A day at the Farm

On Monday the kids had a day off from school so we went to a nearby pumpkin farm.  There was so much to do, we were there for over five hours!

Pumpkin Mini Golf!  I was surprised the kids were so dedicated to actually playing the game.  They went to every hole and worked on getting the little pumpkin in the hole.

The Discovery barn is always a favorite.

Ava really enjoys animals, and for whatever reason she has always really liked goats.  She was able to go in the goat pen and hug and love on them.

peddle cars!  Ava got to enjoy a pony ride during this time.

They had a blast in the corn maze.  We spent an hour walking around the maze and finding all the clues.  The adults were exhausted after this excursion, but afterward the kids found neighbor friends on the playground, got a second wind and ran their little hearts off!

Whew.  What a day.  Dawson was so excited to go on the hay ride because it was pulled by a John Deere.  Carter loved running through the hay ride with friends while we all know Ava loved petting the baby goats and playing with all the animals.

At the farm the kids had a blast with the duck races.  There was a hollowed out pipe and they used a pump to race the ducks down the pipes.  They decided to duplicate this at home, so everyone put on bathing suits and got out old car race tracks and jumped in the bath tub for some duck races!

I love adventure days with my kiddos!

Our Fall Camp Out

We have been really wanting to do a camp out this fall, but between FFF, Gymnastics, visiting family, football and birthday parties it has been difficult to find a free weekend.  Then I realized that there was no FFF this weekend, and Ava and Carter had a four day weekend so we could easily go camping Saturday after their morning activities.

Um guys, that's a lot of lovies for one night.

The camp out didn't start off on the right foot.  Everyone was loaded up, everything packed up.....and the van wouldn't start.  We had chosen a campground very close to our house and instead of disappointing the kids we decided to pack up what we could into the jeep and make two trips.  It was only 8 minutes away, so we could realistically make it work in the jeep.

We arrived, unloaded kids and half of the gear.  Mike stayed and put up the tent with the kids while I ran back to the house and got the rest.

While not ideal, it worked and the kids were very happy.  How could you not be?  Look at this beautiful view!  By the way, Mike and I both decided that Canadian Geese are nocturnal.

Carter unloaded his backpack of "gear" and immediately pulled out a book to read.  Nothing better than a fire and a good book!

We took a couple of little hikes and checked out the dock at the campsite.  Very pretty this time of the year!

Dawson was really not sold on the idea of camping, he asked many times to go home.  But he LOVED the fact that I packed pepperoni.  Free range camping parenting kicked in and he made himself some delicacies: sunbutter and pepperoni sandwich, a pepperoni smore (graham cracker and pepperoni) and a hot dog wrapped in pepperoni.  Not too suprising that he had stomach troubles today, huh?

Enjoying

She looks like an adult crossing her legs and drinking (water) out of her coffee cup.

Crazy boy!

The kids were in charge of cooking their dinner.

And Dawson's creation:  the pepperoni hot dog

It always amazes me how comfortable Mike can be in chilly weather.  He has on a short sleeve shirt, vest, shorts and boots.

While I was wearing a headband to keep my ears warm, a scarf, long sleeve thermal, sweatshirt, winter coat and gloves.

My favorite memory of this camp out hands down:  telling not so scary stories around the campfire with the kids.  Ava wanted to tell scary stories, but Carter insisted they couldn't be scary and absolutely no stories about vampires or zombies.  Mike started telling the story of "Memmet" who lived in Lego Town.  Basically he told the story of the Lego Movie while barely changing the names of the characters.  Eventually Dawson got irritated and wanted to tell a scary story, which ended with Carter scooting very close and holding my hand.  I love my sweet little boy with his incredibly imagination and distaste for scary things.  I understand Carter, I don't like scary stories either.

After a very chilly night, we packed up and came home to warm up.  A fun weekend filled with fun family time!  

My three little loves

• I love pulling out hand-me-downs at the beginning of each season and putting them on little brother.  This jack-o-lantern shirt was one of Carter's favorites, and it's hard to believe he was ever this little!
• Dawson has been discussing fire safety at school, and it amazes me all the little facts that he retains.  He has been telling me about stop, drop and roll, getting out of the house in the case of a fire, and how he will never hide from a fireman under his bed or in a closet.  But then he told me "matches are for burning the place up."  
• This kid is pumped for his birthday, trouble is we still have two months to go!  He has asked me several times to bake his birthday cake (um buddy, it won't last for two months) and to clean the house for his birthday party.  He also has big plans to go to skymax, Chuck E. Cheese's and to the movies.  All in one day.  Well, why don't we pick one activity, this birthday is sounding pretty pricey!!

• I took this picture of Carter huddled under blankets and sleeping on the couch after we came home from Grandma and Bo's house.  This poor kid was wiped out!
• Last night was Carter's first cub scout den meeting.  He was so excited and really just wanted to have fun with his friends.  Let me tell you, classroom management is much easier than cub scout management.  The boys just want to have fun and they've been in school all day!!  
• I asked all the boys to draw a picture of what they really want to do this year in cub scouts.  I loved Carter's picture, he really wants to shoot BeBe guns and bows and arrows this year.

• Ava makes me laugh, she comes home from a long day at school and proceeds to play......school.  She will line up stuffed animals to read them stories and sit at the table working on workbooks for an hour.
• My favorite time of the day?  4 pm.  Ava has gotten home from school and had her snack.  Then she proceeds to sit on my lap and tell me the entire minutiae of her day.  I love hearing about it all!
• Getting on the bus can still be hard.  She holds my hand and hugs on me at the bus stop until the bus comes.  Then she gets on the bus, sometimes with tears in her eyes because "she misses me so much when she is at school."  Then we have to wave and blow kisses until the bus leaves.  I miss you too, baby girl.

Football

Carter has been playing flag football this fall.  Unfortunately it is at the same time as a dance/gymnastics class that Ava is taking, so I haven't seen more than 10-15 minutes of any game.  Well, that changed this week because his game was rescheduled for Wednesday night.

I have to say, I'm going to be sad when football ends.  It's nice because it's so active, he is running around for the entire hour.  He liked baseball, but it was hard because there was so much waiting.  He spends the entire hour running around with a huge smile on his face.

Next up?  Basketball!!  He tells me all the time that basketball is his best sport, so we will see!

Latest and Greatest in Pictures

We were BOOED!!  Apparently we didn't hear the doorbell or knock, and as we were waking to the bus in the morning I saw a bag on the doorstep.  It definitely added a fun surprise to the morning.  The also had a ball sneaking down the street in the dark in their pajamas to deliver our Boo Bags to friends.  What a fun fall tradition!

Ava's front tooth fell out, which leaves her with this big gap!  All she will want for Christmas is her two front teeth!  She lost her tooth at school and she was happy because she was the first person on the "I lost a tooth" board.  It's funny because she will occasionally make a whistling sound while she is talking.

My buddy.  Have I mentioned that all three kids are going through a very picky stage right now?  Tonight he had three servings of broccoli for dinner because lasagna is DISGUSTING.  Well, sorry about that, everyone else likes it!

Last friday was the fall kick off party and the kids got their picture taken with the polar bear.

I did a mini-triathlon this past weekend with my friend Amber.  There was a five mile bike ride, 2.5 mile canoe and 2.5 mile run.  It was the perfect length and I had a blast!  I would love to find another one in the spring!

Jason's 30th Birthday

This weekend we visited Bo, Grandma, Uncle Jason, Aunt Tiffany and cousin Andrew to celebrate Uncle Jason's 30th birthday.  It was a fun weekend and we got to spend lots of time with family!  Lots of pictures ahead!

Hiking with Bo.  Can you believe how cold it was this weekend!  It's October and we were wearing hats, gloves and coats.

Happy Birthday Aunt Tiffany and Uncle Jason!!  Don't you love his hair?  He shaved it in honor of his 30th!

We really wanted to do something for Uncle Jason's birthday, so we made t-shirts for everyone with pictures of the birthday boy with us and funny memories/ things we love about him/ or embarrassing moments.

I love Dawson's happy face!!

Uncle Jason could totally pass as a gas station attendant in this get-up!

We also got out a bow and arrow.  Ava gave it a whirl, but didn't show a lot of interest.  She got upset that she couldn't do it perfectly on the first try, and eventually became interested in tractor rides instead.

But she does make an adorable Merida.

But Carter was a different story.  

He started out a little something like this.

But practice made perfect and he really got the hang of it!!  He practiced archery for most of the morning and really enjoyed it!

Tractor rides with the sled

Ava's little sense of humor made me laugh so hard, she pretended to be a headless monster.

Bo and Grandma built us our very own log playground, and the kids had a blast playing on it (in reality they had a tree cut down.)

Swinging Smiles!

Thank you everyone for a beautifully fun weekend!

Heard around the House

Now that Ava and Carter are in school full time, I foresee many of these posts from Dawson.  Although they say hilarious things too, I'm just around little guy the most right now.  So here are some of the latest funnies:

Dawson was explaining an amazing dump truck that has two levels in the cab for sleeping and playing.  He was going in to incredible detail about this truck he was going to design and I asked him if he wanted to be a person that designed trucks when he grew up.  He said no, he wants to be a construction boss.  Then he asked me "When you send us off to be real people, what are you going to do Mommy?"

Ava has gotten really excited about reading since starting school, and she is reading aloud from the Dick and Jane series.  Now everyone knows the kind of simplistic, halting style of Dick and Jane.  Dawson started to mimic this, and it took a dark turn:

No no baby.  Don't jump baby.  Don't jump in the deep deep pool baby.

Um, Dawson that sounds a little scary!?!?!?

Well whether its singing songs and dancing about not wanting underwear (true story) to crying his little heart out when I leave him a preschool (another true story) this kid knows how to keep our life spicy!!

(Although in his defense he had his second preschool drop off today with no crying.  Unfortunately it's only been the second one in the first month of school.  So we shall see if this phase is over or not.......to be continued.