The Land of Tunnels

Swifty had an interview in Pittsburgh, so we decided to make a little vacation out of it. The kids absolutely loved being in a hotel, who knew that watching a waterfall in a lobby, playing farm in a hotel room, and watching out our window from the 6th floor could be so entertaining. While we were there KB was mesmerized by two major things the first being that we were in the land of TUNNELS, and the second that she was driving next to the Ohio river, which she doesn't really see in Ohio but drives over in the land of TUNNELS! KB asks all the time when we get to back to Pittsburgh, because it was so fun. Little does she know that at times it was truly terrifying driving in the land of tunnels!

Haunting Halloween

We sure lucked out this year and got a fabulously warm Halloween night which worked out GREAT, considering Ariel could not wear a long sleeve shirt over her strong arm and a jacket would cover her beautiful mermaid fin! We began our festivities with some pumpkin carving (okay the kids painted, I made a lame simple jack o lantern and Swifty truly carved. In case you can't tell Swifty's is the really cool one also known as Aku the evil wizard! KB did an amazing job making a face all by herself and Buster loved "helping everyone else".

We had a fun dinner at a friend's house consisting of pumpkin, witch hats, cat vegetables and yummy candy orange rolls (which was the only thing Buster even attempted to put in his mouth). We then used the fun little neighborhood by them to trick or treat. Ariel rode in the stroller most of the time (at our request, she fell almost every step she took). Our cute little Rar-rar, who could not wait to put on his costume and was even excited to have his nose and whiskers painted so he looked like rar-rar, was very slow to go at first. Then Swifty pulled out a piece of candy and let him have it. After that Buster ran from house to house with his Elmo bucket. He even spoke to a few people. Sometime during the night one of our friends warned us of a bump in the sidewalk so KB was aware of it, all we heard from Buster after that was "BUMP" at every crack in the sidewalk. One of the houses had a pumpkin with its guts coming out of its mouth, we laughed at how mesmerized the kids were by this one pumpkin. I guess Dad will have to start carving the pumpkins from his childhood to impress our kids. It sure made us miss those Crazy pumpkins our uncles do!


Buster finally going up to a house without dada

The friends we could capture in the picture

Ariel showing Cruella Devil her cool green glow stick, and Cruella commenting on how she also has a cool glow stick!

Our sweet kids took their own sweet time trick or treating while all of their friends were off and running. They make me laugh, but I am truly grateful for how excited they are to just stop and enjoy themselves.

Look at all that LOOT!

KB's Krash

This morning during the early preparations to get ready for church, we heard KB screaming in the hallway between our bedrooms. In her own words, this is what happened. "I was running out of Mom's room and tripped over a Wet Wipe, then I jumped and turned and hit my arm on the railing that holds up the railing." We found her holding her forearm and crying. After she calmed down, she still wouldn't move her arm, and was moaning a lot, so we started considering taking her to urgent care. The dilemma with this was that KB has some hypochondriasis which she uses to try to get attention, so Swifty was quite suspicious and examined her arm several times. Finally we decided that we really couldn't tell if she was faking it or not, so we took her to the urgent care, and guess what, it really was broken. She had a small buckle fracture of her radius at her wrist, and got a purple cast past her elbow. We then went straight from urgent care to church, where KB refused to go to her class because she didn't want the attention her new cast would get her. She was very brave getting the cast on, and has been a real trooper about the whole thing. Going to bed tonight, KB had to verify with me that I had a hard time falling asleep too when I had a cast on my arm.

This is KB in her Halloween costume, sporting her new "hard arm"

GRANDMA!

Sorry grandma that it took so long to let you know how much we enjoyed your trip! We are so grateful you came and can't wait to see you again!

Some of the highlights of the trip were:
Buster's birthday - we went to the zoo, made a special train cake, and had a lot of presents. There is more about that special day in a previous post.

Apple picking and canning - we picked 60 lbs of apples, and then, after a long search for such things as canners and Victoria strainers, we managed to work out a scheme that allowed us to turn all those apples into applesauce. Since then, we (mostly Buster) have eaten a large amount of these stored goods.

Graeter's - this is a tradition for family visits that we all enjoy.

A lot of shopping - Grandma took the kids and I to many stores looking for just the right birthday and Christmas presents.

(Sorry, we do have pictures to post with this, but currently the back up computer is not equal to the challenge, we'll keep working on it)

Older and wiser. . . or just older?

Swifty has finally hit the big 30! He says he feels older and probably most definitely wiser, however, his birthday plans were much like our children's birthday plans. This was our executed plan.

-Work a crazy schedule before hand so you can have your whole birthday off!

-open presents, before breakfast

-go to the park and play on the playground

-hang out at home for naps

-eat a really yummy dinner, that he cooked I might add. Hmm, it kinda felt like my birthday!

-Go to the pet store

All in all I think it was a perfect day!

I love that he can truly get older and wiser, but still enjoy all the simple things and play just like our little ones. We are lucky to have such a special fun dad in our life! Happy Birthday Babe-- We LOVE you

BIRTHDAYS-BIRTHDAYS!!

We have had two big birthdays at our house. The first one. . . Busters turns 2! We were lucky enough to have grandma in town for the whole week. Grandmas always make a birthday more fun. We celebrated by taking the sweet boy to the zoo, and all he wanted to do was sit on the statue of the "hog hog". We did talk him into seeing a few animals, but not many. We also opened lots of fabulous dog dog and choo choo toys as well as one giant rocking horse (I'm not sure his life can get any better). Finally the whole family pitched in to make a choo choo cake for the little big guy. The candles being lit were a little much for him and frightened him just a little.

Buster on said "hog hog"

We lucked out, becasue daddy got the day off excluding a few hours! Daddy, Buster, and KB looking at the tigers!

The big sister did her best at handling the birthday!

Buster helping with the cake!

AS you can see we are not professional at our house, but hey we sure had fun decorating this choo choo cake. Thanks Swifty for always bailing me out of my BIG ideas.

Apple Picking

One of the BEST things about where we live is all of the fun fall activities. About 30 minutes from our house is this amazing apple farm (0ther things too). Last year I took the kids apple picking and they had a blast picking the apples off the trees, so I thought "hey lets do it again this year" and once again they had a blast! This year the fun was a little different. Buster was not about to touch an apple, he wouldn't even throw them into the bag like a ball. Instead he was content eating his "roll" a.k.a bagel and chasing after his sister. KB picked apples to eat, I think she had 4 in the 2 hours we were there. Her other favorite pass time was running through the trees and finding the rotten apples on the ground. I was happy to pick the apples and our family has enjoyed the apples very much. We have plans to go back a couple more times for all the different kinds of apples!KB picking an apple she loved picking and eating, but the little yellow flower weed was a blast to pick!

Buster showing you his "roll"

KB and her apple, the only picture I could get without an apple in or near her mouth

checking out the rotten apple

It was such a fun day the light sprinkle of rain, and friends made the day even more fun, I love Fall!