Apples!

For the last several years, my friend and I have taken our children apple and pumpkin picking at a local orchard. So, even though her almost 12 year old is getting a little less enthusiastic with each passing season, we packed everyone in my vehicle to make another memory.













This is an extremely rare picture of us. We're always the ones behind the cameras.

Indy Children's Musem

I was completely unaware of this treasure of a museum in Indianapolis until this week. It was so much fun for both me and the kids. I honestly would like to go back without the kids so that I can see more! The dinosaurs were a BIG hit as was the Merry Go Round. They also had this huge room full of PLAY things! There was a big sand table and a water trough with running water. There were dress up clothes and building toys and a play kitchen....I could go on. We spent most of our time in there. I can't wait to go back!

Drawing

While scolding Gigi for drawing on our wood floor with a Sharpie marker I had to keep myself from complimenting her work. This is the first time I've ever seen her draw a face. Will this be the child that will take on that artist's flair that randomly runs in Rob's family? Time will tell...

Fun, Wet, Sunday

We spent this Sunday afternoon at my parents house and I think Matthew was complaining about being bored outside so Mom started chasing them with the hose.

They thought they'd be safer on the deck.

Look out now, Grandma! Matthew brought out the big guns!

Flower Girl Princess

I bought this dress 8 1/2 years ago for my best friend's daughter to wear in our wedding. She was almost 3 at the time. Since then it has been used mainly for dress up but my friend kept it and recently gave it to me for Gigi to have. Well, she put it on the other day and let's just say it was love at first wear. She absolutely loves this dress! Unfortunately it makes her trip up our already treacherous staircase so I don't let her wear it very often yet, but I have a feeling we will get a few good years of dress up action out of this one.

Moving Again

I just spent 3 days in Pennsylvania packing up the rest of our belongings and hauling it (and my husband) back to Indiana and moving it back into our house that we moved out of 10 months ago. (long story) Bet you wish I had a picture of that!

I can't believe how many trailers I've hauled behind my truck in the past couple months. Or how many large pieces of furniture I've moved by myself. That is definitely men's work. I am by no means a feminist. I will gladly leave the hard grunt work to the men while I take on the sissy work of raising children.

I'll admit I enjoyed my few days vacation from my two littlest sweethearts. I got to sleep uninterrupted and I was amazed at all the things I got done in one day! But I missed them and was happy to get back to them.

Grandma Diane and Brenda came along with us when we moved so that another trailer could be pulled. We had fun having them in Indiana. On their last night there everybody played outside until 9pm when I made the kids go to bed. (Yes, it's still very light out at 9pm. As I've always said, Indiana is too far west to be on eastern time, Mitch Daniels!!!!!! )

So, we are back home in Indiana and are slowly settling back into our house. I am regretting not coming over when the house was empty and scrubbing it from top to bottom. If only I was as adept at painting as my hubby, I could have had the whole house painted too. :)

Back in April I took the kids to our town's yearly festival. They each got to ride a few rides and Matthew played laser tag in the little blow up tunnel thingy. He said he can't wait until next year so he can play again.
They all rode a pony and Matthew rode on a camel!
I love bringing them to this festival. It brings back lots of memories of when I went as I was growing up. I can remember being terrified of the sirens at the parade. I would cover my ears and cry. Well, nobody cried at the sirens but we did get really cold and stopped watching the parade about half way through. So we went to the park and after meeting up with some friends we rode the rides and had some lunch. Overall a very good and fun day!

Matthew's Contraption

Matthew and I really enjoy I Spy books. He was especially intrigued by this page. I dragged my finger through the whole thing and showed him what would happen at each stage of this contraption. He then decided to try to make his own contraption. I love his creativity and drive to learn how to accomplish something.

Garage Sale!

Yesterday was our annual garage sale! I look forward to this every year. Normally it's a nice way to earn a chunk of money but this year with all of our moving back and forth between states, I didn't have near as much stuff to sell. The proceeds from this sale will go towards replacing all the furniture that I sold off last year!

Friday is when the Amish do their yard saling. It's always surprising how many we have stop by. And I always get a chuckle out of some of the things they buy. Last year I had an Amish man buy an electric juicer. And I've had some Amish girls buy some pretty funky shoes from me in the past. They always are the first to take the canning jars (no surprise there) and they also are usually the ones to take used carseats.

I love resale. If I had known that about myself I could have opened a resale shop long ago before everyone and their sister was doing it.

Matthew had his own little stand with some toys, books and movies. He turned out to be quite a salesman! He would call out to the people browsing -- "Do you want to buy anything from this table?" and "Does anyone want this baseball bat?" and (when a child was browsing his wares) "Go ask your mom if you can buy this."

I had to talk to him a couple of times about nagging the shoppers. One lady said that, yes, she wanted a certain widget from his table but she wanted to look around first. He would come up to her and ask if she was ready to pay him yet. Ah, persistence. It will serve him well someday.

Makeup!

I figured a girl's first time getting into Mommy's makeup should be documented. She was quiet for probably 2 minutes and that should have been my first clue that something was up. Fortunately I don't own a lot of makeup so she just had a little eyeliner on her face and lip gloss everywhere else. I wiped it off the best I could. Now that I think about it, I really should have given her a bath last night. Ah, well, there's always tonight.