October adventures

Since I've waited over a month to post, I think I'll try for a marathon post tonight to try to make up for the past month :) There have been many events the past month. Some good, some bad. I'm still trying to take it all in and wrap it around my ever confused brain.

I was at a Women of Faith conference this past weekend and was really moved and inspired by the women there. Hearing the difficulties these women have been through in life and how they relied on their faith to get them through was amazing. These women were beautiful, successful women. You might look at them at think their life is wonderful, a dream. They all talked about how difficult life can be. I was moved from laughter to tears many times. I thought about my own life and the lives of women around me who have experienced some difficult times recently. It made me realize even more how important my faith is and how I hope that each person can find their way to God. I cannot imagine my life without Him in it. These incredible people have Him in their life, and they have been blessed with an incredible voice and a gift of sharing their faith through music, who you might ask? Why none other than Mandisa and Steven Curtis Chapman. Wow, they were amazing:





Other events of the past month include the big boys first trip to a Nascar race, two school field trips, and a trip to Auntie's house. Here is a photographic retelling of these journeys:

The "Boys" at the Race. Notice their "clean" pants:



But I am thankful they didn't come home looking like this at least :)


Tristan's class went to Maple View Farms Agricultural Center. It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it.

The kids loved petting this sweet calf


They also enjoyed when the pigs were given pumpkins. The pigs love pumpkins and run to eat the pumpkins as fast as the farmers throw them to them.

I wish I had taken a video at one point when the pig was standing at the fence "talking back" to the kids who were talking to him. It was very cute. I managed to get a picture of him peering through the fence though:


The calves are kept in these little "barns/houses".



Tristan petting the Llama






Another "attraction" was "Charlotte" who was found above one of the animal pens :)



The kids also loved watching the goats play fight. I think the goats enjoyed having an audience as well ;)



Collin's preschool went to Brown's Pumpkin Farm and we had a blast there as well. You start by picking your own corn and soybeans from the field. Here is my little farmer in the field gathering crops:



Of course he loved feeding the crops to the animals too:





He was also fascinated by all the bees on the sunflowers and some that had been caught by spiders on the flowers:



He had a good chuckle too when I fed this huge slobbering cow and she left a pile of slobber on my hand, sorry no photos of the slobber, just the cow ;)


One of the exciting moments for the kids was when our tractor pulling our hay ride became stuck in this mud:


This is a picture of the tractors being traded out between hay wagons. Our original tractor was the smaller one on the left, we then had the big tractor on the right come to pull us out of the muck. The kids were loving the extra adventure!


Here are some more photos of the trip:

No words for this one ;)



Feed ME!


And if you haven't had enough of the animal shots, here is my cupcake impression of a zebra and a pink zebra :) I did these for Annette's daughter's 16th Birthday:




When we went to Auntie's house, we traveled into Tennessee. We were originally going to go to a pumpkin farm, but we were rained out. Instead we visited a train and a covered bridge. Just having fun together as a family comes naturally to this group:







<





What were they looking at you might ask?

Why the river flowing below:


I personally was wanting to live in this awesome purple house next to the bridge:

But then again, either of these two neighboring houses would have suited me fine as well :)




Isn't this bridge and surrounding area beautiful?





Collin kept trying to throw rocks to get the ducks to move. Thankfully he didn't hit them with any. I finally convinced him that was not the way to get them to move!






We ended our day by trick or treating in downtown Boone. Here is our motley crue :)



Whew, I think that is enough for one night, don't you? Hope it makes up for my hiatus...

Soccer and the Circus!

Tonight Collin had his first soccer game. I cannot believe I forgot my camera! I was so focused on getting warm clothes for the boys I forgot the camera. Jim had his camera in the truck. We weren't able to get many pictures with his camera, but did get a few before it became too dark. Here is our little soccer star (he is #5):




Another exciting event was this weekend. On Saturday morning for some reason Collin remembered that Tristan once got to ride an elephant and was talking to me about it. Later that day I was in a store in town and noticed some ads for a small circus in town that evening. It was the same circus that Tristan was able to ride the elephant in! I decided to surprise Collin and take him to ride the elephant. He was not sick like Tristan was so I decided to take him out. I ended up with a surprise of my own. Years ago when we took Tristan, you were able to pay just to ride the elephants outside the circus tent. This year, you had to pay admission to the circus just to ride the elephants because they had the circus inside a building. After he was so excited about this, how could I turn away and tell him no? So, we ended up staying for the circus. Poor Charlotte (Annette's daughter) had come with us to help Collin on the elephant so I could take pictures. She ended up being with us for over 3 hours for the circus. She loves animals so I think she enjoyed seeing them at least! Here are some photos of the event. Collin was wide eyed and really enjoyed his special night out:




Ironically when I went to take pictures of Collin on the elephant, the photos all came out blurry! They only went around the ring one time so I didn't have time to figure out how to correct the photos. Here are a couple of blurry images of his magical moment:



After Charlotte and Collin were off the elephants I was able to get a clear picture of others riding the elephants so at least we'd have a clear image of elephant riding :)


More photos of the evening. Not the best photo quality, but you get the general idea :)


At the end of the circus, you could pay extra to have your picture taken with the elephant. Something about this seemed more dangerous to me than riding them. Why, I'm not sure. Maybe the idea of my small little boy standing by a large animal's feet that could crush him if he got spooked had a little something to do with it. He was very upset that I would not let him do this, but my compromise was to let him stand on the opposite side of the fence and have his picture made. Here he is with Charlotte:

September is over?

How did that happen? I thought I lost August, but I think September might have set a new record in time speed :)

Nanna arrived 9/1 and the boys were so happy to have her here with them. She left on 9/19 and for days they asked if Nanna was home (at our house).

On 9/8 Collin started Preschool. He is going to the same preschool Tristan did when he was three (I cannot believe that has been 5 years already). He absolutely loves preschool and is so excited to tell us about his days there. He goes for half a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is so nice to see him so excited about learning and being at school. He doesn't understand why he doesn't get to ride the school bus yet though :)

The rest of our month has been filled with baseball games. For the first time, Tristan is playing fall ball. His summer coach was coaching again and we really enjoyed his coach and thought it would be a good experience for Tristan. He is having a good time. We are running ragged though as he is also still in Karate. I always said I would never have my children in 2 events at one time. Never say never! He loves karate and it is only 1 night a week. It is rough though balancing two activities. He only has 8 or 10 games total, so it isn't a long-term time struggle.

Collin has also started soccer. He really enjoys practices. He runs constantly and his little face gets red and his hair all sweaty, but he is all smiles. He has his first game next week and I cannot wait to see him in an actual game. Ought to make for some good photos to post for sure!

I have been busy with baking. We had our local Relay for Life fundraiser in town and I baked some cupcakes and other goodies for our local mommies group to sell. I found a great idea online where you put the cupcakes in a cup and wrap in cellophane. It makes it easy to take and eat individually, and they look pretty cute. Here is a photo of the cupcakes I made and a few packaged and ready for sale:





I've done two baby shower cakes (and cupcakes for one shower):





And last weekend I attempted to make a baseball breaking a window cake. Jim pointed out the window is a little small for the ball, but I couldn't make them a huge cake and they have to eat it for days :)



And in case you are nauseated from all this sugar, I leave you with this cute picture of a squirrel building a nest in a tree in our driveway. We watched him do this for a while and the boys really enjoyed watching him carry branch after branch to make this huge nest:

Fun, Fun, Fun

Our family has been ending the summer with a "bang". We've been having a great time as you will be able to see with the upcoming pictures. First, our church had a family fun day. The kids got to eat snow cones, cotton candy, slide down the slide, and ride in a limo!








Our funny story from this event was Jim was with the twins on the slide. Caylee and Tristan were ahead of the twins. When one of the twins got to the bottom of the slide he ran off after Caylee and Tristan. By the time Jim got the other twin down, he went looking for the other one. He went up to the smokehouse which is a portable travel trailer the fire department uses to teach children about fire. He asked the fireman if he had seen a little guy that looked like the one he had and the fireman said yes! Lo and behold out came Nathan from the smoke filled smokehouse! Caylee and Tristan said he stayed next to the fireman inside but got really scared and started yelling for daddy once it was pitch black inside. Teach him to follow big brother I guess! I still cannot believe he went in there without us!

This past weekend we celebrated Collin's birthday. On Friday night, we stayed in a cabin at the lake. We made hobo sandwiches for dinner and smores for dessert. It was pretty comical having 12 people sleep in one cabin. The beds were very small and very uncomfortable! It was worth it though to have the kids enjoy themselves so much. Jim rented a canoe and took the boys out for a ride. We kept the canoe into Saturday. We had Collin's birthday party at the lake and Jim gave people canoe rides during the party as well.



Collin really enjoyed his party (and his pirate ship cake as you can tell by this picture):


The kids played with water balloons and water guns, played on the playground, swam in the lake, tried to catch fish with their nets, and just generally had a good time.
Collin loved all his presents. The clothes just as much as the toys (my kind of boy :)):


Arghh, I'm one mighty cute pirate

We could not have asked for better weather. We are so appreciative of the family and friends that were there to spend the day with us. I hope they are able to forgive me for "sugaring up" their children :)

Firsts

Today was Tristan's first day of third grade. I didn't remember to take a picture until after he was on the bus so no pictures of the momentus occasion :( He was only in school until 12:00. He had a great day though and is excited about the new year.

Our other "first" is Collin will be playing soccer for the first time this year. I think it will be a good sport for him to release that enormous amount of energy he has :) Here he is at the skills assessment. I told him Auntie will have to teach him some pointers as she was the soccer player in the family:



I'll end the post with some other "firsts." Here is my first ever fruit topped cake. A coworker saw a picture of a cake like this in a catalog and asked for one like it for her birthday. Here is the cake I made for her:



Another cake of the week was for a first birthday for a sweet baby named Zoey. I copied the ladybug design from her birthday party decorations. Her mom said she loved it as they had to try to take it away from her as she kept eating it!

Cousins

We have been fortunate to spend the past few weekends with cousins. We have really enjoyed our time together and enjoyed some great family time at the park, floating down the river, shopping, and various other adventures. Carolyn has an awesome park by her house, The Valley Crucis Park. Here are some photos of our time there:















I give my sister a hard time about the mountains, but we really do love it up there. It is such a beautiful place. Just a little too cold for me in the winter :) Who could not love scenery like this?




Carolyn and Tina made me a birthday cake. We laughed as the only candles she had were number candles. I chose to be 17 again :)


Our funny of the week is Jim went to the outer banks to work. He was excited to find a large shell to bring home to the boys. When he got home, the boys put the shell in the aquarium and we had a big surprise, out came a HUGE hermit crab. I find him a little creepy and will not pick him up the way I do the little ones. Here is "grandpa":

Cakes and a snake!

During the past week I've made a couple of cakes. First, I made a lizard cake for a friend of mine at work. It was a "joke" cake as she does not like lizards. Instead of doing my usual cakes, I thought it would be a nice change to do something funny. She did indeed laugh. Here's a photo:

Of course I had to put as many lizards on as possible, including a few on the sides:


Over the weekend Tristan had his end of season baseball party. I made the cake for the party and Tristan thought it was pretty cool:


And now for the snake....What present could you possibly get a soon to be 5 year old that would give his mother the heebie jeebies? Why a life like replica of a striking snake:

Of course the boys think it is funny to chase me around with it since I am so fond of it :) I think it looks just a little too realistic: