Forget the list!

We're going outside to PLAY! This is the first we've seen sun AND it's warmed up enough to go outside for more than a couple weeks straight now! It's still a little bit breezy but nothing to complain about! It feels so open now that the field's been harvested!Okay, I'm really NOT totally clawing Hannah in this picture!! I believe I was just tickling her!

very cute!

LOVE this one!

totally loving the sky in these

Pumpkin patch!

I love fall, and I especially love the traditions that come with the season! One of my all-time favorites is going to a pumpkin patch every year. Hay rides, picking a pumpkin, getting cider, and attempting a family photo. This place gave a hay ride all the way back to where the pumpkins were (it's a huge orchard). It was a fun ride, however, Eli got stung by a little bee or something, so we were kind of distracted with keeping an eye on it, despite the fact that Eli said it was okay. And when we got to the pumpkins I felt a little rushed because the hay ride was waiting there for us to take everyone back. So we found our pumpkin and only snapped a couple pictures before getting back on our ride. It was a COLD afternoon but the sun did come out for us! Thank you, God! We've been praying all week for some sunshine! We had a fun time, and now we're looking forward to going to another pumpkin patch in a couple weeks with our MOPS friends! But for this time, here are the pictures...

The rest of the family looks surprisingly awesome in this pic, but I'm in mid blink here! Grr...

The windmill outside the store building had Eli's name on it!

There and back again.

This past weekend the kids and I went to Oklahoma for my cousin Matthew's wedding to his lovely bride Samantha. It was a "short" trip. We left Thursday and returned Sunday.

It was a bit of a rough start to the trip. The kids did O.K. in the car, the drive was horribly looong and boring (definitely no car BINGO this time, there was literally nothing to see for miles and miles and miles), it poured rain the entire 9 hours making for lousy driving conditions, and half-way there I realized I'd forgotten our entire bathroom bag carrying all my hair stuff, makeup, shower things, glasses, etc as well as our pack-n-play for Hannah. Soo... as soon as we got to our destination, we hit up the Walmart and I re-bought everything except a curling iron since I have no need for another. Ugh! Let's hope I never forget our bathroom bag again, because it cost a lot buying it all at once! But at least now I'll have everything on hand already when we run out at home.

I thought all hotels these days used pack-n-plays as their "cribs" but apparently this one still uses these old school ones. It's smaller than a pack-n-play, has a crinkly "mattress", and sits high with that bar across the middle. I decided to try Hannah on the floor instead of her sleeping in that thing, afraid she just might be able to climb out. And what can I say, she's a big girl! We had no issues with her not being confined in a bed! I imagine it helped having the room so dark since there were no outside windows in our room. What a relief that it worked so well!

the kids having their morning milk, watching cable

instead of having a big window in our hotel room, we had a sliding door that went out in this atrium/pool area. The pool was fenced off with tables all outside of it. All the family's rooms were right off the pool so we could use the atrium as our hang-out area during the day. Perfect for the kids' bedtime and naptimes and a place for the kids to run around a bit!

Friday we didn't have any plans except for the rehearsal dinner we were invited to that night. It was much too cold to go outside to a park or anything, and I didn't want to stay in the hotel all morning either, so I surprised the kids by taking them back to Walmart to ride all the quarter machine rides. Eli loved it, Hannah was terrified. She did have fun though, as long as the ride wasn't going, and that's the important part.

With the wedding at 2pm on Saturday I really needed to wear the kids out fast, so they'd be able to nap super early. So what better way to tire them out than to let them go in the pool! Again, Eli loved it, Hannah was terrified. After several attempts with Hannah I finally had my mom take her to just play forever in the bathtub while I stayed in the pool with Eli. My dad helped too and joined us. We all had fun! And it certainly worked because the kids both napped at 12pm without a fuss! And by 2 we were ready to go again!

wedding day!

programs were in Spanish, ceremony was done in English with a Spanish translatorseriously beautiful bride

beautiful reception

my cousin Christina (groom's sister) and I

On base there were free fire safety hats, pencils, etc sitting out, so I made sure the kids got some lil' hats. Here are my two little fire fighters!

I love Eli's cute innocent face in this oneEli calls it "fire truck man"