So while most people are blogging about what they did for Memorial Day, we are going to blog about October.  I tried downloading our pictures from our vacation to Seattle and our camera was dead and I can't find our battery charger.  So....while I'm thinking about it, October is better than nothing (right?).

The first weekend in October, happenned to be Stan's first Saturday off since starting residency in July.  He was post call Friday (meaning he worked a 30 hour shift starting Thursday morning and ending Friday around noon) so we decided to try our luck at camping.  We headed up to Alum Creek State Park because they were having their Halloween festivities that weekend.  Well Alum Creek was packed so we stayed at the lovely RV camp site across the street.   Lovely!

It ended up being pretty chilly and rained on us all night, but we LOVED it and are excited for our next camping adventure.  Nothing beats cold Little Ceasar Pizza, roasted marshmallows, hot chocolate and waking up to a fire, pancakes and eggs!  Love, love, love it!

We helped ourselves to the many FREE activities at Alum Creek like Fishing

I was the only one to catch a fish, can you see it?

Here Logan is showing it off nicely for me

We also went on a pontoon boat ride around the lake

and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, loved all the leaves changing colors (did I mention it was a little cold?)

Stan found the face painting booth and rather than wait in line for them to paint it, he volunteered his own services in designing our children's faces.

I love camping, I'm so glad that my children not only tolerate but enjoy my "adventures" that I plan for them.  I'm grateful for boys who sleep anywhere and a husband who deals with my oftentimes crazy and whimsical ideas.  I'm not so much a fan of squatting at night in the rain and hoping the neighboring campers aren't awake at the same time.  Good times!

On Saturday, since we were "in the area" we decided to make a quick stop at Jack's Landing over at the zoo and take advantage of their season ending prices.  Garrett has always loved this type of a ride and he has now convinced Logan of its greatness.

The truth of the matter, he says it tickles his weiner (sorry folks, its true).

Don't you love all that we get to pack into Stan's precious Saturdays off!  We look forward to them, although they don't happen near enough.  If he has it off, he usually has to round during the morning or he's post call so he works half-day.

October had quite a few warm weather days so we made sure to enjoy them all outdoors: 

Garrett finished up soccer

We took another trip to the zoo, can you have too many zoo days?

The petting zoo and the statues always seem to be favorites

We played in ALL of the leaves that the "forest" behind our house drops on us

Looking back we have so many adventures, I'm grateful we can do these things with our children.  I'm grateful for the small things, like playing in leaves, that seem like adventures to our children.  How blessed and lucky am I to be able to enjoy these days with the boys.  I know I don't feel this way at the end of each and every day, but looking back, these days are precious.  I will try harder to remember that and blog more often to remind myself of that!  Be back soon with the remaining bits of October! 

 

 

 

 

I was trying hard to become current on my blog, but I'm not sure it is going to happen so might as well start with the here and now and go from there.

 

So being a parent, oftentimes, has some perks.  Allow me to share with you a recent example in our home.  Recently Garrett has gotten the reading bug, only this time it was different; he didn't want me to read to him he wanted to do it himself.  So with his encouraging we decided to undertake the task of learning to read.  After 3 months of daily "lessons" I am happy to report a success.  I give all of the credit to the book, "How to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons"  It was very simple and had all of the planning done for me.  All I had to do was sit down with Garrett and read word for word the lesson and he was off.  So, we have just about completed the book and supposedly when your child is done with the book they can read at a second grade reading level.  As much as I enjoy him reading though, there is something that is even better. 

These:

To Mom From Garrett Mom this is the earth I hop you lik it I luv you

Mom hav a good da heart/Garrett

A benefit of reading is writing and these are two of the notes that I have found hidden around our house in the past couple of weeks.  Garrett and I have been going through a rough patch so these have been quite encouraging and remind me that he's not all bad (despite what I sometimes may think)  Perhaps a tender mercy from the Lord!

September

With all of the extra time on my hands these days (Stan is back to studying for boards) I figured I would attempt an update on this blog.  I've run out of good excuses.  September seemed like a good place to start.

Garrett's first day of preschool

Garrett was a preschool participant for roughly one month. No, he did not get kicked out, but I just decided we didn't need to do it.  He was bummed, but I was bummed paying the money for it and was feeling more stressed having to run him around then I was having him at home so I pulled him out.

Another first was having a soccer player in the house and attending soccer games on Saturdays.

Garrett loved it!  He is anxiously awaiting Spring season.  He seemed a little more interested in the dirt and the net to me, but he claims he wants to do it again.  If anything it is exercise, right?

September also brought us a 4 year old.  To celebrate we went to Chuck E. Cheese as a family the night before.  This was Stan's first time there with our children

Showing off their prizes!

Well, Stan is showing off the prizes and the boys are checkign their prizes out.  We had a great time and the boys did really well.  Unfortunately though the place was packed.  Apparently Chuck E Cheese is the place to be on a Friday night.

Saturday morning Garrett opened his presents

Who doesn't love a day dedicated to celebrating?

After we got the business of opening up presents out of the way, we quickly got ready and made a trip up to the zoo (what Garrett, along with our Friday night adventures, wanted to do to celebrate).

We were able to feed the birds (kind of scary in my opinion but all the boys, including Stan, loved)

We love the zoo, any zoo will do, but it is such a great place to let the kids get out energy and just roam free with the animals.  I am always up for a trip to the zoo.

After the zoo, the little boys came home for a nap and Garrett was off to a soccer game.  The game couldn't end soon enough though because when he got home we had cake!

Cake is always a highlight in this house.  This year I was a slacker and purchased all of the cakes, hopefully next year I'll be able to do a little more.  It is so fun and I feel so blessed to watch these boys learn and grow.

Another first for us this September was discovering Slate Run Farm.  What a wonderful place this is!  It is a living historical farm where the volunteers live and work the farm as they would have in the 1880's.

Playing with the children's toys

Pumping water and watering the plants in the garden

Finding the perfect tomato plant to water

Visiting the stables

Just a cute picture of the boys checking out the animals

We had so much fun and were glad to have Nollie and Ben join us on a beautiful fall afternoon!

The last of the firsts we did this September was backyard camping!  Every summer I get the camping bug and we just have  not been able to find a good time to do it.  Stan usually has to go in to the hospital most weekend mornings and if he does happen to have a morning off it is a Sunday morning. We prefer to not camp on Sunday if we are just going for an overnighter so my only option was a backyard camp-out.

Since we were in the backyard we afforded ourselves the luxury of our air mattress! Which the boys are testing out here.

Then the main event...

...sleeping of course and stories from daddy.

I'm happy to report all went well on our camping adventures.  The children stayed warm and slept through the night.  It was a good practice run for our upcoming camping trip...

Stay tuned for October, hopefully sooner rather than later.

So the lack in posting is because I have NOOO space on my computer to download my pictures from my camera.  We FINALLY unpacked the external drive so hopefully (but not guaranteeing) we can return to the blogging world.  Thanks for updating your blogs for me to be entertained with though!  Lets hope we can get up and running soon.

I know this is really odd, but ever since Garrett was a baby he has been fascinated with trucks and tractors.  When he was 2 he could point to tractors and name them by name, names such as excavator, grater, bull dozer and front end loader just to name a few.  The fascination didn't stop with tractors, it is any and every truck (odd for a boy right?).  So we pull up to the grocery store and sitting there is a fire truck, boy was I  WRONG.  How offensive to show my kid the fire truck. Me, "Boys look at the fire truck!"  Garrett, "Mom that's not a fire truck"  Me, "What is it then?" "It's a LADDER truck!" So please never ever confuse a fire truck with a ladder truck (a ladder truck has an additional drivers seat at the very back).

I am always so grateful to the firemen who take the time to indulge my children.  Here they were allowed to get up in the back drivers seat and pretend to drive

I really do have a great admiration for this profession.  Besides driving cool trucks, they really do an amazing service and are always so friendly with the public (me and my children).

 

Just another simple pleasure these boys enjoy

While Stan was away in San Antonio we were blessed to have Nanna, fondly referred to as mom by me, come visit for 6 days.  We packed plenty of action mixed with just the right amount of relaxation into those days.

First on the agenda: COSI

We visited during Farm Days so again there were tractors to play on.

and ride on

Mostly they were just cool because we could do it with Nanna

I was feeling bad for Eli because he never gets pictures so here we are together

The perfect place to cool off

We also celebrated Eli's birthday with Nanna (although we did sing Happy Birthday to him before Stan left I didn't think it was enough so we did it again)

Here is the cake Nanna, with the help of Garrett, got for Eli

And the outcome is....

he LOVED it

He couldn't have been any happier

He also loves to open presents.  The sheer joy of ripping paper!

My ideal summer day is lounging away at the beach. So with mom being here I had just enough hands (and eyes) to be able to do it and relax while doing it.  We spent an entire day at Alum Creek and we all loved every minute of it.

We set up camp and stayed awhile.  The Friends joined us in the morning.

Eli getting up close and personal with the sand

At this beach was when Eli decided to become a walker.  He stood up the entire day and worked really hard to steady himself in the sand.  He hasn't crawled since.

Logan and Garrett love dirt, mixed with water...the perfect combination!

The boys and I were thrilled to have Nanna come we LOVED playing with her

Let us not forget the ZOO

 

This was our first trip to this zoo and we absolutely love it.  They have done such a great job with it, it is beautiful!  We miss you Nanna! Thanks for all the fun times, the hours spent watching the olympics, the chatting, the playing.  Thanks for visiting, can't wait to see you again!

I hear cheering and applause.  Laughter and Giggles.  I walk around the corner and what do I see?  I see outstretched arms and pure love.

Garrett trying so hard to help Eli learn to walk.

He was sitting there so patiently waiting for Eli to come to him.  Speaking in that high pitched voice that all adults use with babies when trying to convince them that something is really great.  "Come on, you can do it.  Come to Garrett!"  SOOO cute....wish every day was like this.  Thank goodness for the moments!

What would you do with 3 kids in the laundromat for 2 hours?  We had to wash sleeping bags due to some night time pee accidents.  The boys sure are great at entertaining themselves...

The baskets became transporting devices.  Garrett and Logan took turns pushing each other.

This was their "tunnel".  I love the imaginative things these kids come up with.  I thought coloring books, crayons and cars would be plenty of entertaining, but boy was I wrong.  They compared very little to the washer lids and the wheeled laundry baskets!

As I sit here blogging it is raining.  When I put the kids to bed at night, the sun is setting.  Our Saturdays are filled with soccer.  As I reflect on all of these event it can only mean one thing:  summer is coming to an end.    These are the things that have kept us busy this summer.

Lots of Swimming

 

If not in the pool, then at the waterfall

This trip we went with our good neighbors across the street, the Friends.  Emma and her cousins

Or at Swim Lessons

Logan was a great brother and would cheer Garrett on at his swim lessons.  When Garrett would accomplish something you could hear Logan screeched (in the highest voice immaginable) "Good Job Garrett!"  It was really cute. Here is the cheering section.

This is how I kept the "little boys" entertained during lessons

The boys all did really well at swim lessons although Garrett is the only one who actually swam.  He can now officially swim and backfloat about 10 feet, but if he is not grabbed onto something after those 10 feet he sinks to the bottom whilst trying to catch a breath.

This summer has also consisted of lots of walks

Garrett and Logan each got bikes this summer and we have been putting them to good use

Logan is still trying to figure out how to pedal, so the push back really comes in handy.

and as usual Eli is in the stroller

We've had a lot of silly summer days

Garrett posing with his sun

These clips on their noses were hilarious.  I laughed so hard I was crying, its hard to get the full effect in the picture.

Summer is also full of adventure.  Aug. 21-25 we went up to Detroit and visited 3 good friends that we went to medical school with.  Unfortunately we didn't get many pictures.

We went to Chuck E Cheese

and to a midwest beach

We BBQ'd, hung out, stayed up too late playing cards and talking and had a great time.  Unfortunately Garrett got sick on the trip and once we left everyone else got sick too. Sorry guys!  Thanks SOOO much for letting us come up, we had a great time!

Summer is such a wonderful time of year.  We are spending as much time as possible outside trying to hang on too it.  I hope fall isn't tooo much of a letdown for us.  We are now back in the full swing of life; preschool, soccer, playgroups!  We love it!

Since having children and more recently since becoming an intern wife, I find myself wondering if there really is such a thing as weekends?  Are they really any different than any other day and if so, what's so great about them (other than going to church of course)???  One thing the boys and I look forward to is "breakfast for dinner night".  Yep, most Saturday nights we can be found eating some sort of breakfast food.  This past weekend....chocolate waffles!

It is always nice when my kids actually ask for seconds rather than crying about what is on their plates!

Eli also approved

I look forward to the time when we can look forward to the weekends again.  When weekends mean more than just eating breakfast for dinner!