Pumpkin Patch

The church pumpkin patch was last night. The weather again was just perfect. It was a little chilly, but not bad at all with the sun shining bright.

Here's Miss Piggy and Kermie. His costume came in the mail on Thursday and it was too small. I have no idea what they were thinking, but it was labeled size 2-4, but then on the packaging it said for ages 1-2. Oh well. We managed to squeeze him in it and he didn't complain, even though his hat barely velcroed shut. He did want to know where his red Kermit mouth was though. How cute are they!

And how lucky am I that I got one more year of coordinating costumes out of them? I don't know why, but it gives me great pleasure to have them matching for Halloween and I will be sad when they won't humor me.

This was during the trunk or treat portion of the night. Robert had just stuffed half a cookie in his mouth and ended up spitting it into Chris' hand. What a sport!

And then I handed the camera over to Chris. Every time I ask him to take a picture, he just starts snapping before I'm ready. Half the time he just lowers the camera, not looking through the view finder mind you, and starts snapping away. He'll take 20 pictures, and usually the one that has us centered and looking is blurry. This time he caught a perfect picture of me with my "I am not amused" face.

That's better. Clara eventually started shedding pieces of her costume. Her nose was the first to come off and I didn't even know she lost a glove until I found it on a table at church this morning with several other lost and found items from the night before.

Stuffing his face with a cupcake on the way out.

Camping With Friends

Camping is always more fun with friends. And we hadn't been camping with these particular friends since Clara was two I believe. Last weekend we went to Village Creek State Park and Glenn and Becky pulled her parents' pop up camper with our Jeep. Since they were bringing their dog Reggie and there's not a lot of space in the Jeep, Leah rode with us. I felt so bad leaving Kate all by herself, but we just didn't have room for one more. We decided to take a break from our dogs this time and had a friend watch them.

Here's a view from the front seat as we made our first unscheduled stop. Their trailer lights weren't working, so we headed straight for an auto parts store for a quick fix. Then Robert needed to pee but wouldn't go standing up, so I put him in a pull up in case we couldn't get stopped in time. I guess we only had one other bathroom break on the drive there, so not too bad. We pulled in right at dark, so we had a fun time getting two campers all set up in the dark. Oh, and it had dropped into the 50s too, so we had chilly kiddos who needed some pants and sweatshirts and who hadn't had dinner yet.

It got pretty chilly that night, so we got to try out our heater for the first time. Worked like a charm, so we were nice and toasty in no time. Someone else forgot to figure out how to work their heater beforehand, so they were googling it at 1 a.m. trying to get some relief. Not mentioning any names though.

The weather the next day was absolutely beautiful. We went on a hike to a sandy beach that's designated for swimming. It was about a 1.5 mile hike from the trail head so we got some good exercise in that day. We hadn't planned on letting the kids swim since it was such a long way to haul towels and clothes and such. They had a different idea though and they eventually ended up soaked after being told they could wade in the shallow water.

They did great on the long hike, but Robert had had enough about a half mile away from the car. I got to carry him a good distance, myself completely spent from the excursion. We made it back to camp, had some lunch and then I went to get Robert down for a nap.

That booger wasn't tired in the least! He was bouncing off the camper walls for a good 20 minutes. All the while, I kept dozing off. At one point, I woke just in time to see him creeping off the bed. I had to position myself so that I would feel him if he tried to crawl over me to get out. He eventually conked out and got a good nap in.

We just hung out and enjoyed each other's company for the rest of the day. The adults played a board game, the kids played and fought and ate and fought some more. We enjoyed hamburgers for dinner and then smore's on the campfire.

One thing I loved about this park was the two benches perfectly positioned by each campfire.

That night wasn't cold like the night before. It was very pleasant, as was the next morning. Robert sported Buddy Walk shirt number two on Sunday. After packing up, we had planned to ride our bikes to the playground before loading up to leave. There was a fair amount of drama at this point, so the group ride didn't happen and we decided to cut our losses and get on the road.

We're so thankful for fun times with wonderful friends.

Ren Fest 2012

We went to the Renaissance Festival this weekend. Jason, Chris and one of Chris' co-workers went camping for the weekend and joined up with us at the festival on Saturday. We let the kids get costumes this year. It was quite warm, so Clara's stayed on for about 15 minutes once we were inside the gate.

I couldn't believe she went and stood next to this guy for a picture. Ha! He stands by the entrance and has wads of dollar bills sticking out of his costume from all of the pictures he's taken. I wonder how much he rakes in. I also wonder what his day job is.

I made sure and stopped first thing to get a family picture before all of the costumes were shed. Yes, I was a fuddy-duddy and didn't dress up. I just wasn't feeling it. Robert actually kept his on the whole time and Chris had to. He didn't bring a shirt. He was a little warm.

The kids feasted on kettle corn, ice cream and Dr. Pepper and Chris and I enjoyed some apple dumplings. Mmmm. They were both really well behaved and there were no meltdowns. Could it be Robert is finally starting to outgrow the mandatory public meltdown stage?

Can you spot the leprechaun in this next picture?

My cutie-patootie pirate.

Clara was giddy while getting her face painted.

And she wanted to try the bungee trampoline again this year. After several attempts, she finally did a flip.

Between pushing a stroller, getting Robert in and out of stroller, chasing him, taking him for potty breaks, and all of the walking in the heat, I was exhausted after several hours. Apparently they were not. I thought for sure they'd nap in the car, but nope. I couldn't even get Robert to nap when we got home. I eventually put a movie on for them so I could nap. Where does all of their energy come from?

Chilly Morning

I snapped this picture of Clara before school one morning a few weeks ago. It was the first cold morning of the season.

Renaissance Festival

Jason wanted to go to RenFest while he was in town so we loaded everyone up and headed over on Sunday. I was a little worried that there would be a lot of scary costumes since it was Halloween weekend, but thankfully it wasn't bad. We had lots of fun. I love seeing all of the costumes. There are fairies, pirates, vikings, barbarians, wenches and princesses galore and a very good looking Shrek and Fiona this year. I felt kind of bad for them because they were stopped every few feet by people wanting to take a picture with them.


Remember how I said JDog was a good sport? He wore his custom made necklace with "JDog" spelled out in wooden letters all weekend.





She was dancing up a storm here. Chris tried to get her to go up front and dance, but she preferred being off to the side where she had more room to boogie.


She tried her hand at archery.



And then did the bungee bouncing thing for the first time. She had a terrified look on her face on the first bounce, but she loosened up and enjoyed herself. The guy tried to get her to do a flip but she never was able to get all the way over.


I was super smart and brought short sleeve shirts in case it got too warm, so here they are after their wardrobe change.



After much contemplation, Clara purchased this fan with her money.


We hung out in the jousting arena so Clara could rest her legs for a bit. The timing wasn't right to see the jousting though, so we just snacked on our kettle corn for awhile and then called it a day and made the long trek back to the car.

Trick or Treat

We invited ourselves to go trick or treating with the Couringtons this year. Their neighborhood is more festive than ours. Predator rode behind us for a few minutes on the interstate. I thought it was just a mask he was wearing, but it was a real helmet. It was decked out all the way around and was very realistic. He must've spent a pretty penny on that thing.

We enjoyed some pre-candy collecting coloring and pizza.

And then they donned their costumes. Here's Leia and Leah.

And Obi Wan showed up.

And a rascally little uncooperative ewok.

That's better. Once we got the show on the road and he realized he would be getting candy, he forgot all about the hood and allowed it to remain on his head.

Here is Robert at his first house. It didn't take long at all for him to figure out this trick-or-treating thing. Ewoks are smart. He walked up to houses all by himself and waited patiently for his turn. I had to escort him away several times because he would just stand there not exactly knowing what he should do next. And he would tell the people "bye byes" as he walked away.

We had loads of fun and the kids got way too much candy. There was one house that was awesome. We could hear people screaming from a block away. There was a smoke machine, strobe lights, scary sounds, the whole nine yards. There were some fake bodies on the ground and others were real, waiting to jump out at trick-or-treaters and there was a ghost on a zip line and someone on the roof throwing a body off the roof. I couldn't believe Jason actually talked Clara into walking up to the door (they went easy on little kids), but it was still very scary with the lighting and smoke. The walk up the driveway was very slow, but she did it and was so proud of herself. Kate put Obi Wan to good use a little later when we came to another scary house. At first she wanted nothing to do with it but Jason said, "Come on", and that's all she needed. Having a jedi around goes a long way to helping one conquer ones fears.