pumpkin patch

I am a little behind on my annual pumpkin patch post, but we had planned to go several weekends ago with our friends and the weather was just awful.  It was the worst Saturday in October, cold and drizzle... brrrr!  It was early enough that I hadn't switched out the fall wardrobes in the closets and hadn't gotten out the winter coats, but I should have!

Both kids were shivering and it is amazing they didn't both get colds!  The plus side is that it was not busy at all and we had almost the whole place to ourselves!

This is what I get when I ask for big smiles!  Ha!

I.love.this.  Daddy and his sweet little girl.  Melts my heart (and she melts his!)

Fun on the horse bouncy!

The jumping pillow is always a favorite!

Kerigan was apprehensive at first, like she is with most new things (unlike her crazy brother!) but she got into jumping a little bit!  As long as daddy held on to her!

These were new this year, the kids all had fun!  Even the big kids!  

This is hands down the best orchard around.  They have everything.  You could spend hours and still come back for more!

The kids always love the train ride!

This is our friend's daughter, Emily.  Kerigan adores her.  I LOVE the way she is looking at her.  Emily is such a great role model for her and I'm so happy that the girls live so close to us and we get to spend so much time with them.  Kerigan has a perfect model to look up to!

This is Emily's younger sister Grace.  Kerigan just loves her.  It is so sweet because Grace loves to play with Kerigan.  She actually enjoys going up to her room and spending time playing dress up, dolls, etc.  These two have so much fun.  Kerigan always says "C'mon Grace!  Let's go!" and Grace just follows along and does whatever Kerigan wants to do!  She's so sweet!

Andrew getting "lost" in the maze!  Ha!

This slide is amazing!  This year they added the barrels and the yellow part is more slippery than last year!  I was laughing so hard here because I couldn't believe how fast it was!

Craig came flying down and crashed into people at the bottom.  I was laughing so hard I could barely stay standing!  Look at his face here!  It still makes me laugh just looking at him!  Ha!

The kids had a blast!

Favorite picture of the day.  Hands down!

"You're never fully dressed without a smile!" 

We were eating lunch and a magician came over and did tricks with the kids.  They loved it!

Andrew was just fascinated!  He still talks about this!

We saved the corn pool for last because I just had a feeling that it would be raining and we should do all the outdoor things first.  The corn pool has a cover over it so we were so happy when it started raining just in time!

Having fun tormenting her brother with corn!

Andrew loves it when Kerigan teases him!  

Jumping in!

I love how Andrew is "lounging" on Emily!  Ha!  He loves Emily, too.  One time we were talking and he said he wanted to marry me.  I told him that was so sweet but you can't marry your mom.  Ha.  I said you don't marry people in your family, but just someone you meet and are friends with and that you like.  He goes "Um.... I choose Emily!"  Ha ha.  It was so sweet.

There was a sweet little band playing music and Kerigan danced with her daddy.

Mandy and I were talking about how lucky we were that we married such great guys who chose to come with their families to the pumpkin patch on a freezing cold Saturday instead of staying home and watching football.  We are so lucky.  And so are our kids.

Looking at the horses

Feeding the goats

She loved all the animals.

This cracked me up!  The girls' dad Kenny got under the bridge like the troll and the kids all made faces!  Ha!

Obligatory photo in the wheelbarrow.  Someday they will be too old for this!

And I could not get them to smile and look at me at the same time.  Typical.

I forgot about this one... this is my other favorite picture of the day.  He just did this all by himself, I didn't prompt him or say "kiss your sister."  He just loves her so much.

We got cider donuts and carmel apples and I wish we would have gotten a dozen more apples.  They were sooooo good!  Especially Andrew's that had a frosting over the carmel.  I could have eaten a million of them.  

It was another great year at the pumpkin patch!  See you next year Center Grove!

Just for fun... a look back at the last 3 years!

fall catch up

I'm going to keep things in order and post this before our Halloween fun, but that's coming soon!  

We went to Craig's cousin's wedding a couple weekends ago and had so much fun (and yes, Craig has about 32 cousins, most of them at the getting married age so there have been a lot of weddings and more to come!  So fun!)

Andrew always loves getting reacquainted with his 2nd cousin, Ellie.  They love to dance together and Andrew always likes to find a flower to give her.  They are so cute together!  When we came in Ellie was at a table coloring and she said "Andrew!  Andrew!" and motioned him over to sit by her.  He is quite the little charmer, I must say!

Of course my favorite moments are these two precious beings getting along.  They have just been so sweet to each other lately (I'm not sure what's going on- ha!) but they love to dance together too.  Love them!

We had fun the other night and ordered a jack-o-lantern pizza.  The kids loved it!

Then we had popcorn and watched Toy Story of Terror, their first Halloween show!  They loved it!

I got out the fall decorations pretty late this year, at the urging of Andrew!  I wasn't even going to put anything out, mainly because I am still trying to keep up with organizing the house and unpacking, let alone trying to decorate!  But he insisted and he loves the decorations so much that I couldn't resist getting my bins out.  He had fun "helping" and was setting things all over the table and everywhere!  I told him we still had to eat there, and he said there was still plenty of room!  Ha!

It's definitely fall!  Kerigan pulled out the fall boots the other day!

She is obsessed with all of my shoes, and now boots too!

She's pretty entertaining to watch!

She is so stinkin funny and is always cracking me up when we are home during the day together.  The other day I heard rustling around in the pantry and I went to see what she was doing and she had a bag of chips out and was chomping away!  Just like her daddy, she's a chip girl!  It was only about 9am!

Andrew is super into dates and calendars right now.  He wants me to make him a calendar every month on the computer and put pictures of special things we are doing on certain dates.  Then he crosses it off every day.

(He loves his shirt because he thinks it's the cheeseburger from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2!)

I started doing the calendar for really exciting things like a vacation, and now he wants one all the time!  He likes it when I put pictures of movies that are coming out.  He couldn't wait to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2!  I seriously think he thinks movies are just as big of a deal as a vacation!  Ha!

He was even more excited that his cousins could go with us!  It was a really cute movie!

Of course fall always brings on football weather!  We love going to Ames to cheer on the Cyclones!  We met Ga Ga and Papa for dinner one night at our favorite pizza place on campus.  It felt so strange being there with all the college students heading out to the bars!  Brought back old memories!  But there's nowhere I'd rather have been than in that pizza place with my family.  

Craig has also been super busy this fall with football.  These pictures just crack me up every time.  He had come home late from a game and I found him asleep on the couch just clutching the remote so tight!  Ha!  Then I slipped it out of his hands and his hand stayed like that!  Ha ha!  Men and their remotes!

The American Girl catalog came in the mail the other day and Kerigan has not put it down.  She keeps saying "My book! My book!"  She now loves the "older" looking dolls although she still calls them babies.  I can't believe it's already time to start Christmas lists!

She sleeps with her Bitty Baby every night.  She is such a good little mother!

My mom and Jim are moving!  They built a town home in the same town they live in now, and they have been moving the past few days.  The kids and I have gone to help out and they got to have a picnic in the living room with no furniture!

The other day Ga Ga was super bummed about packing and was feeling overwhelmed so Kerigan and I loaded up and surprised her at work and took her out to lunch (well, she treated us!)

She was so surprised and excited to see us!  It was so fun walking in her school and seeing her face when she saw us!

Kerigan was pretty happy too, she just loves her Ga Ga!  We are so happy for them and can't wait for them to get settled in their new home!

Andrew has had a couple of issues this fall with strep throat.  Both times we went in to the doctor for something else and came out with a strep diagnosis.  This day I picked him up from school and he had hives everywhere.  We have no idea what they were from but I called and they squeezed him right in to see a doctor.  I have been so impressed with our new doctor's office and pediatrician!  They never say they are too full to see us, which is unheard of from where we used to be.  I think this will be a nice change.

About a month later I took Andrew in for his flu shot and we noticed he felt warm so she took his temp before giving him the shot and it was 101!  So she sent us upstairs to peds and they looked at him right away.  Again, I was super impressed.  They did another strep test and it was positive again!  I couldn't believe it!  So they want us to come back in another month and get tested to see if he is a carrier.  I am so glad they are on top of it and they know what to do!  We went to Ga Ga's new house and unpacked while Andrew took the day off from school and rested and played the iPad!

He's been doing so great in school this year but I think he's just worn out!  This morning he got up and went down to the chair and fell asleep like this before school!  Ha!

This was so funny I just had to take a picture.  My mom had saved all these stuffed animals from when I was a little girl.  I've been going through boxes and getting rid of things and I came across this box and the kids just went nuts!  They pulled everything out and set them all up!  They've been playing school with them and just having a ball!  Craig is super thrilled we have tons more stuffed animals around here!  Ha!  He's always telling me not to buy any more because the kids have a million of them!  They just love them!

I think that catches me up on iPhone pictures... next up, pumpkin patch and Halloween!  I can't believe fall is almost coming to an end!  It went so fast!