Thanksgiving

 We hosted Thanksgiving again this year, but this time we were able to have all of my family come down and stay with us. We were packed in, but we had a great time! I don't have alot of pictures since I was preoccupied in the kitchen (I now have a new appreciation for my mom and all the time she spends making meals for us when we visit), but we were able to snap a few.
  Thanksgiving day the weather was beautiful so we put the boys (plus Keilah, poor girl!), out on the deck to eat.

 These boy cousins sure do have fun together!

 Brian is pretty much a constant jungle gym!

 Emma shared a "moment" with her uncle Jared :)

 I just love Sophie's grin (and her cute turkey dress)

Maddie made this hat and scarf for Emma! Didn't she do a great job!

We are thankful this year for family and the shorter distance that they are from us!

Apple Orchard

Emma was a little unsure about the corn pool at first

 Yes, it has been awhile. Since my last post we have moved and the computer that i usually blog from is no longer working. I just figured out how to locate pictures on this computer, so hopefully these posts will be a little more routine. Yes, my 3 faithful followers should be excited :)

We are now living in Des Moines, Iowa! Iowa?! Yep, I never pictured myself here, but here we are! These pictures are from a day we spent at the apple orchard. May I say, Iowa knows how to do an apple orchard! We spent 5 1/2hrs there and never did anything twice. The kids loved it -and I think I loved it just as much as they did. Apple picking, pumpkin picking, tractor rides, corn pool, a corn maze scavenger hunt, a slide, a bouncing "pillow", animals, whimsical storybook sets (think Alice in Wonderland and the 3 little pigs), plus the crisp autumn weather that I have so missed over the years.

Noah making a "corn angel"

Everyone loved going down the slide on potato sacks

I think she tried to take a bit out of every apple that she got her hands on

Jacob relaxing on the tractor

The perfect pumpkins :)

Vacation

Last week we took an impromptu vacation to the Blue Ridge Mountains in  Asheville TN. It was wonderful to get away and enjoy some rest and relaxation for awhile. We had a busy July and August is looking even busier. Lots of changes and decisions to be made. So, for one week, it was great to only think about which fun activity we should do for the day. I have more pictures to share, but I can't find them on the computer :( So, here's what I could. Enjoy!

Methods of torture

Jacob and noah's top two ways to torture an intruder (overheard while driving in the car)

Jacob: make the intruder watch a girl movie!

Noah: take the intruder to school!

Hahaha! Oh how I love these two!

Yep, they're always listening...

I'm not trying to be political with this post, nor am I looking for a political debate. I just found this conversation to be very funny and it reminded me how much my children pay attention to what's being said around them. Yikes!
So, we were driving in the car on the way to school today and this is how the conversation went:
Jacob: "Mom, George Washington is my favorite president"
Noah: "But Jacob, I thought Barack Obama was your favorite president?"
Jacob: "No. Barack Obama is NOT my favorite president. Daddy said that Barack Obama does not know his right from his left or his up from his down!".
Noah: "Really?!"
Hahahahaha! Daddy got a good laugh out of that one when I told him the influence he has had! Now what else have they overheard?! :)

Work in Progress

Yes, I know that those people on the top of my blog are not us! I'm trying to figure this thing out so, enjoy their good looks while I work on getting our mugs up there!

Does anybody know how I could change those pictures on top? Apparently I'm not "template" savvy.

It's been awhile

 Yes, it's been awhile since I last put a post on here. Sorry about that! I've been trying to be faithful about sending pics of the kiddos to their daddy and that is about all the picture uploading I can find time for!

 We went to the zoo in Columbia a few weeks ago, which is where these pictures were taken. Jacobs grin makes me laugh in this picture. He did not enjoy having that Lorikeet on his arm, but he plastered this grin on and kept asking when the bird would be done eating. Such composure!

 I told Noah we could NOT buy the $200 stuffed Giraffe, so he settled for a picture with it instead. This was after he got to feed the real Giraffes that day. A pretty impressive thing, considering his big brother wouldn't even do it!

And this little girl is getting quite big! She is accomplishing all sorts of new things these days. I'm always amazed how fast they grow and change the first year. She is such a good baby - God is good!!

As a side note, thanks for all your prayers for Brian. He is safe and nowhere near radiation, earthquakes or tsunamis at this point. But don't stop praying for him!
And now you are up to date. Hopefully it won't take me so long to post next time!