Fall Festival

Tonight we went to Megan's fall festival that was at her school. We've been going to it since Lauren was in kindergarten so this was our 10th year! It started out just Megan, Lauren, Zach and myself. About halfway through the event Paul came to pick up Zach and drop off Kristin. Paul didn't want to go, he says it's too hot and crowded! He's right but for some reason every year I'm compelled to go.

There's food, crafts, baskets of goodies you can try to win, games and the very popular cake walk. Megan, Zach and I did a couple of rounds and didn't win anything. Then I just let Megan and Zach do it, Zach was becoming a pro at that point. He was so excited when his number was drawn and he won a cake! He started jumping up and down and all the parents watching just went "awww! " Here's the cake he picked out (with just a little help from me):
There were all these chocolate shavings sticking out that Zach kept picking and eating. He was more interested in that then in actually eating a piece of the cake. (It was a very delicious cake!)

So then later in the evening Kristin ends up winning a cake too.

Hers is a store bought marble pound cake. It also looks good but we're saving that one for later. We sure won't have to worry about dessert for awhile.

Milburn Orchards part 2

It was such a beautiful day today, good thing since we had plans to meet cousin Lehlan and Aunt Heather over at Milburn Orchards. We beat them by a couple of minutes so we walked through the pumpkin house...
At least at that point he wasn't pushing the pumpkins off, it wasn't till later that he got bad!

We met up with Lehlan and spent a lot of time feeding the goats...

We checked out the pigs...

Then we just walked around and checked everything out. During the week they don't have everything set up like they do on the weekends (must be why it's free) but when putting a rock in and out of a hole entertains the kids who needs to pay for entertainment?

Don't ask me why I didn't go around and get their picture from the other side. I wasn't thinking on that one! Zach would put rocks in the hole and Lehlan would take them out. Whatever! They enjoyed it.

They played on a wooden tractor, a wooden choo-choo train and in this wooden airplane...

Once we got back to the pumpkin house Zach started pushing the pumpkins off so that was the end of Milburn Orchards for us! We kept our playdate going though by going back to Heather and Lehlan's house and having lunch and then going for a walk. We went through the woods and part of the field, got attacked by potato bugs and then headed home for a nap. With all the fresh air and exercise Zach took a great nap!

What a goofy boy!

Here's how he eats his noodles:

And here he is modelling his new hairdo:

He can be a handful but he sure does keep things fun and interesting.

The kids photo shoot

It wasn't actually a photo shoot, all I did was take them to JCPenneys when they were off from school last Friday. It sure felt like a photo shoot though, they were really good with posing them and we ended up with some really good pictures. Here are a few of my favorites.

I also have this one in color.

Same as above just in black and white.

Like I said, these were just a few of the pictures, it was very hard to decide which ones to buy!

Milburn Orchards

Kristin and Megan were off from school yesterday, not sure why the high schools all had school but oh well, poor Lauren had to go. Kristin went out shopping with Mamaw for her birthday present so Megan, Zachary and I went over to Milburn Orchards to check out the pumpkins.

I try to do this every year, make a trip during the week, especially since they started charging a few years ago just to enter on the weekends. I mean, $8 per person adds up pretty quickly for us. It's free during the week.

It was pretty close to lunchtime before we even left our house so I planned on this being a quick trip. Maybe Zach and I will get to go back again sometime in the next few weeks and enjoy it more.

We always have to get pictures with all the wooden cutouts. Here's Zachary transformed into a worm.

I had to get a picture of them among the pumpkins...

...and going through the pumpkin house.

Now Zach has turned into a little piggy.

We visited the farm animals and of course fed the goats. What a pro he was this year.

There was an old fashioned outhouse next to the port-a-potty's. Megan dared to disrupt someones privacy! It was cute, it said something but I have no idea what that was since Zach was scared of it.

One final picture before heading into the store and buying some yummy apple cider donuts.

In the above picture he's eyeing the sandbox that was right next to us. I avoided that since I knew I would never get him out without him screaming. I also avoided a few other things since we were getting hungry and I just wanted to get our donuts and go. We'll definitely go back, maybe we'll invite a few friends next time.

What a weekend!

Warning: this is going to be yet another post about Lauren and soccer!

This past weekend she played in the Discovery Cup soccer tournament in Boyds, MD. Paul was planning on taking her and I was going to stay home with the other kids. Then Paul got sick and couldn't take her so I ended up going. I just want to tell Paul thanks for that, for getting sick. No really, I'm very thankful because I had so much fun! He would have been bored out of his mind because it turned out that mostly moms went and there were very few dads.

I ended up carpooling with another mom and soccer player so the four of us made the trip together. We left Friday early afternoon since the girls didn't have school, we got stuck in some traffic but made it to our hotel in Gaithersburg, MD before dinner time. I, of course, encountered problems with my hotel room, the key wouldn't work, the lock was broken. After first telling me that there were no more rooms available for me they suddenly "found" one that was right next door to who we rode down with. It was even an adjoining room so we mostly kept the doors open so the girls could wander back and forth, it felt like a suite.

Some of the players were coming down either late Friday evening or Saturday morning so for the few of us that were there we decided to go out to dinner together. The hotel even shuttled us back and forth so no one had to drive. We had a great time at dinner, all 9 of us were sitting at a round table so we were able to talk to everyone. Unfortunately the food and the service sucked! Here's the girls afterwards while we waited for the shuttle to come back.

Saturday they played 2 games and Sunday they played 1 game. What's a soccer post without soccer pictures!

Lauren trying to score. The goalie saved it though.

The soccer tournament was a lot of fun. The girls all hung out together, they just loved running around the hotel! I basically hung out with the other moms and some of us even went swimming and enjoyed the hot tub one evening.

The girls did not make the playoffs so when their 9:20 game on Sunday was over we could leave. Since we had all day and it was such a nice day weather wise we all decided to tour Washington DC for awhile. The mom that I was riding with loves to drive and doesn't mind driving in cities so she was going to show us the sites. As we were driving into the city we pass the zoo and decide to go there. I have never been to the National Zoo so I was excited. Here's Lauren and her friend walking through the zoo.

I was looking forward to seeing the giant pandas but they weren't outside and it was hard to see them inside, but at least I can say I saw them. After a couple of hours we left and headed into the city. We drove past some of the sights, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the National World War II Memorial and of course...

...the White House.

We all enjoyed our day and at that point were glad that the team didn't make the playoffs. What a wonderful ending to our wonderful weekend.

Happy 12th Birthday Kristin!

My baby is one year away from being a teenager! They sure do grow up fast. We knew that it would be hard to go out to dinner on her actual birthday, she had volleyball practice and she didn't want to miss it. So instead we went out to dinner on Sunday. Whoever's birthday it is always gets to pick the restaurant and she picked Ruby Tuesday. Of course, she had ribs, that's pretty much what she always gets as long as it's on the menu.

Afterwards her and I stopped at Acme to get a cake to take home. I thought she was going to get something chocolaty but she surprised me by getting a pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing. She made a good choice, it was delicious.

So today, her actual birthday, she got to open her present from us. She had asked for a Nintendo DSi which I did get for her but to fool her wrapped it in a big box. She saw it and immediately said, "that's not a DSi." Of course I was mean and made her wait till after volleyball practice to open it.

Her present was actually a series of boxes that I had wrapped. There were 3 boxes she had to open till she got to the DSi.

Her old DS was falling apart, literally, Zach had dropped it on the hardwood floor and the top hinge came apart. So now she has a brand new, upgraded model to play around with now. Hopefully she keeps it away from Zachary.

One last picture of the night. Megan put Zachary in the box and closed it up and had Kristin open it. He popped out to give her one last birthday surprise, himself!

What a week!

Everything was going well as of Monday, the kids all had off from school and the girls either had someone spend the night Sunday night or had friends come over on Monday. So much activity and fun in our house. Then Tuesday morning came and things went downhill, Megan woke up with a 103 fever and a nasty cough. She couldn't go to school so I couldn't go to work. I felt terrible calling out but what was I to do, she needed to be seen by the doctor. It was a good thing I didn't go to work because no sooner do I get done with her doctor appointment when Kristin needs to get picked up from school because she had a fever. So I pick Kristin up then head straight back to the doctor's.

Megan was diagnosed with mild bronchitis and Kristin either had the very beginning of bronchitis or possible mono. So after taking everyone home and getting them lunch (by now it's 2:00 and Megan's appt. was at 11:15) and relaxing for a few minutes I was then off to take Kristin to the lab. By this time Lauren was home from school so at least I didn't have to drag the other kids with us. Thankfully there was no one in the lab, especially since we didn't have an appointment, so it didn't take long.

Kristin had a rough week, a fever that came and went that caused her to miss a day of school and of course that was on Thursday, the other day I work! She was okay Wednesday morning so she went to school but by the afternoon her fever was back so I asked my mom if she could watch her Thursday so I wouldn't have to miss work again. She seemed okay again on Friday and went to school but by this afternoon she had a fever again. I'm beginning to think she might have mono! Either that or she picked up yet another virus.

So that was my week with sick kids. I didn't even mention Zach's recheck of his ears on Friday, they were better but he's on another antibiotic for his cough. We'll see how that goes...

Check out our snazzy looking fish tank:

It got an upgrade! The filter was needing changed and the water was terrible looking so Paul bought a new filter and I cleaned the whole tank. I added new gravel, 2 plants in the back (one is a glow-in-the-dark plant!) and the pirate/treasure chest thing. Zach helped me pick everything out when we went to the pet store a few weeks ago.

Zach is such a trendsetter...

It's the new "no pants" look! I've gotten quite a few pictures of him looking like this. He'll take his pants off then put on his socks and shoes and then tell me he's ready to go!

Lauren's Homecoming

Tonight she went to her first homecoming dance. She had two of her friends come over before the dance so they could get ready together. Lauren looks like a giant next to her friends!
I drove the the three of them to the dance plus picked up another friend on the way, so there were 4 of them that walked in together. Afterwards 2 different friends brought Lauren home and then spent the night. So far I haven't heard much about it other than towards the end it got boring and that all the girls' feet hurt!