Family Fall Festival

 Happy Fall, Y'all!  Yesterday being the first day of Autumn around here, we decided to pack up and have our traditional trek around to welcome the season!  Every year we visit a local mill for a tour, have a picnic, then go to a nearby Orchard to pick apples.

 These are the kinds of faces I get from Cal these days :)  Silly goose.  This was before they sang their fall songs for Daddy and I.  We've been working on songs about leaves and Autumn all week.  Seeing as we homeschool this was a family day/fall party/fieldtrip all rolled into one cute little package of a day!

 By picnic I mean we got take out from Panera.  I know, how planned of me.  But seriously we love their soups, it was a crisp, good day day for soup, Sunday.  And Daddy treated them to these cookies from there...yum!

 I had to document this as this is the most stubborn little boy I've ever met.  Seriously...ever!  Anyway, the boy won't even try to tie his shoes because he doesn't know how, or so he claims...Here he is tying his shoes.  He got most of it on his own and then Emma helped him finish.  But seeing him actually try to tie his shoes is a very rare photo indeed.

 Here are Emma and Daddy exploring the Dahlia garden...gorgeous, right?  By the way, this girl is looking too tall next to her 6 foot 4 inch Daddy...I'm just saying :(

 Hi Baby!  I love you!  This is the picture we always take, with the Mill behind us.  I'm pretty sure Nick thinks I'm insane that I always make him take the same pic of us every year :)

 These two...sigh.

 And these two together.  I called them my Puffy Vest Fellas.  These two go at it like cats and dogs with each other.  But here's how they really feel :)

 Then it was inside for a tour of the mill.  It wasn't on when we got there, the kids were bummed so this kind man who worked there turned it on and actually took us through the steps of how the grain is made.  That's right folks, it's a gristmill that still works!  We buy our year's supply of cornmeal there everytime we go and this time I picked up some bread flour too.  Excited to try to make wheat bread with the kiddos.

 The kids really enjoyed watching the stones grind the cornmeal we were able to take home!  Nothing like learning where your food comes from!

 Then it was onto picking apples!  Seriously, how cute are these kids?

 It's all about the outtakes, right?  How silly!!!

 Emma picked the biggest apple of the day and then proceeded to bite it before we could slip her a smaller one.  Not kidding, the four of us split that apple and it took us about 45 minutes between the 4 of us to eat it.  GINORMOUS!!!

 I think we ended up with two more bushels on top of this and then we were ready to go.  Momma's got lots of apples to make goodies with!

This was his proud moment when Daddy finally let him have his turn with the fruit picker.  He carried the apple in the basket all the way to the scales to pay.

So that was our day, hope you all are enjoying your fall!  Our house is all decorated for the season and we are loving the crisp weather!

Happy Fall, Y'all!

Our Weekend

As I mentioned in the last post, this weekend we celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary!  So exciting!!!  But I think what may have been even more exciting was...

 The finding of the old legos!    Nick has been asking his mom for the past three years to look for the legos he had when he was a kid.  They are in Portland on vacation right now so he seized the opportunity and stormed their basement for his toys.  He said he found them in about half an hour.  Three years of waiting for these makes for some very, very exciting children!

 How cute are these vintage legos?

 The kids have been having so much fun with them!  His mom kept the boxes and instructions and everything...they are so cute and fun!

 Our little boy is in heaven!  Sunday Nick sent me out for milk after supper and when I got back this was here...

 A wedding cake!  A real, live wedding cake!  In eloping we didn't have one and Nick surprised me with having this made!  A cake for 30 people for the four of us makes for a lot of leftover cake!  He remembered  the cake I had planned for our wedding, the color and everything...isn't he just the sweetest thing ever?

I was so shocked and I am so in love with him!

Awful picture but after cake Emma thought dancing was appropriate. Aren't they just adorable?

So those were the parts of our weekend you hadn't heard about yet.  I'm loving our life! Up next is our anniversary get away!  Packing and cleaning and preparing for that.   :)

Cleaning the Ins and Outs of Me and the House

As Summer has crept in I have noticed my laziness growing.  After all it is hot and humid and these are supposed to be the days when you are out of school and able to throw some of your grown up inhibition to the wind, right?

Unfortunately I also find that my wanting to be a free spirit somehow contradicts itself.  I don't want to go to the gym because I don't want to be kept indoors when it is so beautiful outside. I don't want to go running because it is too hot and sticky...see what I mean about contradictory?  I don't want to clean because there are so many more fun things to do with the kiddos but then I don't go outside with the kiddos as much as I should because there is just so much to do around the house.  Grrrr.

However I find that during quiet time I sit down at the computer to pinterest away at pinning: cleaning tips for cleaning I am not doing, workouts I am not doing, and recipes I am not making.  And before I know it my free time is gone and I have accomplished very little to feel satisfaction about.

Yes I know  I sound lazy because in these past few weeks I have been incredibly lazy!!!!

So today it hit me as I was playing with the kiddos outside and working out in the yard...

What would our yard look like if I took just 10 minutes every day to work out here?  Weeding, picking up sticks, and in general tidying up may not be so daunting if I did a little bit every day.

And in that I thought what if that and my cleaning (which I also felt convicted to do after applying my few minutes a day rule to cleaning roo) were my workout too?

To test it out I cleaned the  bathroom today.  And in doing that I am not talking my normal cleaning of I got out a clorox wipe and dabbed around a bit but that I did a hard core cleaning.  Scrubbing the walls, toothbrushing grout, I was all over the grossness of getting the grody out of the loo.  And in doing that I found myself panting, sweating and using muscles that haven't been used in July yet.

So that is my plan for the summer.  Cleaning up the inside and outside of this house to get myself cleaned up.  We'll see how this goes :)  I think it's going to be a messy job!

Happy 4th of July and Weekend!

Yesterday was the fourth of July and sadly we had no friends having cook outs or anything going on.  Poor Nick has been painting the house every day he's had off of work, the children have been slaving away around the house with school, and quite frankly we all just needed a break! 

So we headed out to Chicago which is only about an hour and a half from our house for the day.  We were very thrilled to just get out of the area for a little while.  Emma had a gift card to American Girl to spend which is conveniently located right next to the Lego store.  Our two favorite stores were checked off the list and then Mommy's fave store, H&M was visited as it is right across the street.  

After the shopping we went up to Lincoln Park to visit the zoo.  We had a picnic and then headed in.  

 Mr. Laid Back and Miss Sassy Pants.  Yep, those are our two kids.

 The children rode the Endangered Animals Carousel which they seemed thrilled with.  Emma had a big, glamorous bow that matched her dress but she didn't want to wear it.  I'm trying really hard to not let OCD get to me and just to let her be.   What a sweet girl she is!  She kept telling Nick thank you over and over for the day.  
 Here was Cal going around and then...

 Before long this whirled around.  Apparently as Cal reported to us, his name is Frank and he REALLY, REALLY wanted something on his head.  What a silly boy!

  I think our family favorite part of the day was seeing the Polar Bear.  Emma and I studied them last year and she remembered so much about them!  I was pretty impressed, actually!

 After grabbing some Garrett's popcorn we headed down to Chinatown for some shopping and strolling.  Cal found some ninja swords he just had to have and Emma got a stuffed animal.  What is up with girls and stuffed animals?  Anyone else's daughter just seem to not be able to get enough of them?

Calvin was very over sensitized by this point so as much as I wanted to stay and eat we headed home. Which was fine because he got progressively worse the closer we got to home.  So glad I didn't have to wrangle that in a sit down restaurant!

When we got home we let the dog out, had dinner, and then headed out for local fireworks.  It was a fast paced day and it was choked full of so much fun!  Hope your's was too, sweet friend!  And hopefully you're just having a super duper long weekend of celebrating!

Ag Days

With us living in the Midwest you'd think that I would be able to tell you all about my vast amounts of knowledge concerning farming and Agriculture.  

But...nothing could be farther from the truth.  Truth is I grew up  in what could probably be considered suburbia.  And while Nick grew up in a small town and did things like bale hay in high school, he doesn't know much more than I do.  

Thank goodness for Ag Days!  An event that our county's 4-H Organization puts on, it has a cute little hunt where you learn how to harvest foods, then you put a sample of them in your basket as you go along.  At the end if you have everything they treat you to milk and cookies.  I mean seriously, how cute is that?  

This year Daddy had to work while we went but we still had so much fun.  

 Here was an apple Cal picked from a tree for his basket...they had so much fun!

 There were a lot of vendor booths...Cal loved the fountain behind him.  I love that he's getting to the age where he will go and check things out.  He doesn't touch or mess with things, just quietly observes.  He is so amazing :)

 Here's our annual shot we take at Ag Days...say cheese!

 An extra special treat was running into Cal's very best friend in the world!  How cute are these boys together?  Watch out ladies :)

 They sheared a sheep while we were there...the kids were not impressed.  Neither was the sheep.

 We planted tomato plants.

 The kids learned how to milk a cow.

 Emma petting a cow.  How adorable is she?  She gets cuter by the day!

 Baby cow!  I believe the proper word is Calf but I like to just call them baby cows.

 Giddy up

 He liked lassoing.  Is lassoing the right word?  But seriously he almost took out my eye with this activity.  He was flailing the thing all over the place.  I guess that is how they do it on tv, right?

 Going for a ride :)

And their treat of milk and cookies at the end.  It was such a nice event.  Afterwards it was about lunch time and they had homemade chicken and noodles for $2 a bowl!  So we bought a couple of bowls and it was so, so yummy!  And we had so much leftover we had a huge heaping bowl amount that we took home for Nick to enjoy.  I'd consider lunch for 4 for $4.00 a pretty good deal, wouldn't you?   

Not to mention that the entire activity was free.  It was a lot of fun and very educational.  It was a lot of information all together that saved me the hassle of having to wrangle (ha!) together.  Plus what could be better than hands on learning?  

Ice Fishing

This past Sunday we went up to Nicholas' Grandmother's house to go Ice Fishing.  She lives on a lake which she assured us was frozen enough so off we went.  

Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go...

 There was no way in this whole wide world that I was going to go on the ice.  I stood on the pier with my mom parts all in a ball of worry as my children stood in the middle of a frozen lake with 40 degree temperatures warming the earth.

I was so, so scared the ice was going to crack and just envelope the whole fold of them.

EEEeEEEeeEEEk!

The picture above is Emma and a friend of Nick's Grandma's, Keith, who was taking them out.

 Nicholas and Calvin making their way.

 Calvin on the ice....allow me to interject an EEEEK!

Here they are doing the actually fishing. Nick had the camera.  So at this point my beautiful children, my hot hubby, and my uber expensive camera are all standing on ice in the middle of the lake.  Oh joy.

Here's a picture of Nick's mother and me standing on the dock.  At this point I think we were both yelling at them, trying to entice them inside with hot cocoa.  Heehee.

They are pretty cute ice fishing though :)

I mean, seriously, look at all that water!!!  Freaking out looking at these photos!  And they are safe in our living room right now, ha!

They finally came inside and I was okay.  I stopped hyperventilating a few hours minutes later and realized they had a lot of fun and got to experience something interesting!

Girl Scouts Thinking Day

This morning Emma had Thinking Day with her Girl Scout troop and their entire service unit (which is comprised of about 20 troops).  Thinking Day is when they study different countries and think outside of their little area.  

Last year each troop put on a skit or performance.  Each troop had a different country.   This year each troop represented a country and put together a table of things for the other troops.  The troops went around and had a scavenger hunt of facts from the tables.  It was a lot of fun!

 Here's Emma with one of her girlie friends...aren't they adorable???
 While Emma was off tasting foods from different cultures and finding her facts this was what Cal was doing. He made friends with a little boy and they took turns playing games on my phone...so cute!  I was really happy he was content doing that most of the time as there really was nothing else for him to do!

As a side note I would like to say that the only time the kids are allowed to play with handhelds (their gamers or our cell phones) is when we go somewhere and I have nothing else to do to keep them occupied. Other than that time I am opposed to a lot of screen time and not letting them play them all of the time keeps them desirable when I need them to work!

 China was the booth next to us and they all dressed up as little panda bears...so cute!  Took me a while to figure it out though and I kept asking other moms why the China table was dressed as mice!  Oops :)

 Hey crazy hair!  You're still adorable!  He's doing a great job guarding my purse...and apparently a crock pot lid!  Great job little Bud!

 This booth was adorable!  All of the little girls had scarves around their necks...very chic!  Emma didn't want a packzi at the Polish table (basically a doughnut) but was thrilled to death when France had bread and butter.  Her Daisy leader was chuckling that she'll turn down a doughnut but get excited about bread and butter!  That's our little girl :)

Doesn't this look fun?  It's  fron the Australia booth...bread with sprinkles and some type of frosting!

 Here's Emma holding hands with her friend and getting ready to join up for their Friendship Circle.  Adorable!  They all had so much fun and it is always a blast getting to see her in action with her friends.  I am so thankful for this Girl Scout troop that she has an opportunity to make friends!

A New Week is Here!

Good Morning Blog friends! 

The dopey blogger userface is apparently doown and I can't post piictures.  So you just get me writing away here. 

Hope you all had a great weekend. 

We certainly did. 

Friday night Nick's parent's had the kids over for a sleepover. 

Nick and I went out to dinner and then went to a local museum for a murder mystery.  We had so much fun. 

The best part though was next morning:  sleeping in.  All the way until 8:30.  It was glorious.  Then we sat around in sweats watching the Food Network and eating leftovers...it was so nice. 

Saturday evening we went to some dear friends' house for dinner.  Hi Jess!  Hi Andrew!!    We had such a good time and our kiddos LOVED playing with their girls.  We went to a Harvest party together at a local church and just had an amazing time. 

Yesterday I was feeling a little under the weather.  Nick was such a trooper and took the kiddos to church on his own so I could get some rest.  He is the best man in the world!  By the time they got home I was feeling a little better and was able to get moving around again by mid afternoon.  

All in all it was a wonderfully relaxing weekend, and while we didn't get everything done that we had wanted, we had a great time.  I feel rejuvenated and ready for this week, rather than dreading it already.  As I mentioned in this post last week we have a very busy Monday.  But I feel ready for it and we are charged up to go! 

One of the things I am going to do today to make life a touch easier is make Ham n' beans in the slowcooker. 

Are you allowed to call it a Crock Pot if it isn't a Crock Pot brand?  Just wondering....

Also, you can't be all correct and call it Ham and Beans...'ya gotta call it Ham 'n' beans.  With the 'n'.  :)   

You don't really need a recipe for beans...it's more a cooking method and you can add whatever the heck you want.  But I learned to make beans by following this recipe from Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman.  I figure if anyone can make beans, it's gotta be someone be a Pioneer Woman, right?  I mean, I read the Little House books, those people had to eat beans :)   

Anywho, throwing beans and a hamhock into the Crock Pot (excuse me...slow cooker) is super easy and then I don't have to worry about dinner after a super busy day when things are horrid.  There's no telling how today will go, but there is a pretty good chance that by dinner time I'll be rocking in a corner, pulling my hair out and crying.  And it's hard to chop things when you're sitting in a corner rocking...not easy at all. 

So that's all I've got for ya today.  Hopefully the DUMB BLOG people can get the photos working...I'm shaking my little fists at you, people inside the computer. 

Happy Monday everyone!!!

Summer Fest

Today was our neighborhood's summer party.  Every summer the neighborhood comes together in front of our house; we roast hot dogs, have water balloon fights, and just get reaquainted all over again. 

 

I love our neighborhood...have I mentioned to ya before? 

 

It has it's faults.  Granted.  But here are some things I love...

 

 

 

Brick lined streets!  Yes we live on a street that is still paved with bricks and I absolutely adore that!  This is Emma devouring a piece of cake that the neighbor across the street made.  Yum!

 

 

 

 

 Cal liked it too!  In case you hadn't figured that out ;)

 Here's the cake that is being devoured in the previous pictures which brings me to something else that I love...the lady that lives right across the street, her name is Diana, and she makes the most phenomenal cakes!  I love that !  Frequently she'll send over samples to try.  Her husband works with Nick and they keep an eye on our house and the kiddos.  Love the neighborly feeling around here.

 I love that Emma's about to deck Cal with a water balloon.  I love it's a neighborhood where our kids can just be themselves and have fun. 

 Cal being crazy.  All of the kids seem pretty used to it.  There's no pretext or need to explain the kid to everyone...we all have our own Calvin's in our family's and it's cool.  I have to say, I love Emma's little smirk in this picture!

 Big mature trees and old houses...what is not to love!  In this picture they told the kids to "pick out a partner" so that's what Emma did!

 Calvin decided to grace us with his presence as Spiderman.  Love it!

 You never know when a good old fashioned sword fight is going to break out!

 Our neighbor's being, well, neighborly!   I love it!

 I threw Nick in the mix by volunteering him to grille.  He grunted and grumbled but once we got there I think he really enjoyed himself!

 The water balloon committee hard at work!

And we had Spiderman so for our next act...Darth Vader!  I think he had to be in costume to play with the big boys.

All in all we love our neighborhood and these events remind us why we are where we are.  We really are enjoying ourselves!

Welcoming Monday with a Smile

Whew!  What an incredibly busy weekend we had!  I feel like I need a weekend to get over the weekend...do you ever feel like that too?

Our weekend was wonderful albeit not completely what we had hoped for. 

Friday we went to our produce co-op, visited the library, and went to a Children's Museum that we are members at. The kids love playing there so it is a nice way to just set them loose to have some fun.  We also were able to get some banking done.  By banking I mean, we are finally opening the kids college funds (which I swear I thought we did ages ago!), and visited with our travel agent regarding our Disney Trip!!!!  Nick was also able to pick up his car FINALLY!  Praise the Lord I am so happy that we get to be a two-car family.  If it turned out that we had to be a one-car family I was going to try to bear it with grace, but oh-my-goodness I am so happy we don't have to do that!  When we got home I was making split-pea soup with ham and COMPLETELY burnt the thing.  We are still unsure what in the world I did to it.  Poor little soup.  It wasn't just kind of burnt it was burnt.  I'm talking we had to get out of the house, people were gagging, kind of burnt.  Luckily Nick's parents had invited us to a fish fry which we had previously turned down, so we called them and accepted the offer.  When we got home we watched the very first Scooby Doo cartoons on a movie we got from the library.  "Like, yikes!"  the kids loved them!  Cal has begged to watch them again since. 

Saturday was my Mom's Birthday!  She had plans so we didn't get to see her but we called and all did the yelling and screaming into the phone!  It was fun.  After that we went out and did some shopping.  I love shopping with the kiddos.  They are so fun. When we got home we had our yard day although it was a lot colder than we had planned.  Nick and I did get out potting shed completely cleared out.  I am ashamed to have to admit that that was the first time we've done that since we bought the house.  There was a lot of "what in the world is that???" asking about items we found.  We also found things like car jacks and things that we apparently inherited with the house that Nick will be able to use.  We were able to get it organized enough that we now have room to store more things more efficiently.  Score!  On top of the organization we got a lot of brush picked up and got the patio swept and ready to use!  It was so lovely to be able to go outside and say hello to the outside again! As you can see from the picture above we said "hello" to a new Easter Bunny when we got out our Spring/Easter bin to start decorating.  The kids love decorating!  Emma loves going through everything so carefully, exclaiming how everything is a treasure.  She is our treasure, that one.  And Cal makes a cute Easter Bunny. 

Sunday we were going to go to the Art Museum but decided against it.  With gas and eating we were going to be paying about $300.00 to be at an art museum for about three hours.  We decided it was an investment that we didn't need to make right now.  With the time change we woke up too late to go to church, so we decided to paint.  Ta-da!  Here is our dining room.  I am so impressed with Nick.  He tackled the painting and got two coats on and the room put back together in a day.  Wowwie!  The Dining Room was the last room downstairs that was this ugly yellowy-cream color that all of the rooms were when we moved in. 

We chose the blue because it matches my China Pattern...isn't it beautiful?

It also matches my every day dishes that we got as a wedding gift from Nick's parents.  Aren't they just as sweet as can be?  The pattern is "Melissa" by Pfaltzgraff. 

After painting all day Nick was tired.  Although I didn't paing, I was able to get a TON of deep cleaning done which was nice. 

And that was our weekend.  It feels like it was longer than it really was.  And you should know that we count Fridays as a weekend because for the most part we don't homeschool on Fridays.  Emma has Girl Scouts every other Friday so when she had it, it was really messing up our homeschooling.  So I made the lengths that we do everything longer so we can get the same amount of school done in four days instead of five.  When she doesn't have Girl Scouts it just means we have a day that we don't have to do anything, which is a lot of fun! 

I hope ya'll had a great weekend as well.  Have a wonderful Monday!

A Sensational Saturday

Friday night my parents had the children over for a slumber party.  Which meant that Saturday I had all to myself since Nick had to work. 

I've got to tell you, it was pretty nice. 

No, no, nix that...it was really, really nice. 

I was able to sleep in until 9 a.m.  I love when you are able to get so much sleep that your day doesn't have to start with a gimundo-sized cup of coffee. 

I was then able to get started with some meany cleany.  I was able to get Emma's closet organized, the kitchen completely cleaned, the floors totally squeeky clean, the children's toys organized, and so much stuff just put away in general.  The clutter is what always gets me...in every day life the clutter just always has a habit of sneaking up on us, and it was nice to be able to get some control over it. 

After the cleaning was done, I took Lucy on a huge long walk.  It was amazing and transcendent.

We went down one of my favorite streets in the neighborhood, all the way down.  And then all the way back and then headed home. 

After that I even had time to take a shower, get ready, and then head out shopping at a couple of stores. 

Finally I grabbed a Mocha, went through the Carwash and headed to my mom and dad's. 

It was so nice to feel well rested and accomplished.  I felt invincable...which God must have known I needed because when I picked the kids up Cal was a hot mess.  Screaming and kicking ALL the way home...it's at least a half hour ride, people. 

But I never lost my cool and I was really proud of myself.  I think I needd that win to feel better about my mothering abilities. 

After we got home we had the same business as usual that we normally do.  But now I sit here at 11:00 at night feeling like a cool cat because I'm not that tired and I am working on school planning. 

It was heavenly to have a day which was, well, heavenly.  Here's hoping to tomorrow faring well too! 

Have a great weekend!

Our Lord's Day

Greetings everyone!  I know I have been but a distant memory to ya'll lately.  Life has been so crazy busy.  So crazy busy that I've neglected to even be taking pictures of my kiddos. 

Do you ever get into one of those slumps? 

It all just seems so boring and mundane that I think "there's nothing to even take a picture of" and "boring, people, this is all so boring". 

But then it hit me one day that I am simply letting life pass me by, for it is in the small and simple moments that our life is formed and created.  And I know that one of these soft days I will look back and wish I had cared more about what was going on...that I would have stopped and breathed it in, and memorized every aspect.  For one day it will be gone. 

Today is one of those days I hope I never, ever forget.  Not that it was anything special or anything particulary momentous occured.  But rather it was a simple Sunday.  A day to rest and rejunvenate our souls as the Lord commands us to do. 

So here are some of the things that happened here during our Lord's day:

Napping.  Lots and lots of napping.  Isn't the feeling you have when you wake up from a nap transplendent?  I just don't think there's anything better than a good ole' Sunday afternoon nap. 

This little guy insisted he didn't need a nap.  Apparently he surrendered in a losing battle.  This picture will always and forever make me want to scoop him up and cuddle him.  And then tuck him in. 

Here I am...Happy in the Lord!  Sunday afternoons when we come home from church we change into our sweaties and I put my hair into a ponytail.  There's nothing better than changing out of Sunday morning pantyhose into nice warm sweat pants and thick socks...except maybe a nap.  :)

I always try to make a big dinner for our Sunday Supper.  Something that has to cook a long time in a big pot.  Tonight it was Chicken Cacciatore with crusty bread.  I was worried the kiddos wouldn't like it...

But it was a hit!

 Our Lord's Day also involved making a lot of Star Wars Lego creations and just spending time as a family.  I hope you are rested and rejuvenated after this Sunday as well.  May the Lord fill your hearts and spirits with new energy for the coming week. 

God Bless You All!



Weekend Amazingness

Well this past weekend I can't say that we did anything spectacular.  Except one thing...

we got to love on Nick! 

Friday was the start of a three day weekend for him and we had so much fun with him!  It was his first day off in a month...no weekends off, and he's gone about 15 hours a day so when he does get home there's not much time for him to do much of anything other than eat dinner, shower, and go to bed. 

It was wonderful having our family all back together.  And kind of funny.  Nick hasn't been around so much that he kept trying to get the kids down for a nap (who don't take naps anymore), sending the kids up to their rooms with toys that we now keep downstairs, and trying to get them to watch programs we don't watch.  So funny.  I can't imagine what it would be like having a husband deployed or something...

We visited a lot of amish, went on a field trip, went to church, our zoo's halloween festivities, carved pumpkins, and laughed a lot. 

It was so wonderful.  We are so blessed.  Nick Sunday at dinner told us thank you for such a great weekend. 

But it's us that should be telling him Thank You. 

I'm sure there are so many guys who wouldn't be home on their first days off.

They'd be at the golf course.
Or a buddy's house.
Or a bar. 

But not Nick.  Nope.  He has no where else he'd rather be than at home with us.  With our messes and our tantrums, our loud playing, and our sword fights. 

And that to me, is amazing. 


Sidenote: I have pictures somewhere on my camera...goal today is to find camera :)

Little Pumpkins

As mentioned in my previous post, Emma and I have been sick.   Well yesterday (Saturday) I was still sick but I was determined to not spoil our plans.  Nick took the day off and we had so much planned I was a little worried about getting it all done and having it still be a fun day.  I mean, at what point does running errands on a beautiful Fall day stop being fun and simply become checking things off of your list of "to-dos"?

Well I shouldn't have worried because we had such a wonderful time together!  We started the day super early...we were out the door without any breakfast.  We stopped at this Italian bakery in our neighoborhood for doughnuts and coffee and then made the drive to a tiny town south of us that has a great butcher.

Since we were down there we made a drive to Nick's hometown to another store with great cheeses and bulk baking items.  We stocked up on things we need.  I love the fact that we live in a metropolis area but can drive 10 minutes in any direction and be in the country.   LOVE that.  I also love that we live so close to the Amish folks and can take advantage of their wonderful baked goods, produce, and meats. 

Anyway, we FLEW home, changed clothes and then it was off to a fashion show Emma was a model in.  After that it was time for some shopping, lunch out, a trip to a Nursey for mums (I heart Mums so much!), and then onto Pumpkin Picking!

While Pumpkin picking we had a great time but it was so weird!  It was 82 degrees out...Nick was in Birkenstocks for crying out loud!  Usually we're wearing gloves!  It was a weird day, and while picking pumpkins we had a Stealth Bomber circling overhead for the football game going on.  It was kind of weird but neat all at the same time!  :)

If you'll remember apple picking pictures the children were enamored by the wagon and as you can see here, they still love the wagon!  Apparently they have a system where Emma pulls, Cal pushes.  They fell into their positions quickly. 

 Emma found her pumpkin quickly and how cute is she?  I just love her to death!

 Here's Cal's...his isn't that heavy but he just could not figure out how to hold it...Nick's teaching him how.  Cute!

 These little pumpkins made Emma's day...she thought they were sooo cute!  They were 3/$1 so Nick told them each to pick 3.  Well Emma did quickly and Cal only had one.  He kept saying "I only have one" so Nick kept trying to help him pick 2 more out.  Finally Cal declared "I only have one because I only need one!"  Oh!  Now we get it.  I love that Cal doesn't like excess.  And sometimes he's confusing but when he let's us into how his minds working and what he's thinking it makes so much sense to us.  Nick just said "okay, that's cool" and we were done.  It's times like those that I love when he tells us what's going on in his mind. 

Here's our shopping trip.  I got pumpkins to stack so I'll have to take a picture of that when I'm done. 

So that was our day yesterday!  We came home, made dinner of burgers, brats, green beans, and pierogis, ate dinner, and collectively crashed on the couch to watch Gnomeo and Juliet.  It was a full day.  It was a gorgeous day.  It was a wondrful day. 

Happy Lord's Day!