Exploring

Yesterday we found a nice new river to explore. Luis had seen it last week, and we decided to all go check it out together. The boys thought it was pretty cool.

Not far from the river, we noticed a huge tree that had fallen partly over, and the roots were exposed. We went over to see what was underneath. It was pretty much the coolest fort ever.

The best part of all? I took this picture from the river bank, and that green house is ours! I can't wait until summer, and splashing in the river.

When we were done, we went back to the yard to finish assembling the new swing set we picked up from the Grinleys. And to climb onto the roof of the minivan.

Halloween

This Halloween we went Trick or Treating (or Crick or Creating, if you're Darius). The kids wore costumes, and we got candy! Then we went to Nana's house. It was the best Halloween ever.

Room for one more?

Nope, no room left in here!

The things I miss...

by sleeping in. Another busy weekend morning.

Pumpkins

Two days before Halloween, we realized that we still had not carved our pumpkins. Not only that, but we were very busy for those next two days, and weren't sure how we were going to fit it in. So Luis decided he only had one choice - he had to call work and tell them he would be an hour late. In that one move, he effectively doubled his time with us that day, and gave us the time to carve pumpkins (though he, unfortunately, had to leave before the cleaning up pumpkin guts part - he was devastated, I'm sure). We all decided that having a husband/daddy who would call in for pumpkins was a pretty good thing. It was very exciting.



We got everything set up on the dining room table (just ignore the child endangerment going on in the background).

After we scooped all the guts out, the boys drew on the faces they wanted us to cut out.

Somewhere along the way, carrots got involved, though I can't remember how exactly.

Once the carving was finished, we headed outside to display them. The whole family:


The kids (and puppy) played in the leaves while Luis got the clothes ready...

for the scarecrow:

Sadly I don't have a picture of Mom's dead flowers to prove it, but fall has definitely arrived.

Apple Fest '09

On Sunday we went to Apple Fest with Nana and Jim. I'll say at the start, that I feel like a bad mother because pretty much every picture here is of Taye. Darius was in a funk and didn't want to do anything, and Mya slept 90% of the time. So, it's not that I don't love them, it's just that they're boring. :o)

The first thing we saw when we escaped the crowded indoors was the giant inflatable slide. You may remember the photo-op from two years ago when Emma came with us. Taye jumped right in line. Somehow he went from this:



to this:

to this:

in the span of about 4 seconds. When he reached the bottom (by which time he had completely flipped over) he popped right up, and said "I'm OK!" before anyone could even ask. A mother standing next to us seemed very relieved, we knew he was fine before he could even speak. He's Taye.

We walked around and checked out the outside vendors. Taye, Luis, and I all played a ring toss game at the Hannaford's booth, and "won" pity-prizes. We found the pony rides at the other side of the park. Somehow we avoided a line, and Taye got right on. If only we had thought to bring his cowboy hat.


We stopped to watch Juggling John juggle some fire, how could we resist?

After some more wandering, and an all-apple snack break (cider donuts, apple turnovers, and cider - yum), we met back up with Nana and Jim for the skyride. Darius was excited about that, but since he rode with Nana and Jim, I don't have any pictures of him on the ride either. The view from the top was amazing, but the real entertainment was in watching Taye.

He was completely beside himself excited the entire time. We would point something out - "Look at the water, Taye!" and he would start laughing and yelling, "WATER!! hahaha LOOK! MORE WATER!" At some point he noticed that some of the chairs coming down on the other side were empty. He asked us if there were invisible people riding on them. He apparently didn't believe us when we said no, because he started yelling, "HELLO INVISIBLE PEOPLE!!" every time one went by. Then, whenever we passed a chair with people in it, he yelled, "HELLO REGULAR PEOPLE!!" He also kept yelling, "HEY DARIUS, ARE YOU HAVING FUN?" to which Darius would yell "YEAH!" If he wasn't yelling, he was laughing. He brought a smile to everyone's face, Luis and I couldn't stop laughing.

At the bottom of the skyride they had a rock climbing set-up. Taye decided he wanted to try that too.

We all figured he would be at the top in under a minute, but he didn't quite get that far. More like this far:

That really was enough exictement for one day!

Girl's Best Friend

Daddy thinks he's okay too ('cause, you know - he needed another wrestling buddy).