"

Mom: "Yes, absolutely."

J: "Ok."

Mom: "You need to take a bath and wash your hair."

J: "Do real firemen take baths?"

Mom: "Yes, absolutely."

J: "Ok."

It's amazing to me that he gets so into things. Both of my kids have such strong personalities and while it usually makes me feel like pulling my hair out, I guess I'm glad that I have such independent and strong willed children. Although last night I put them to bed at 6:00 for being just a bit too strong willed. Tonight grandma is taking them and we get a date night. Yay for us!

Halloween

If you can't tell, we made a few trips to the pumpkin patch this year. We had 15 pumpkins on our porch. That's a new record for us!

These are the required pictures before trick-or-treating.


This is one of the whole group. Just once it would be nice to get one where they're looking at the camera but with this many kids we're usually doing good just to get them all sat down!
We had a great Halloween this year and now we're ready for Thanksgiving, a birthday and Christmas! Let the chaos begin!

Friends, Fall and a Pile of Leaves

Sometimes there just isn't anything better than having 7 friends climb a tree together on a cool fall evening.

Of course it's also very handy to have a teenage neighbor who will bury 6 kids in a pile of leaves so moms can take pictures.
And maybe, just maybe, one of those friends will get buried REALLY deep in the pile of leaves...
And then possibly get dog-piled on by the remaining 5 little kids.
It was such a disaster to clean my children up after this fun leaf piling and tree climbing but it was worth it for the great memories they all made that evening. They thought it was the most fun they've ever had.

Just a Few Things

First thing this morning J comes running in as usual as he thinks our day should start no later than 6:45. As I'm laying there barely awake he says to me, "Momma, I love you...but I REALLY love tractors." I'm not sure if I should be glad he loves me or insulted that he doesn't love me quite as much as tractors. I'll take what I can get I suppose.

We finally got some of M's test results back today and it's good news and bad news. The good news is that they ruled out and really serious problems with her immune system such as Leukemia, but the bad news is that she has a really weak immune system. Apparently my poor child just can't fight any sort of bacterial infection. This explains why she's had pneumonia so many times and why she seems to get sick fairly easily. She's extremely prone to ear infections (which she's never had a single one), sinus infections, colds and pneumonia. As this point it's kind of a wait and see diagnosis. She had the pneumonia shot a few weeks ago and so we're going to wait through this winter and see if it helps her any and if not then we'll have to explore some other options. I'm more than a little worried that this will drastically cut down on our outings once cold and flu season really hits. She's going to have to be really careful to always wash her hands and not be around people we know are sick. That's kind of hard when you're almost 5 years old. For right now Purell will be our best friend and we'll hope the shot helped boost her immune system enough that we won't be back in the hospital this winter. In the past December and January have been her worst months so we have a while before we'll see if it helped or not. It could be a lot worse though and I'm thankful that she's basically a healthy child. It's just allergies, eczema, asthma and no immune system. That's all. :)

Thanksgiving

I know Thanksgiving is few weeks away but it's my big holiday for the year and I've been putting so much thought into it lately. Every year I go all out for Thanksgiving and I'm not kidding when I say I slave in the kitchen for 3 or 4 days getting everything perfect. Thanksgiving starts on Monday in this house and ends after all the dishes are done on Thursday evening. I'm thinking of adding some new recipes this year but I'm not sure where in the world I can find the time or oven space to do so. I have it down to a science. Here is my list of cooking times that I tape up on the cabinets so that I know how to coordinate my oven space.

Creamed Corn- 4 Hours in slow cooker

Sweet potatoes- 1.5 hours, can prepare in advance, bake 30 minutes at 400

Mashed potatoes-make in advance, bake at 350 for 30 minutes

rolls- make the day before, rise for 3 hours, bake for 20 minutes at 350

ham- Bake 1 hour

Green bean casserole- bake 30 minutes at 350

Apple pie- make ahead and warm up in oven

Stuffing- 20 minutes on stove, 25 minutes to bake at 350

Deviled Eggs- make ahead

Turkey- Brining, Baking, and Carving

Pumpkin Pie- make ahead

Bread pudding- 1.5 hours

Cranberry salad- make ahead

Pumpkin Dip with Ginger Snaps

Now I don't just go to the store and pick up pies or dump cranberries out of a can. I really do go all out and use real pumpkin that I actually baked and scraped out of a pumpkin. I dry my own bread crumbs for the stuffing. The sweet potatoes are real yams that I bake, scrape out the insides and then cover with brown sugar and ground up ginger snaps and everyone always raves about them. The rolls are amazing but they take almost 3 days to make with all the rising and separating steps that are involved. And then after all that we do M's family birthday party so that everyone doesn't have to come back the next week. I then spend about a thousand hours in the gym trying to work off everything I ate in one meal. It's so much to think about and it gets kind of overwhelming with M's birthday and then Christmas right around the corner. It's nice to know that I really can cook a wonderful meal even though I choose not to the rest of the year. Just 5 years ago I couldn't have baked a turkey to save my life and now I know how to brine and bake a turkey perfectly. I thought stuffing came from a box but now I know that using fresh bread cubes makes stuffing perfect and irresistible. I also know that everyone loves whiskey sauce that I use on bread pudding and bread pudding isn't supposed to be a mushy mess. It can look pretty and be delicious! So if I don't post for the entire month of November you can just assume I'm in the kitchen trying out new recipes and trying to make my one perfect meal out of the year.

Another Pumpkin Patch!

We went to the pumpkin patch with the kids's school yesterday and even though it was cold we had a great time! This is us before we went in.

The hayrack ride out to the patch.

J picking his pumpkin. He's not picky at all. It was dirty and he thought it was perfect.

M with her pumpkin. She tried really hard to find a clean one but no such luck.

Snack time! We had animal crackers and juice. J drank all his juice but they wanted to go play instead of having snack.

The airplane ride was a favorite! They are ordering one for the preschool next week.

J really liked the slide but it was sandy at the bottom and he got pretty dirty.

M only rode once and landed in the sand so she was done.

Both kids really liked the zip line they had set up. The people running it were really nice and helpful.

J rode about 15 times because none of the other kids were very interested in it. He rode until his arms got so tired he fell off. Even then I had to drag him away.

I love that both of my kids are old enough that when we do things like this I just have to show up and somewhat supervise them. I no longer have to drag a baby out in the cold or find a babysitter just for field trips. Next year will be interesting since I'm hoping to get J in a school out here and M will be in kindergarten!