Weekend Fun

As most mornings do, we started our Friday with the littles sitting on the counter, eating breakfast, and being their goofy little selves. Unlike most mornings, I had a total of six kids 10 and under for about 45 minutes before the bus came. It was fun and crazy, there were some tears, but at least Noelle bounced out of bed ready to go since she was so excited about Sophie coming over. (And apparently Sophie was just as excited until she found out her brother was also coming over with her.)

After my friend got back and picked up her son, my mom came over and I headed to our local tot swap. It was so nice being able to go kid-free and actually look for things! I found some sneakers for Noelle, which she was so excited about and kept saying "thank you, mommy" over and over again. I also picked up a bagful of cars for Jonah for Christmas, as well as tights and boots for Noelle. I met my friends Megan and Hannah there and was able to catch up with them a little bit. Hannah's little guy was getting restless, so she left to get him home, and once Megan finished up, she came to hang out for a bit. I gave her our baby swing, which her four month old tested out while at our house, and we really weren't sure if she was enjoying it, or giving Megan a look of "really, mom?"

On Saturday, we met up with Luke's parents and sister for breakfast at Roy Rogers. I'm not sure if I've ever eaten at a Roy Rogers in m life, but they have a delicious deal of all you can eat pancakes or biscuits and gravy for $1.99. Noelle and I loved the pancakes, Jonah took a few bites of everyone's food, and Luke enjoyed his biscuits and gravy. It was really fun to meet up with the grandparents and be able to spend time with them. After we finished eating and chatting, Luke and I took the kids to the local mall where Noelle completed a Christmas scavenger hunt. There were little gingerbread people taped to the wall near certain stores holding different types of candy. She had to match which candy went with which store. It was fun, and she really seemed to be into it. Of course both kids also REALLY enjoyed playing on the rides (even though we didn't pay any money to make them move!)

Sunday we had church as usual, and then headed out to lunch for my dad's birthday. We ate at Seasons 52, and the food was delicious! The kids did really well, which was surprising since we'd had a rough morning and it was right during Jonah's usual nap time. But it was fun celebrating with my parents, sisters, and brother-in-law. We went back to my parent's house for a little bit to eat cake and play with Roxy before getting Jonah home for a nap. In the evening we headed out to small group for some good fellowship and discussion of the current sermon series. It was a busy weekend, and our kids were a little crazy, but I'm so thankful for the time we had as family!

Halloween 2015 and Chili Cook-Off

The end of October brought a whole lot of fun our way, including a trip to a farm the day before Halloween that we'd never been to before with a bunch of friends . The super fun thing about Sharp's farm, is that it's mostly groups who come and set up a time just for their group to be there. Or in our case since we were a small group, there was one other small group there. But it felt like we had the whole farm to ourselves!

We drove down a looooong dirt/gravel driveway and met up with the rest of our group. While we waited for everyone to arrive, we were allowed to feed the chickens and the bunnies. Once we were all there, the farmer took us into a barn to talk to us about the different kinds of corn and beekeeping. After trying to find the queen bee, he lead the kids over to a giant pail of feed corn, and the kids happily ran back and forth from the pail to the pen of goats. I'm pretty sure Jonah dropped more food along the way than what made it into the goats' mouths, but he had a blast!

(they really did have fun on the hayride!)

After goats, we went on what I would consider one of the best hayrides I've ever been on. It was long and looped us around fields on the farm, and then through a not so little creek where I thought for sure we would get stuck in the middle or a child would fall overboard. But everyone survived and it just made it that much more exciting! The guy driving us around stopped at the pumpkin field where we picked our pumpkins, and then we found our way through the corn maze for little people. We ended with picking our own corn ears for making pop corn at home (which we have yet to attempt!) It was a lot of fun, and something that we all said we want to do again next year!

On Halloween evening, we continued our tradition (for the second time ever) of having some friends over to help hand out Halloween candy and watch a "scary" movie. My sister came and we took Noelle and Jonah around to some houses to trick-or-treat. Jonah was Nemo and Noelle was a giraffe without a head (last time I'm getting her a costume with a hat!) I allowed Jonah to suck on a lollipop while we walked around, and as soon as he got another one, he dropped the first one to open the second one. I took it away from him, and he threw a fit, so I dropped him off at the house with Luke, and my sister and I continued on with Noelle. After she complained that her bucket was "too heavy", we headed back to join the party to eat food and watch the movie.

My one friend and I are not big fans of scary movies, so we looked up how the movie (The Others) ended, and were able to watch it without being too creeped out. The movie the group picked was, as Luke put it, more atmospheric than actually scary. You always think something scary is about to happen, but there was really only one jumpy part. Overall, it was another fun year of trick-or-treating and hanging out with friends.

This past weekend, our little town had a chili cook-off so we headed down to Main Street to get the free tastings. There were so many good types of chili, and even though the samples were fairly small, we were too stuffed to try them all! But it made for a free lunch and fun time walking around as a family.