Mountain Fun

A couple of weekends ago, we headed up to Blowing Rock to see all the fall leaves. A very generous family from church let us use their cabin since it was so close to Tweetsie Railroad & we were planning on going there during our visit. We invited Jeremy, Marie, & Kaleb to come & stay with us since we were going to have plenty of room & last minute (as in 7pm Friday night) they decided they would join us. We stayed up late to wait for them to arrive & we enjoyed the weather & scenery. The boys LOVED being outdoors & even got to walk down to a trout pond & fish with Randy & Jeremy (although all the fish were gone! bummer!) THey also went "leaf sledding" down the hill, but Uncle Jeremy has that video on his camera... hint hint- maybe he will send it to me!

The boys thoroughly enjoyed the bathtub!

And since Kaleb brought his truck, they all went "off roading" with Eli in the back!

Me & Jackson on the walk down to the trout pond... He had to wear my tobogan until we found the Walmart, since his didn't fit.

Cheese!!!

More Cheese!!

Aunt Marie, Uncle Jeremy, & Kaleb on our walk...

Heading out with the boys to go fishin'!
Jammin' next to the freshly built fire.

We also headed to Tweetsie Railroad & the kids really had a blast, but i will post that separately... so stay tuned!

The World's Best Eater

It is official.... Eli wins the prize of the World's Best Eater! He makes my life easy at mealtimes which is a true blessing since Jackson has in the last year decided to get pickier & pickier. ("i not like that no more." is what i constantly hear from him!) Well, i just had to take this picture of Eli last week as he gobbled up homemade chili! It is so yummy to me, but i knew Jackson would balk at it & let's face it, Randy isn't a huge fan of beans, so it isn't on his top 5 list either. But it was cold & i wanted it so i made it. Eli LOVED it & even ate it the next day for lunch. He prefers it with sour cream, cheese, & oyster crackers thank you very much! Open Wide!

Family Addition

Meet Lola..... The newest addition to our family.... She is still in "hiding" most of the day! Her favorite hiding spots are under our bed, in the bathtub, & under a blanket on the bed! She is super cute & after being petless for over a year, it was time to take the plunge. The boys have been so excited that i think they have added to her stress level a bit. They love to pet her ever so gently, but they are rambunctious in general & she isn't used to the noises around here yet. She will only come out of the bathroom/bedroom if i cover her up with a blanket so she can't see all the open space around her. She is coming around though. Tonight, she even came out on her own & wandered around some after the boys went to bed.


Lola is so mild mannered & gentle with the boys. She doesn't try to bite or swat when they come at her (to pet her). She just lets them pet her & even purrs. She is going to be a keeper!!

Their little dialogue.... how a pumpkin leads to God...

Here is a cute story from this past weekend. We were in the mountains (a post forthcoming about this too....) & Randy & Jeremy had taken Jackson (4.5) & Kaleb (3.5) with them to get some lunch. Once they arrived, Kaleb noticed pumpkins for sale on a display. So here is how the story went....
K: Look, there's a pumpkin patch!
J: No... that 's not a pumpkin patch, Kaleb.
K: Yes, it is.
J: No, it's not.
K: It is a pumpkin patch!
J: No, it's not.... (going for reinforcements...) IS IT DADDY?
Randy: No, buddy it isn't. A pumpkin patch is where the pumpkin's grow. Those have been picked from the patch & brought here to be sold.
Kaleb talking off to the side to Jackson: So, where did those pumpkins come from?
Thinking & Pausing........
.......
J: I know! Those pumpkins came from JESUS! Right daddy? Those pumpkins came from Jesus!
Randy: Yep, they came from Jesus. (Well, God, technically, but he didn't go there!)
K: Do you know who Jesus is?
J: Yeah, i know who Jesus is....
K: Jesus is GOD!
J:I know that, Jesus is GOD! (turning to Randy....) Jesus is God, right, daddy?
Randy: Right.

pizza night

I meant to post this days ago... but time gets away from me! It seems lately that we have a pizza night every week (maybe not EVERY week, but at least every other!) The boys LOVE it when i make homemade pizza & Jackson even asks me for another pizza night for days after. I think the child would eat it every day if i let him. He knows when i bring out the bread machine (for the dough) that is is pizza night! The best part of pizza night? No complaining! I can throw almost anything on it & they will eat it with no complaints! So i do! I hide a little spinach puree under the cheese on top of the pizza sauce. I throw on bell pepper or red peppers if i have them. I throw on feta cheese, turkey pepperoni, tomato slices, canadian bacon, etc etc. The ONLY thing i can't put on there (so far in my discovery), is mushrooms. Jackson can find even a diced peice of mushroom even in spaghetti sauce, so i can't put it on pizza either. (How can he be our child? We both love mushrooms!) The kids also love to watch it bake. I turn the light on to the oven & they do this every few minutes....

(excuse the almost bare bottoms.... my boys don't like to nap in pants & this was right after a nap that went long (thankfully!))

Costume Party

Tonight, we all headed out to a halloween party that Randy's boss' put on every year. Since this is our first year with the company, we didn't know what to expect since it was technically a halloween "costume" party. There was to be a $100 reward to the best costume but even so, Randy & I didn't dress up. But we did dress the boys up & they enjoyed that! We just used what we already had on hand for dress up, so Jackson was a cowboy & Eli wore an army "flight suit." I don't know the technical name for that, but Randy kept calling him "Top Gun" (even though i think that was the airforce - but that is just details, right?) Here they are, all ready to go...

Once we were at the party, it was COLD! They had lots of food & fires going, but we were still COLD! They boys ended up wearing coats over their costumes & the cowboy had & sunglasses were ditched almost immediately! Jackson was a little unsure of the electronic witch that was stirring her pot & cackling as we entered & a little unsure of a few of the costumes at first, but after we got him fed & the hostess gave them each a bucket of halloween candy, they loosened up pretty well!

If you are wondering who took the prize for the best costume... she won it hands down.... drum roll please...... who is she dressed as?????You got it! Governor Sarah Palin! It was such an awesome costume that i couldn't help but to pose next to her! Who wouldn't want a picture next to the governor? I asked her if she had any idea her costume would be so popular & she said that no, she was in fact a little nervous about showing up in it. Apparently though, the majority of the guests are Republicans! I guess this is one way to find out!She wore a pin that said "Election 2008" & another that read "McCain/Palin" & carried a gun & a baby. The baby was wearing a pin that said "God Bless America" - it was a GREAT costume! We of course, voted for her! (pun intended! hee hee)

Jackson's Day

This morning was a scheduled field trip for Jackson's preschool class & since i rarely get to spend time one on one with him anymore, i decided to take Eli to Mema & Grandad's & just spend the morning alone with Jackson. We had breakfast at Dunkin Donuts (a real treat as i usually shun these kinds of foods for him!) We both had a pumpkin flavored donut & split a large milk. It was pretty yummy.

Then we headed over to the dollar tree since we had about 45 minutes to kill before leaving to meet the group at the pumpkin patch. I told Jackson he could pick out one thing & he changed his mind on every aisle! He finally settled for a tablet of Cars stickers.

Then we headed out to a pumpkin patch in Wilson's Mills. They took us on a hayride with this tractor & dropped us out to pick out a pumpkin. This looks like a big hayride, until you put 3 classes of 15 kids each plus 3 teachers & a parent per kid & what you really feel like is a sardine.

Due to space constraints, this was the best picture i could get of me & Jackson on the hayride.Each child got a hat as a souvenier, but they went ahead & gave them out before we took off on the hayride. Jackson already has a cowboy hat, but he was still pretty excited about it.

Once they dropped us off, Jackson got right to picking out a pumpkin. They weren't actually growing in this field, but were just picked & scattered in this field for the kids to rummage through. Jackson got a heavy one (that i had to lug the rest of the morning of course!) This was just before he dropped it!Before the hayride got full again, a fellow mother took another picture for us after she saw me struggling earlier i guess!Then the tractor dropped us off at a haymaze where Jackson wasn't too sure about going in without me, but got brave & decided to follow his peers....

After the haymaze, each kid got some snap peas to feed some farm animals. They were all in a pen together- a miniature horse, a donkey, & 2 goats. One goat in particular was quite abrasive & got pretty much all the snap peas. He was such a glutton!!

This sign didn't give much reassurance & they were posted EVERYWHERE!

The last stop of the field trip was to a very large blow up pumpkin where a nice lady read them all a pumpkin story. Then jackson & I headed off to get a drink (since it was 87 degrees out!) before heading back for one last photo op on the way to the car.

It was such a nice morning with just my j-man & me. I think he enjoyed it too because he held my hand a LOT throughout the morning & on the way home the dialogue went something like this:

Mama, thank you so much.

You're welcome buddy!

I had such a dood (good) time.

Me too buddy, i had a great day with you.

I love you so much mama.

I love you too, buddy. What was your favorite part of today?

I liked the hayride. You liked it, too?

I liked it all, but i thought that goat was pretty silly, buddy!

Yeah, it was pretty silly, right, mama?!

Right!

A weekend of fun

This past weekend, we went to Wilmington for the weekend. We had not been there since our beach week back in the beginning of August. We decided to go because Daddy was heading there to fish with Uncle Jeremy who was camping there about 5 miles from Nanny. Since we were going to be either home alone or there with Nanny & Daddy, it was a no brainer. We headed out at 9pm (yep you read that right, 9pm) Friday night after attending a friend's wedding in Raleigh. Daddy fished in the terrible rain all day saturday & then again most of the day Sunday & spent the evenings with us. While he was out, the plan was for Nanny to make halloween costumes for the kids but that plan changed once we realized that nothing was all that tempting in the pattern books. So i decided to dress them in things we have at home & save the money to use on other shopping expeditions while we were there. The kids were great all weekend as Nanny drove us around since we were left without a vehicle! Thank goodness Nanny already had carseats, since Daddy had to pull the boat & take his truck. This is a synopsis of what we did:

First things first- we hit mommy's favorite local restaurant- J. Michael's Philly Deli. The boys enjoyed the water fountain out front (even though it was raining!)

Then we went next door to the Learning Express & i got the boys these ADORABLE buckets for trick or treating: Then, since we were already on that side of town, Nanny suggested we go to a place called "Old Time Pottery." I had never been here (or heard of it) & we ended up spending 3 HOURS in here & way to much money. But the kids were very patient....

Eli zonked out about halfway through the store & so nanny got a pillow & rug from the houseware dept & we made a little makeshift bed!
It must have been cozy because he slept for about an hour and a half!
Jackson decided to smell the artificial flowers & told us they smelled SOOOOO good!

This was about when his patience was wearing thin...he had just said, "I'm weady to doe" (i'm ready to go)

Back at Nanny's, the boys discovered a poor unsuspecting lizard on the broom stick... it was cute to see them try to touch it. Sunday morning, we headed to church....The boys got a little energy out in the church yard before heading to lunch.We met up with Marie & Kaleb for lunch since they were on their own also, since Jeremy was fishing with Randy. We went to Michealangelo's Pizza where the kids ate an entire slice of pizza a peice. Seriously, i wish i had taken a picture of these slices.... they literally had to use 2 plates to hold them because they are so long! I am such a glutton, i had two! Gasp! But in my defense, they were thin crust! We spent the rest of the day in Pottery Plus & Space Savers stores looking for more deals. By the time we got back to Nanny's, we were pooped! Then we had to drive home! We didn't make it back to our house until around 9:30pm! What a weekend!

Family from Michigan

Randy has a cousin, Laura who lives in Michigan that we don't get to see that often. She got to come the last weekend of September for a visit & the kids really enjoyed playing with her two kids: Gabe who is 3 & Gracie who is 11 months. I really enjoyed getting to visit with Laura. I think we have a lot in common & it is so unfortunate that she lives so far away! I have only gotten to visit with her 3 times the entire 7 years i have been married, but each time, i have thoroughly enjoyed it. Here are some pictures from our visit.

{i love how Gabe has to close his left eye with his finger!} {the boys being patient & posing for me}
{Gracie & Jackson were checking each other out! He really took to her!}

{Randy, Laura, & Gracie}