Fall

I have gotten so far behind in my blogging (that's what a crazy busy life does to you) that I have to start blogging by seasons... My New Years resolution will be to blog at least once a month.

Now that school is almost half over, here is a picture of Janie and Aaron on

their first day of school.

We love the fall here. This year the weather was great, fairly warm, and the kids had so much fun playing in the PILES of leaves our trees shed. Everyday after school they wanted to jump in the leaves.

The pile of leaves below was one of two that we had. Filled up 37 bags this year!! Still love the fall it's just a lot of work!


At the Pumpkin Patch getting our three pumpkins, that we ACTUALLY carved this year! I am so lame, but my memories of cleaning and carving out pumpkins was that it was WAY time consuming, so I've never done it with the kids. They have so many great tools now, it was so easy and actually a lot of fun.

HALLOWEEN!! A kitty cat and a bat!

Once Aaron puts his mind to something he wants he doesn't change it. He wanted to be a vampire bat, and there was no persuading him otherwise. It was actually a easy costume to make. The wings were a pain for the parties we were at, but isn't he the cutest bat!

Kids, where are you sleeping?

The other night I got home from a meeting around 10:00. I came in the house to find Jay asleep in the family room watching TV, with his death grip on the remote. I have to note for this story we have been sleeping in the basement for a couple of days because of how warm it's been. Plus there has been a lot of tornado watches so we figured we'll be cooler in the basement and safer! So I stroll down the stairs to check on my sleeping kids... No kids in the guest room where their bed was set up.

So I hike up the stairs to their bedroom to tuck them into their own beds.... No kids.

I start turning on lights everywhere, checking under their bed (where I have found them before), I check in our bed-(where they turn up too many times) No Kids.

I check in the "comfy white chair" (which is where they to sneak to when they don't want to fall asleep in their beds)...No KIDS!

At this point my crazy mind starts thinking, while Jay's been sleeping someone came in our house and stole our kids!! I run around turning on and off lights in search of them. Seriously where could they be??

I go in the basement for one last look before I call the police about my stolen children and as I look all around the couch in the basement, I notice movement. The kids have set up a small fort, which I didn't think could fit two kids, but they had managed to not only set up the fort but set up their beds inside it too. There they were fast asleep.

The next morning I encourage them to make a bigger fort, because I had to do some moving around the night before so Janie's feet weren't in Aaron's face ALL night. I helped a little but the kids came up with some VERY creative things, like how to hang their flashlights, thanks to our oversized MIckey Mouse and Janie's tennis shoes.



After we "added on" to the first fort, much more roomie!



See how the shoe is tied to Mickey? The rest of the lace is in the tent with a flashlight tied to it, like a hanging light bulb, kids did it on their own!! Smarties!!

Travel Log = Wisconsin/Chicago

Okay, so this really is a travel log of a blog... say that 5 times fast. I have to blog about it so when I go to do a scrapbook I have some memories written down and I'm not relying on my brain to keep these things for months until I get around to scrapbooking.

Off to Wisconsin we go...

Jay had a work function in East Wisconsin at Lake Genova. It's about 6 hours from our house, so we decided that we would all pile in the car and make a mini vacation out of it. Jay went to the conferences while the kids and I hung out at the pool, went to the indoor waterpark, I mean what's wrong with that?? : ) That's a vacation for me! Plus Jay was very generous and gave me his $100 hotel credit he got for attending the conference so I could use it at the spa, yippie!!!

The kids and I relaxing in the hammock.


Janie going down the slide and remembering to pose for a picture!


I was proud of Janie for doing this, I thought for sure she would think it was too hard! Go Girl!

After 3 days in Wisconsin we figured we should go to Chicago since we were only an hour and a half away. Chicago has a lot to do, but EVERYTHING cost money, especially parking, parking parking!! It was nice though, because our museum membership here has reciprocal memberships to most of the museums in Chicago so we didn't have to pay for any of those. One of the best museums I have ever been to for kids, is the Children's Museum on Navy Pier in Chicago. We didn't get there until late afternoon and boy do we regret that. We only went to three exhibits in 2 hours and both the kids and us adults were thoroughly entertained. I know it may say something about Jay and I's simple minds, but seriously it was really cool!

Great trip again we hope Jay does well, so next year we can all go again!!


Jay, Janie, Aaron and Sue (the T-Rex!)


Janie and Aaron with their "jet packs" on.


Firefighter Aaron and his dog, daddy