Oh no you are not!

It is time for another Top Five.

I am pretty Open Minded. I think I can deal with a lot of situations that my kids might put themselves in. Here are five of the ones that I don't think I can deal with and my response will be, "oh no you are not!"

James or Andy: "Hey Mom..."

1. I am going to major in psychology.
2. I am going to be an artist.
3. I am going to take 21 shots on my 21st birthday.
4. I am going to play a woodwind instrument.
5. I am going to a small, liberal arts college and major in Hummanities.

My apologies to any of my readers who might have done any of these, but my kids aren't going to do them. I think. ;)

A good day for roaring

Fall Foliage Tour 2009

Normally, we are pretty good about going to church. However, two times a year, we end up skipping week after week. This occurs in May and then again in October. During these time we head up to the mountains to enjoy the change of weather. Our fall tour started about a month ago.

The first stop was Whitewater Falls. I think I actually had to go to church that day, so this trip was Post-Nap. Not a good idea. We were racing the sun and cranky, hungry kids. Plus, it was really cold and windy once we got there. Mark and I were the Worst Parents Ever because our kids only had jackets and no hats or gloves. We did not stay long.

Here is James running up the side of the trail:


Andy in the backpack. Andy LOVES being in the backpack, except when it is cold and windy and has no hat or gloves.


Here are the falls. You can see it was still a little early for peak color. We pretty much ran up to the falls, saw them, James peed, and then we ran back to the car. Good times!


The next weekend was the next stop. Cesears Head State Park. This is a must stop on our tour, well, ours and everyone elses!

Here is Andy:


The view from the overlook:


James on the hike back. This picture was taken immediately before a huge temper tantrum.


Before heading home, we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch. All the older people walking by commented on how we were the Worst Parents Ever because they were sure we were going to let our kids run off the side of the mountain. I say, there was a nice bush 20 ft down that would have stopped their fall.


The final stop on the tour was Jones Gap State Park. Apparently, there was a car jacking here the day before. I KNOW!


The original plan was to do a 1 mile hike to a waterfall with James walking and Andy in the backpack.


I don't know what we were thinking. James had a great time climbing over rocks


and picking up really big leaves.


And no, it wasn't raining, or even that cold. James just likes to have his hood up. That is how he rolls. We found a part of the river by where we were hiking to claim we made it to the waterfall and turned around.


After the hike, we had our picnic lunch.


Finally, got James to take his hood off, so here are a picture of the boys by the fish pond.


Most of the leaves are down now, and this signals the end of the tour. Just have to wait for May...

Halloween 2009

Man, why is so hard to take good pictures?

Anyways, the boys, especially James had a great Halloween week. Week?!?! What do you mean, week? Well, yes, the entire week was filled with activities. Each time, the costumes had to be put on, then taken off, and we received candy. I was especially nervous about all these activities because I had made James's costume and I wasn't all that sure it would survive.

Poor Andy though, he just used Charlie's/James's hand-me-down superman costume. Maybe next year I will let him have an opinion.



James was a bat.



He wanted to be a bat, well, I don't know what put the idea in his , but he said he wanted to be a bat so he could fly. Now, you can't buy a bat costume, so I had to make it. Normally, I would have tried to talk him out of it, "are you SURE you don't want to be a PIRATE?" but the funny thing was, is that I was a bat for Halloween one year as well.



I wanted to be a bat for the same reason as James. I wanted to fly. Didn't work though. Maybe next year, James will want to be a rubix cube!

Before and after

This is for Brittany.

I recently reaaranged our living room. I had some GREAT help. I was a little concerned because Mark, well, he is an engineer. That means he has a particular idea of how things should be. He is not Open Minded. Our current living room is a really nice space, but like most really nice spaces, isn't really functional. When we first moved in we placed things in a pretty traditional way. This picture is really from May 2008. I forgot to take a before. (I honest said as we were moving the first piece of furniture, "I forgot to take a before picture")



Here is the after. I started thinking about a non-traditional way to use the space. We basically broke up the space into a TV watching/living space and a play area. I know that the toys will still end up all over, but at least the larger toys have a place to live. We got 1 piece stretchy slipcovers for our 10 year old disgusting couch and chair. They are washable.





Mark liked it! He said there was tweeking to do (of course) but he said he was so happy to get our couch back.



Thanks to Jenny for the muscles and "adjusting for Mark" and to Juliet for the staging items, cable, and adapter.

You have a mission!

I need a little help.

When James was born we receive many gifts including multiple blankets. In the last year, James has gotten attached to one blanket in particular.



He calls it "my banket" or "my wittlest banket". When he gets hurt or upset he always wants his banket and when he sleeps he has it wrapped around his head.

So, now his blanket is 3 years old, I have no idea who gave it to us or where they got it, but I would like another one...just in case. I think it might be from Target because they have a similar piglet blanket, but none like this one.



Good people, go into the world. See if you can find this banket. If anyone finds it somewhere so I can buy another one, I will make you a batch of brownies. Try your local stores, or if you are good at the internet searching, that will be acceptable as well. Good luck on your quest.



I just thought this was a cute picture of Andy. And by cute, I mean, not really cute at all...but that makes it cute. Love boys in their jammies!

Pumpkin Patch 2009

So, this is the 3rd year we have been to the pumpkin patch and yes, they did raise their prices!

This year was especially fun because now both boys are old enough to enjoy it.

James always starts off at the water pumps/duck races. I don't know why. They never work!



Andy didn't get it either.



What Andy DID get was the barley box. It is usually corn, but this year it is barley. I think they made the switch because this gets into your shoes and clothes MUCH better. Anyways, Andy LOVED it.





See, it even sticks to your runny nose!



While Andy hung out there, James did pretty much everything else. He tried to do the rope swing, but that really just turned into "jump while holding onto the rope"



There was also a really big slide that took James about 5 minutes to go down.



The cow train is always a favorite!



Andy liked it too, but more so when I let him sit in my lap.



We have not ventured into the large corn maze, but spent some time running through the straw maze. That was fun.



Of course we picked pumpkins as well. It was good day!