Pumpkin Patch

Yep, got rid of the old template. It was ugly. I'll work on a cleaner design sooner or later. In the mean time it'll just be a template.

We made our annual trek to Appleworks. Here are some pictures.

Ethan is 3!!!

I cannot believe my baby is 3. Mr Ethan is one feisty and fearless little dude. We joke that he'll be a cliff jumping nudist. Ethan loves to climb and jump off anything and well he does love being naked too. He recently conquered the tricycle. His little legs finally grew long enough to really be able to pedal.

Lately Ethan has been all about dragons. Mostly from the movie How To Train Your Dragon. So of course he found several dragon toys in his presents.

We had a little party for him on sunday with our families.

  Had to throw in a picture of Coop. Look at those eyes!!

 Belle and Ethan with all their cousins.

He got a dragon costume. In this picture he is pretending that he is blowing fire. =)

co-op fun

We are part of a homeschool co-op this year. It's been a lot of fun and I think it's really nice for Belle to get out and be part of a "class".

During Science they'll watch Magic Schoolbus on my laptop.

Then they'll go back to class and do an experiment. In this case they were learning about germs and had used a special lotion and then washed their hands to show how important good hand washing is.

Ethan just chills in the nursery with the other toddlers.

Then once a semester we have a "Lit Day" where every family reads the same book and then one co-op class is devoted to some sort of activity about the book. This time it was the book "Gifted Hands, the Ben Carson Story. " And since Ben was a brain surgeon our class was devoted to the brain. We didn't actually read the book, although I tried. Belle just wasn't having it. We did however watch the movie together.

In one room the kids did Brain teasers, or in this case, played with Geo boards

The kids even got their own Dr name badges.

Here they made play doh brains.

And got to explore medical equipment. At first I couldn't understand Belle's reaction in this picture. Then I saw what was in Mary Jo's hands, a needle. Yep, that'll freak Belle out any day. Oh and how funny, the other kindergartener in the co-op is also named Belle. So in this picture we have Belle x2.

Here they learned about the parts of the brain and got a coloring
book.

These are not in order, but the kids started off learning about nutrition, food allergies and diabetes. A family in our co-op has some pretty severe food allergies along with diabetes. The kids got to eat a few snacks and learn about how our friend deals with her diabetes. Belle ate A carrot (one that I forced her to eat), an apple and a delicious banana muffin. Oh and drank some Crystal Light, thus leaving all the kids with red mustaches the rest of the day as you can see in the above pictures.

What did Ethan do? He played with his friends in the nursery. Here he is with Sammy. They are DOUBLE TROUBLE!!! One is as equally rotten as the next. We joke that they'll get married and be carefree spirits off having fun. Probably backpacking through Europe or something. =)

Belle and her horse

**I need to get a picture of Belle and her horse to go along with this post. Maybe I'll work on that. **

No, we didn't get Belle a horse. If we did, we'd surely be the best parents EVER. Nope Belle read the book "Every Cowgirl Needs a Horse" about a year ago. It's all about a girl who wants a horse for her birthday and does everything to prepare. The party comes and her dad gets her a bike. She ends up pretending the bike is a horse and they ride off into the sunset.

Ever since then Belle's bike has been her horse. It's name has changed several times. From Star to it's current name Spirit (after She-ra's horse, I believe), and probably a million in between. She'll pull her horse out of the stable (the garage) and talk to it as she rides. It's cute.

Yesterday we took off the training wheels. She's awfully excited to ride like a big girl. And Belle is doing great as long as she doesn't put too much thought into it. She rode about 20 or so feet today without me holding on. But before she even got started she gave her horse a pep talk. I couldn't understand what she was saying exactly, she was whipsering to her "horse". Then every time Belle would make an attempt at riding she'd repeat to herself "I believe in myself, I believe in myself" over and over. She's so funny!!

Maybe I'll be able to post some video soon of my big girl riding without training wheels.

In Ethan news, his legs have finally grown long enough for him to really be able to pedal his trike. So he's off and running as well.

Kindergarten interview

The yummiest food to eat is: Corn

My favorite show to watch is: Ruff Ruffman

I love when I get to read: books about horses

The best thing about school is: playing together

The worst thing about school is: reading

The coolest person on earth is: my mom

I'm really super good at: playing tag

My favorite colors are: purple & pink

The best place in the world to be is: Mamaw's house

When I grow up I want to be: a horse rider

If I could do one thing all day it would be: playing

I really, really do not like to eat: hamburger

My best friend is: Audrey Parkhurst

Jesus is: powerful

When I was little I used to: chew on things

3 words that tell about me: Isabella, ballerina, pretty

This year I hope to learn: ballet

Labor Day trip to W. Va.

Well it had been about 10yrs since I've been down to see the Richmond side of the family. We were able to get everyone together to go down this year for the Pack Family reunion on Labor Day. We all had a good time, but ended up leaving early because Sara's kids were not sleeping well and were cranky.

I was surprised how well the drive down and back went. Not too many problems or whining. We just might be able to make a road trip again.

Of course my kids know no stranger and quickly made friends. Even had someone ask (jokingly)where they were adopted from because no child of mine would be that social. Belle spent her time playing with cousins Torre and Ciara and Ethan spent most of his time just playing with Brody. Although Ethan did come up to me during the reunion and asked if he could go play with the big kids. I'm always amazed at how well my kids are in new situations. They'll just go off and make friends with someone.

Dad with his siblings and grandma Richmond

Cooper and his bare butt.

 

 Didn't take long before the boys were wrestling in the yard.

Ethan playing with Uncle Johnny.

Belle and Torre.

Our family with Grandma.

 

All the Richmond grandkids and great grandkids minus one.

Cooper and Brody joined in with the singing.

Getting the stinkeye from Ethan.

School pictures

Last friday was the first day of our homeschool co-op. The week before one of the moms, a photographer, so graciously offered to take class pictures. We all met at the park and got a group shot as well as individual shots. Miss Belle was being such a priss that day and doing all sorts of poses. Take a look at the series of class shots. She changes her pose in each one. I was excited to get a good shot of Ethan, it'll count as his 3 yr pictures this year.

And since I had yet to take our own first day of school pictures, I decided to take first day of co-op pictures. =) We haven't been dressed in the morning enough to get pictures before then. We do school in our pjs. So when the kids were dressed in the morning for once, I took the opportunity and got our pictures on the steps like we have done in years past for preschool.

The kids had fun in co-op. Belle has a Magic Schoolbus Science class the first hour and then a music class the second hour. Mr. Ethan got to play in the nursery. Only thing the kids didn't like was sitting still during announcements/devotions. Hopefully they'll get better in the coming weeks with that. 

Nic and Sally

This will only be funny if you watch a lot of children's cartoons. I just happened to remember this conversation with Ethan and wanted to get it on the blog.

Apparently Ethan had figured out on his own what Nic's first name was. And he had been calling Nic by his first name all day. So I asked Ethan, "what's mommy's name?". And quite quickly he answered "Sally".

The kids do love "The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That" on PBS.

100% BOY!!

I wish I would have gotten a picture, but by the time I thought about it Ethan had scribbled all over the page. Ethan has started drawing people. They are still really rough, just a circle with eyes and two stick legs. But last night he added one more important piece, a penis. Yep, thats my boy. Then later drew blobs underneath this "person" and apparently that was poop.

Then as I was getting him dressed this morning, he bent over in front of me and said "see my butt!!" What an onry little thing he is! Good thing he's cute.

Indiana State Fair

Ever since the commercials started airing on PBS, Belle has been begging to go to the state fair. We ended up waiting for a cheap day and decided on a $2 Tuesday. Great decision. All the food vendors had $2 menu items, often just a smaller version of their most popular item. It was great to taste a lot of different foods and not totally break the bank.

Nic lost his cell phone. Thankfully someone found it and turned it into security at the Pepsi Colliseum. They called me (listed as an ICE contact) and we were able to track his phone down and get it back. Thank goodness. While Nic was getting the phone, the kids and I waited in the colliseum and watched the Clydesdales. The kids LOVED it! They would've sat there a lot longer. And really it was just Clydesdales pulling carts around in circles, nothing exciting.

We ended up finding someone else's phone which was funny. We picked it up and took it to the state police tent. There were no ICE contacts and I didn't quite feel comfortable just calling "Lil Mo" or any of the other contacts on the list. =)

I think I'm over the short hair. Or maybe just over the dark hair.

Still thankful for the wagon, but Belle is getting a little too big. There were lots of "he's stepping on my toes!!"

The kids got to pet an overly friendly cow. He thought Belle's shirt tasted good.