Fall Family Fun

Saturday we were blessed with some nice Fall weather. We decided to take advantage of it and spend some family time at the Center Grove apple orchard. I know at first mention the apple orchard doesn't sound like an exciting place to spend a Saturday, but this apple orchard is fabulous- they have so much more than apples! We spent the afternoon in the corn pool, on the jumping pillow, navigating our way through the hay maze, on a hay ride and on the giant slide. The kids had a blast and I can't think of a better way to spend our last Saturday together before Colby heads to Detroit this weekend.

The whole family on the hay ride.

Ammon got some sweet air on the jumping pillow. Abbi also loved the jumping pillow, she giggled and giggled when we would bounce and didn't want to get off.

The boys buried in the corn pool. I LOVE the midwest, I mean a giant pool of corn?? Where do they come up with this?? I am totally going to miss giant pools of corn when we move next Summer.

Abbi didn't want to have anything to do with the corn, but they boys all loved it.

On top of the corn maze.

Me and the boys on the giant slide. (It was more giant than this picture would have you believe, this is only half of it.)

So many things to do? Where should we start?

We finished the afternoon by enjoying cider donuts at the country store.

The boys insisted on having their picture taken on this giant cob of corn, I love it.

What a fun, fun day!

We are so grateful that we had one more day of nice weather before the inevitably long and cold Winter comes! We are also so glad that Colby has been able to be in Des Moines this month, I am praying that November will pass as quickly as October has..

Tradition!

A couple of weeks ago, Ammon came to me and said, "Mom, when are we going to decorate haunted houses?" I hadn't really thought about decorating haunted houses this year so I replied, "I don't know buddy, we'll see." He responded, "okay mom, but we have to make haunted houses, it's a tradition." It is? A tradition? I was so excited that not only did I come up with something that my kids enjoy doing, but that they consider it a tradition. I immediately planned our traditional night of spooky food and haunted house decorating and invited our friends the Campbell's and Nance's to join us. I had planned to have the kids wear their cute Halloween garb that Grandma Frost sent, but between soccer games and changing in and out of their costumes multiple times they ended up in old, grubby clothes instead. Check out this picture and you can just imagine how cute they would have looked wearing these outfits while decorating their haunted houses.

We started the night with a spread of spooky food including jello bats and pumpkins, bone breadsticks, ghostly strawberries, foot float punch, mummy cheese dip and cheesy brocolli and potato soup.

Our mummy-shaped cheese log.

Megan's ghostly strawberries tasted just as good as they look.

After dinner, we put the daddies to work fashioning haunted houses out of graham crackers and hot glue. Colby kept up his naughty tradition of flipping off the camera. Don't worry, next time I am going to suspend him from school and make him read Under The Tonto Rim for six hours straight.

After the houses were built, the moms and kids went to work decorating. There was just as much sugar as you are imagining, and I think the kids ate as much candy as they put on the houses.

The finished products!

It turns out that it was a good thing they boys didn't wear their new shirts, they ended up covered in icing. Little Abbi was at the party, but she missed most of the fun. She was a cranky little baby and I put her to bed!

Me and my sweet boys. Although Colby only made it into one (questionable) picture, he actually was at this party too. We are sure enjoying having him home and so grateful he is able to share some of our Halloween traditions with us this year.

This video is not of haunted houses, or traditions, but it is pretty darn cute. Grandpa Stewart requested more footage of Abbi walking so here you have it. She is turning into a little pro, which is great until you try to take her to sacrament meeting! It's a good thing she's so cute.

Eleven Months!

It is hard to believe that our baby girl is already eleven months old!

Abbi is such a sweet little baby and we are so happy she is part of our family.

It is hard to believe that someone so small...

Can have such a BIG attitude

Can make such a BIG mess

Can have such a BIG smile

Can throw such a BIG fit

Can have such a BIG opinion

Can hold such a BIG place in our hearts

We love you Abigail!

What the ???

Friday night Colby and I were able to go out on a hot date, without the kids! It had been a while since we'd been out to dinner by ourselves and we were looking forward to a quiet evening alone. We dropped the kids off at the baby sitter's and headed to the restaurant. At the restaurant, we chose to sit in the "open seating" in the bar rather than wait for a table. Shortly after we had ordered our appetizer and drinks, two old guys came into the bar and sat down at our same table! Colby and I looked at each other like, "what the crap?" and just started laughing. It was bad enough that the waitress brought us four appetizer plates and another restaurant employee handed me one of their sodas (to pass over to him). So much for having dinner by ourselves! So, as Colb and I ate our pizza and sandwich, old dudes dined on their fish and wine. At the end of our meal I kind of felt like saying, "well, thanks guys. I guess we'll see you later..." One things for sure, we won't soon forget that date!

Here is the evidence! Colby snuck this picture on his phone, so it's not the best quality- but it's proof of the "old dudes," cardigan and all!

Holiday, Celebrate!

I love to celebrate holidays (sometimes more than once!) Minor holidays like Labor Day are no exception. This year, as labor day weekend was approaching, I was feeling bummed that I had no plans, no family nearby, and no husband around. I was able to talk my friend Lisa into going on a last minute get-away with me, and where could be better than fabulous Omaha? We got a great deal on a priceline hotel (a 2 bedroom suite for $40 a night!), loaded up the kids in her van, and headed across the border (the Iowa state border, that is).

This crazy crew was so excited for our little trip.

We took the kids to Spagetti Works in Old Town for dinner. The atmosphere was great, and the weather was perfect. The food left something to be desired.

When we got to the hotel, we were greated with warm chocolate chip cookies. (Are you kidding me? could this place get any better?) Then we took all the kiddos to the pool.

Ammon, Abbi, Carter, Ashlyn and Oakley at a park in downtown Omaha.

These picture are kind of out of order, but at Spagetti Works there was a balloon lady! She came right to our table and made the kids these fun ballon creatures.

Abbi was a little angel (well most of the time!)

Saturday, we met some more friends at the wonderful Omaha zoo. Once again, a great day. The weather was beautiful, the company was great and the kids were (mostly) well-behaved.

The boys in front of one of the waterfalls in the indoor rainforest.

My kids are super cooperative when we try to take pictures. This one, at the butterfly house, is the best one we got of all of us at the zoo.

The whole crew! (minus Lisa who was taking the picture)

Maddie, Caden, Heather, Brenna, Oakley, Logan, Austin, Megan, Ashlyn, Shauni, Carter, Abbi and Ammon.

We love Omaha!

Thanks guys for the fun trip.

(and Lisa, I am amazed that you managed to escape every one of my pictures.)

Toddling

This one's for Daddy!

After many failed attempts, I finally caught Abbi toddling on video. As you can see, she still prefers to crawl, but I think she is on her way to becoming a walker!

Go Hawkeyes!

Iowans take their football seriously. Especially Iowa/Iowa State football. This year I have noticed it even more than before. The boys both had University of Iowa/Iowa State dress day at school, both of their soccer games were cancelled Saturday because the coaches wanted to watch the big game and too many players were going to miss soccer to go to the big game and last week (the week of the game) the doughnuts at Hyvee were frosted in Iowa/Iowa State colors. But I knew it was really serious when Ammon came home from school on Friday and said, "So mom, Cyclones or Hawkeyes?" I decided it was time for us to get into the spirit of the big football rivalry. We are all now proud owners of Hawkeye apparel (football fans across the nation will begrudge the fact that I chose our team based solely on the color scheme of their merchandise). The day of the big game we all got dressed in our University of Iowa garb and headed to the farmer's market with some friends. We enjoyed chatting with fellow Hawkeye fans and the banter we received from those who were sporting their Cyclone gear, and we felt like true Iowans, enjoying a morning at the farmer's market before the big game. We didn't go to the game (we actually didn't even watch the game), but I hear that I chose wisely: University of Iowa beat Iowa State 35 to 3. Go Hawkeyes!

Two less lonely people in the world...

Last week (as I was missing my husband and dreading the weekend alone), I got a message from my friend Celeste that she wanted to come to Iowa to visit. I was so excited I called her immediately and we started planning. Her husband was also away on rotations and we both wanted some company. She is amazing and braved the 10 hour drive here from Michigan, with 3 kids- including a 7 week old baby. WOW! She totally made my week. Make that my whole month. We had a blast. It had been over a year since I had seen Celeste and her kids, back then we spent nearly every day either running together...

or working together. We had some great times!

This weekend was no exception. Still more great times.

We were so excited to meet little Maddilyn. She has the cutest little face and the best hair! Abbi was especially interested in her and kept crawling over to check her out. Sadly, cute little Maddi made Abbi look like a toddler.

The boys were also sooo excited to see their buddy Cannon. They spent the whole weekend playing with legos and transformers and we hardly heard from them. The older boys stayed up chit chatting until late into the night and somehow weren't even grumpy the next day.

They even included Karlee in the sleepover festivities, and she was such an angel!

We revisited some of our old "stomping grounds" like the Neil Smith trail. Hauling six kids on bikes wasn't quite as relaxing as running the trail used to be, but it was fun all the same.

We also had to hit Panera bread and take it to Dewey park for a picnic.

Somehow I don't have photo documentation of it, but one of the highlights of the weekend was getting a babysitter and going to dinner and shopping.

The weekend wouldn't have been complete without meeting up with some of the old Chapelridge crew. We met up with Megan and Lisa and their kids for an afternoon at the park. As far as parks go, it doesn't get much better than Raccoon River.

What a crew! The kids (minus Logan and Maddi) stopped playing for a minute to have a snack.

We spent all afternoon playing at the park, playing in the sand,

and swimming in the river.

We ended the weekend with a pizza party and (of course) the kids ended up hunting for (and catching) frogs in their pajamas.

This wasn't really part of the festivities, but I had to throw this picture in here because I am certain that I have about the cutest baby in the world and I wanted to share it with all of you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Celeste, Cannon, Karlee and Maddi. We had so much fun visiting with you guys. We had such a good time that Celeste has convinced me to drive to Michigan in November for a visit. (She is going to hold my husband captive as collateral!) We can't wait to see you guys again.

Firsts!

We have had a lot of FIRSTS at our house lately. Today was Ammon and Carter's FIRST day of school.

Ammon started FIRST grade,

and Carter started four-year old preschool. It was the FIRST time the boys got to play together at recess.

This week Carter also had his FIRST soccer practice.

Today was also the FIRST time I took all three kids to the doctor for check-ups at the same time. (This was also the LAST time I attempt to do that!)

Little Miss Abbi is growing like a little weed, at 9 months here are her stats:

Weight: 21 lbs. 6 oz (75th percentile)

Height: 30 inches (97th percentile)

Unless she gets her mom's hand-eye coordination, we could have a little basketball player on our hands!

This week, Abbi got to visit Gray's Lake for the FIRST time,

It was also the FIRST time she stood on her own,

and sadly, the FIRST time she skinned her knee.

And last but not least, this was the FIRST week that Colby was away on rotations....

and we survived!! Hurray!

Whew, all this excitement is wearing me out!