Wow -- what a big day!

Well, our Friday started off with Joshua's first dentist appt.! Kayla and I went grocery shopping and Bryan did the honors!

Let's just say that times have changed since MY first dentist appt.!

Bryan said he did well -- way to go, Joshua!

Hopefully, this was a step in the right direction!

This picture is dedicated to my dear husband! We were outside working in the yard and so I needed to put together a QUICK meal . . . so Tuna Tetrizini it was! (You might say that it isn't his fave!) Anyway, what a great way to start the Trick or Treating -- right????

Our little ladybug and dinosaur! The weather was PERFECT!

That is quite the tail!

Fixin' the handle on the bucket!

G/G stopped by for a minute before the kids were off.

About half way through, the dinosaur got extremely tired . . .at least there wasn't a 10-lb. tail to carry along, too!

My sis got back in town tonight -- super good to see her! (and everyone else, too!)

Joshua showing Aunt Bem the art of organizing candy! Wow -- I think it's time to call it a day and get ready for the rest of the weekend!

All in a Thursday afternoon!

We had quite an exciting afternoon on Thursday . . .well, not that exciting! I guess the fire dept. was doing some kind of testing on the hydrants. It was still fun to see a fire truck in front of the house, though!

Wow -- would you look at that??? The kids were pretty enthralled.

And then . . .since the weather was just beautiful outside, Joshua opted NOT to take a nap, and Kayla opted to be done with her nap by 1:45 . . . I decided that it was A PERFECT DAY to make a Sonic Happy Hour run! Wah-hoo! I spent $1.07 for a Route 44 Lemon Berry Slush (No, I didn't eat all of it -- I brought cups for the kids!) and am happy to report I still have $5.42 left on my gift card from my birthday. Folks, that's FIVE, count 'em FIVE trips to Happy Hour! Extra Big Wa-hoo!

Joshua was delighted there was another boy his age there -- he is very "bored" now when it is only Kayla and/or Mommy!

And, this was a monumental day -- Joshua went down the Sonic slide by himself. After he went down he said, "Wow, that wasn't scary."

Kayla was just glad to be along for the ride! The weather was gorgeous and we had a great time doing something a little spontaneous and unplanned. (Very hard for a Type A to do)!

Pumpkin Carving

I must admit that we have not carved a pumpkin since the first year we were married . . yep . . . seven years ago. So, this was our evening's activity . . .

Since Bryan's much more gifted at the "artistic" side of the pumpkin carving process, he was the designer, me the photographer!

Look at Joshua -- gettin' his hands all yucky and stuff -- you the man, bud!

Final touches . . .

Finished product. After the candle was lit for all of 13 seconds, Joshua was begging to blow it out . . . short tenure!

Last Weekend

How is it that what I COMPLETELY intended to post Sunday night is JUST NOW getting done??? Anyway, here are a few pics from our weekend!

The GINORMOUS pumpkin above is at a local grocery store -- referred to as "big pump-in" by the one and only Kayla. Pretty self-explanatory! The first time I let them get close enough to touch it, you would have thought it was one of the seven wonders of the world! I love this age -- doesn't take much to wow them! I only wish you could have seen Bryan trying to take this picture from across the parking lot without having passing cars in front of the kids! Quite the sight!

I saw this magazine idea to make your own robots out of empty cans and spare junk drawer parts using magnets.

$2.44 later in magnets . . . this is what we achieved. So glad we did the basement
project so we would have all kinds of goodies for this project! We now have four magnetic "Mr. Potato Heads" that are inter-changeable.


Our church had their annual "Trunk or Treat" halloween alternative on Sunday night. It was REALLY windy, which made for a chilly night! We decorated the van like a jungle (yes . . . that's the kid's shower curtain . . .why????) The ladybug (aka. Kayla) much preferred the wind break of the van. My brother Brian SAVED THE DAY by being an extra set of adult hands to pass out candy, take the kids, etc. Thanks, bro!

I can't believe this is the ONLY picture of Joshua that I got. I managed to pick up this dinosaur costume for $2 at a garage sale, and thankfully, he was fine with being a dinosaur! (The lady bug costume set us back 75 cents at a garage sale -- life is good!)

Joshua BEGGED today to make "shape cookies." He is my official "flour-er." Trust me, the cookies NEVER stick to the pastry cloth with his ample flouring!

He loves to make these cookies (disclaimer-- they're from a pouch, hence we get right to business with rolling out the dough . . .none of the mixing stuff!)


This was . . um . . . a close call today. Kayla discovered how to take off the lid of the sprinkles -- yes, that means at one time there were 6 open places for sprinkles to just come tumbling out. Whew!

Visit from Grandma and Grandpa

This is the second time I have tried to post this . . . so hopefully this goes through! Last week G/G Nelson visited -- as we just partied big time! Bryan took some time off, so it was the calm before the "Christmas" storm! Thoroughly enjoyed our time together. The weather was beautiful, so we spent A LOT of time outside. One day we went to the zoo and of course, you MUST ride the train following the zoo!

Grandma and Kayla getting ready to check out the ducks!

One morning we walked/rode bikes on the Shunga trail. I think they were looking for the squirrel that ran up the tree . . .!


We happened to hear some cars running over at Heartland Park, so my brave husband drove AS CLOSE to the track as he could get, that is, until we were kindly escorted out of the area. However, we learned that there was a LEGAL way for us to actually go in and SEE the timed trials. It was loud, but a fun experience.

The kids enjoyed climbing on some jeeps/planes/helicopters at Forbes Field, and the weather was just perfect to do so. I thought they just looked funny in this picture!

Young driver at the wheel!

Mommy and Kayla . . .who was still not too sure about the whole jeep thing! We had a great time, and I think the kids have now settled back into the "boring ole' routine" with mom!

BIG NEWS!

For those of you who read Bryan's blog, this is no big news, but for the rest of you . . .

We are expecting Baby #3 in early April! We're super excited . . . especially now that I'm feeling MUCH, MUCH better! Bryan posted a funny story on his blog of Joshua's response -- check it out! (www.verticalresonator.blogspot.com).

The above pic was taken at Fall Fest several weekends ago. It was a church-wide celebration at a local pumpkin patch. Kayla was constantly wanting to go one place, and Joshua another. Made me wonder about when there are more kids in the equation . . .!

No, I did not photoshop this pic -- isn't it funny??

That same weekend we went to "Rev up your Engines" -- an event a local church puts on that has LOTS of different trucks, tractors, etc. This was inside a FedEx truck.

Joshua driving the tractor -- check out the tongue!

Inside the sleeping cab of a tractor-trailor. (my terminology probably isn't right!)

Kayla, on the other hand, was perfectly content to stay IN the stroller with her balloon. Works with me.


Random, I know, but look what the kids and I picked on OCTOBER the 1st . . . can you believe it? Chalk one up to "ever-bearing" strawberries! Picking the berries was a fun activity this past summer -- we had much more luck with those than the pumpkin seeds we planted. (maybe the Lord knew we shouldn't have planted them on the farmer's land next to us!!!!)

Family Fun Last Weekend

Once again, I am a week behind . . . and since my Type A personality does NOT allow me to get "out of order" I will try and catch up! Last weekend, we loaded up the bikes to a nearby bike trail -- I might add that this is the FIRST outing like this of the summer as ALL, I repeat, ALL of the time has been spent working in the basement.

Anyway, moving along . . . it was a big deal for Joshua because it was the first time he got to ride his bike instead of riding in the trailer with Kayla. As long as Bryan was in front, and I was behind him, he actually did ok -- well, the sudden stops always get my blood pressure going!

As a side note, we discovered on the way home that we did NOT have to remove the front wheels of the bikes -- they actually fit in the back of the van as is. Kind of funny -- guess you had to be there!

Kayla did NOT understand that we had to DRIVE in order to ride bikes -- can you tell she wasn't amused????

On the way there, we saw a Jeff Gorden car at Dillons -- nice little side benefit!

The kids LOVED the merry-go-round . . .man, I just CAN NOT ride those things anymore. Instant sickness. Bryan took one for the team and rode with them for a bit!!

The boys!

Kayla has "graduated" to a big girl swing -- she just gets frustrated when we don't push her as high as when she's in the "baby" swing! And yes, she normally hangs on with both hands -- don't lose sleep, grandmas!

Trip to IN/Chicago

Several weeks ago, Bryan and I went to a GREAT conference in Granger, IN. (Check it out on his blog: (www.verticalresonator.blogspot.com). Between the conference ending in IN and checking out several others churches in the Chicago area, we had some "down time" one afternoon. So, we stopped at the dunes -- very cool. I had never been there before, although Bryan had.

We weren't exactly in hiking attire, so we didn't explore a ton, but it was nice to walk around for a bit.

This was SUPPOSED to be a parking lot, but they had torrential rain the previous week, and the parking lot got morphed into modern art. Nice, eh? As a side note, becuase of all of the rain, parts of 80/90 were closed when we first arrived and so the trip from Midway, Chicago to South Bend took 6 HOURS instead of 90 MINUTES. I just kept thinking, "I am so glad we don't have the kids!" -- on yeah, forgot to mention that mom kept the kiddos for 5 days. It was AWESOME! However, we were really ready to get home the last day or two -- we missed them!

Before we caught the flight downtown, we visited "Mileneum Park" -- very, very cool. The weather was perfect and except for the absolutely exhorbent parking fees, it was a perfect hour downtown!

Shot from "under" the kidney bean!

This was some kind of outdoor ampitheatre -- cool architecture!

I didn't end up with a good pic of this -- from a distance these towers have faces on them that spray water out of them -- but up close really doesn't do it justice! We had a great time, but were definetely ready to be back!

PS -- I would like to thank my husband for showing me how to post more than 5 pics at a time . . . after 4 years of blogging, I am no longer constrained by just 5 pics per post!