New Neighbors

We have new neighbors!
After 3500 miles of driving my parents have arrived! They are parked right behind our house in their motorhome where they are planning on staying for several weeks (at least through Thanksgiving). Every morning the kids wake up and go out to "the neighbors house" for breakfast. It's been fantastic! :) It actually is really fun. We've been sharing dinners and going back and forth between our house and theirs.....and the babysitting has already come in handy. Oh how I miss having family close by to babysit!!!! And this is seriously close!



Anybody want to take a guess at what's going on here???

Sitting around a fire maybe??
Having a chat with the people across from them perhaps???

Oh no. Let me show you.....



They're watching a movie........out.side. "Camping" doesn't get anymore luxurious than this!
(sorry dad, it had to be done. it's my blog. i'm keeping this image forever.)

We are having a great time with Nana and Papa for our neighbors! I can just see the memories being burned into those little boys' heads. I'm grateful they could be here for an east coast fall. Now, if only the weather would shape up! I swear they brought the rain......they're known to do that.

TrickerTreating

I like to give my kids choices. Sometimes it backfires on me (like when they ask for a birthday cake and I have to figure out how in the world to make it!) and sometimes it works out beautifully. When I asked the kids "What do you want to be for Halloween?" I could have been in for serious trouble. Fortunately for me, they had pretty decent requests!
Wyatt insisted for weeks on being a ghost! How much easier could it get, right? And Brendan wanted to be a bat.....not batman.....a BAT! This I could handle.
In true procrastinator fashion I waited to make their costumes until last night.....the night before Halloween. No stress....and personally I think they turned out pretty darn good.
The kids enjoyed "trickertreating" (as they say) more this year than any other year prior and we loaded up on our years worth of candy.
Tomorrow we start breaking out Christmas music and packing up pumpkins. The seasons just seem to be going by way too fast!

I Heart Boys

It's official and it's for sure.....baby #3 is a bouncing baby boy. Luckily I really love baby boys....especially chubby ones. :) I was sad for the older 2 since they really wanted a sister, but knowing it's a boy and having time to get ready for that and think along those lines will be good for the big brothers. At this rate we will have a baseball team in no time! :)

So Rand and I went right out and bought a cute boyish outfit to save for him.....and my sister has already sent me a bag of 0-3 month boy clothes. I'm still kind of in shock. Another boy!!!!

Pumpkins, Soldiers and Maps

This week we got our pumpkins all carved up. They both wanted "scary" pumpkins. Wyatt wanted his to look like a ghost and say "Boo" and Brendan wanted "mean eyes". Wyatt wasn't much into touching the goo this year (I'm surprised he didn't gag!).
I think they turned out pretty good.





Later in the week, Brendan's homeschool group had a field trip to Valley Forge Park. Nice thing about homeschool field trips is they are whole family events. I enjoyed the trip more than then kids, unfortunately. They aren't quite into American history yet, but I learned a lot. They enjoyed the grasshoppers the most.

Here's our tour guide. He taught us how to march and stand at attention. We weren't very good at it. I blamed it on the huge crowd, but then he told us that Washington's army would have stretched out for over a mile. I guess I'll just blame all the children. :)

We learned how a gun was loaded and fired.


This guy told us all about their clothing.


Here are some kid toys........and then this guy over here on the right showed us how they performed medical interventions at the camp.....even amputations. Horribly gruesome!


And this guy showed us how they cooked. I had always wondered what this mound was near all the cabins. Turns out it was the oven!


In case you are wondering.....that's Wyatt....looking at a grasshopper in the middle of the road. Like I said....best part of the trip!


And last but not least, we are tracking someone! We have a great markable map and we are following my parent's progress as they travel from Washington State (I hate that I always have to say that!) eastward. In case you can't tell, they have hit Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Kansas (pit stop at my sister's), Missouri, Illinois, Indiana....and so far that is where they are. They are about 650 miles from us! By the beginning of the week they should be here. I think they are going to stay and have Thanksgiving, too. The kids are beyond excited and they know U.S. geography like nobody's business!
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Ultrasound Time

Finally! It was really a pain getting this thing scheduled! I almost bagged the idea all together. But, persistence paid off and on Wednesday, next week, we shall hopefully know whether we get to think boy or girl for the rest of this pregnancy....which is almost half over, by the way!!

I am indifferent, actually, and would be happy for different reasons for either. I think Rand would just like another boy....only because he can't imagine having a girl....even though I know he would love a girl just as much. I can see him melting already. The big brothers are desperately wanting a sister....I think I can thank their baby niece, Willow for that because they absolutely adore her and want one of their own.

So, what do you think? I know there are a lot out there rootin' for a girl simply because we don't have one.....but maybe your gut tells you otherwise. I never have inclinations about these things....I just vote for what I want.

What'll it be? Girl? or Boy?

Our Very Own Pumpkin Patch

...well not really our very own, but when a certain someone has Mondays off, we get to take advantage of nearly empty fun fall attractions....and enjoy them, just about, all to ourselves.

We have had REALLY crummy weather lately (depending on how you look at it). For almost a solid week it has been freezing and raining constantly. I kind of liked it, I have to admit. It felt very "Washington" and we just hunkered down and stayed inside. I caved finally and turned on the heat when it reached a frigid 58 degrees in our house. The boys and I stood around the stove one morning, waiting for the water to boil watching our breath and I realized there was something really wrong with this picture. You should never be able to see your breath inside your house.

This morning, however, we woke up to spectacular weather. It was freezing (literally. our first frost) but so sunny. It warmed up quickly and our plan for the pumpkin patch was full steam ahead.

After school and a huge family breakfast (it was our first breakfast together since Rand left last Sunday) we headed to a close-by family owned farm. It was bigger than I expected and absolutely beautiful. Seriously, it might have been one of the best kept farms I've ever been to. Clean, clean, clean. Maybe that was because we went on a Monday and all the weekend mess had been cleaned up?! :)

I'll leave the rest of the stories to the pictures since I took a billion of them, and let's face it, I've been slacking on the picture taking and the blog posting lately.

First stop gas station. Rand pumped and the rest of us took turns taking pictures of each other.


Varner's Farm


First we checked out the barnyard



Then the hay maze



Tractor Races


Corn Maze


Belgian Draft Horses to take us out to the pumpkin patch and apple orchard