Fall Leaves

Our new place has some pretty landscaping around the grounds.  The kids love it.  They call the rock formations behind our place their secret hideout.  If they're not climbing around on the rocks, they're picking flowers, or (as of late) playing in the leaves.  I love the leaves.  I love the fall.  I love my kids.  All this love had to be captured in some photos.

Hunter ALWAYS  (always!!!) has a wicked hairdo happening in the back.  Even if I brush it, and slather some goop in it, by the end of the day the back hairs on his head are standing at a messy attention.  I call it his Russel Brand hair-do.  Not the newer more polished Russel Brand, the Russel Brand from a few years ago whose rat-nest hair in the back looked like a good hiding place for whatnots and whatchamacallits.  Hunter's hair-do likes to hide bits of fall leaves.  Crazy hair!   

 See what I mean?

Moving on. . . the lass below is my little artist/photographer.  Every time I whip out my camera, she wants to take over and snap some pics of her own.  I put one of her masterpieces in this blog post below.

These are MY masterpieces below:

 Corky is there too!!

The picture below is Tralee's.  Not too shabby!

The pictures below of Hunter just scream:  BOY!!!  He looks like such a little boy in them.  As I was snapping away, Hunter decided to throw leaves at me.  One landed on my shoulder and he thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world.

Tralee wanted to take pictures using my camera.  I wouldn't let her.  She was mad. . . .

 . . .But she got over it and threw more leaves in the air.

The weather has become a little more crisp lately.  I kinda love it, but the kids haven't been to their secret hideout as much lately.  When they do venture over, I make them bundle up with sweaters, jackets, hats, and mittens.  They like it, not-so-much.  If it were up to Tralee she would be playing barefoot in the rain wearing a sleeveless dress in near-freezing weather -- something she's done within the last week.  Once I discovered her crazy rain-dance antics, I made her come in and put on some weather appropriate clothes, much to her dismay.  A few days later, I'M the one that caught a cold!  Stinks is still as healthy as can be.  She's such a winter baby.  So much so, that she told me I can call her Snowflake if I want.

Snow for short.

School Night at The Farmstead

A few weeks ago Tralee's school sponsored a Family Fun Night at The Farmstead.  We got a screamin' deal to get in, and had a great night together (minus Jim who was in Alaska).  Tralee saw some of her friends and classmates, and even got to watch some teachers kiss a pig.  

Actually, Tralee missed the pig-kissing even though she was sitting in the FRONT  ROW!  The crowd even counted down from 10.  She was screaming the numbers right down with the crowd.  Then, after the pig-kissing event was over (something Tralee had been talking about for weeks), I walked over to her and said, "okay, lets go do something else."  Her response was, "That's it?  But nobody kissed the pig!"  I was like, "Uh, yeah they did.  Three teachers kissed the pig.  You were sitting RIGHT in the front row.  It happened right in front of you."

Blank confused stare.

She missed it.

I don't know how, but she missed it.  I was like, "What were you looking at?"

"I don't know."

"Why did you think everyone was counting down from 10?"

"I don't know."

I explained that next time people are doing a countdown, it means something exciting is about to happen, so start looking around until you see something that looks exciting.  Silly girl.

Anyways, she wasn't too disappointed about missing the pig kisses.  I lured her away from tears with promises of hot mini donuts sprinkled with powdered sugar from the donut vendor.  They were freshly cooked and oh-so-yummy.  Tralee actually ate so many from the first batch, that Hunter was sad he didn't get as many, so I bought a second batch with sprinkles just for him.  We all shared, although I made sure the mini-donut consumption was even between my kids to avoid a meltdown.

We did pretty much everything The Farmstead had to offer.  I even coughed up the dough for Tralee to ride a pony, and walk through a giant lizard maze.  The only thing we missed, was taking a hayride to the pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins.  It got too late and too cold to go on the hayride, so I told the kids we might go back some sunny fall day to check that off our list.

All and all, our night at The Farmstead was great.  

The only thing it was missing was Jim's company.  We sure miss him around here.  October will be a long month without him!

Keeping busy helps us not miss him as much.

Which is why we'll probably take another trip to The Farmstead before the month is over!  It's kinda fun!

School Picture Day

Tralee's VERY first school picture day was last week.  Before she left for school, we did our own little photo shoot.  Here are some of my faves:

I took a few pics of this little guy, just for good measure!

I can't wait to see how Tralee's school picture actually turned out!

Little Horse

On our way home from Wisconsin, Tralee lost her little stuffed animal horse named, Little Horse at the Denver airport.  So, she wrote the airport a letter, put it in an envelope with a picture she drew of herself and Little Horse, and we put in in our mailbox.  A few days later, wouldn't you know it, she had a package in the mail from the airport.

She was VERY happy to have Little Horse back, although she said she looked a little different.  Apparently all the traveling must have stressed Little Horse out a bit, because she came back with a white patch on her fur that wasn't there before.  It couldn't possibly be because "someone" ordered a replacement Little Horse off of Ebay, and didn't realize the new one wasn't the EXACT replica of the original.  No, it was the stress of traveling that left Little Horse looking a bit different, that's it!  (oops.)

And. . . We're Off to the Fair

A few weeks ago we headed off to the fair for family night. We rode rides, saw animals, ate fair food, and had a grand ol' time!

At one point we saw baby quail hatching. Tralee could have stayed there watching them all night. It took some coaxing, but we finally pried her away with promises of rides and games.  The next best thing Tralee accomplished on fair night was going down the big slide. She used up all her tickets on the slide and had a blast doing it!

Hunty was too short to ride anything, but didn't seem to mind too much.  He was able to play a game or two, pet some animals, and stuff his face with cotton candy, so there weren't any complaints.

Hello in there!!

Tralee was scarred of the Ferris wheel.  She kept saying, "I'm afraid of heights."  It runs in the family, darn it!

We saw Wilbur!!!

Best ride in the park?  Daddy's shoulders, of course! 

What a good bunch!

It was a fun night!