Trick or Treat!!!!

Well I just can't believe that Halloween has come and gone. We had a lot of fun though. As usual, the church held the normal Trunk or Treat but it was on Tues the 27th. So we dressed up and headed to that. It was indoor this year due to the rain but it was just as fun. The kids and Jason and I dressed up as a group theme as usual. I did forget my camera that night so sorry no pics from that. There were other people taking pictures of us b/c they really liked our costumes. So maybe I can snatch some of those from them.

I did make the costumes myself except for a few obvious things. It really didn't take that long but I just kept procrastinating and it wasn't finished until that day. Yeah I know that that's pretty bad...I just kept putting it off. BUT I did finish it!!!! And they were pretty cute.

On that Thursday night, the 29th, there was a Halloween Story time and Trick or Treating at the downtown library. I heard lots of people saying how pretty Ariel's (Maddie) fin was. Only the kids dressed up for that one. After those two events, I had to come up with a better idea for Maddie's shell bra b/c she kept having problems with it. I used real shells and so it was pretty heavy and kept pulling the shirt down. And one popped half way off, in which case I called it the "Janet Jackson Costume Malfunction". But since I had a few more days before actual halloween night then I made Maddie a new shirt that was made out of thicker material. It worked a little better.

Well since we had nothing keeping us in Greenville that weekend, we decided to go to the Halloween Party at our old ward in Fayetteville. It was on Halloween night and started at 4. We had chilli then there was a haunted house and the truck or treat. We also received lots of complements on our costumes. After the church party, we went Trick or Treating with our friends the Bremmer's. They dressed up as characters from Peter Pan. Their newest member was Tinkerbell while Ethan was Capt. Hook. But Maddie called him her "Prince Eric" which is Ariel's sweetheart from the movie. LOL It was cute. We walked around their neighborhood and Jason's mom, Sharon came along too.

I'm affraid that we didn't get any real good pictures of all of us but here's a few just so you can see what we looked like.

Our Family Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday (Fri.), Jason and I took the kids to a local pumpkin patch. We usually go to Briley's Patch for Strawberries (in the spring) and Pumpkins (in the fall). We decided to go to a new one called Brock's Berries and Pumpkins. It was small but the owners were so nice. Mr. Brock took all of us on a hayride and let us feed corn to the goats. He was such a sweet guy. We had a good time. The weather was nice. We let the kids look at the pumpkins. They had some HUGE ones. We had never seen pumpkins that big in real life before. We took tons of pictures so of course I have added some. It's so hard these days to catch a picture with both kids either looking at the camera or getting them to smile, so these aren't the greatest but are the best of what I got.



Our family at Brock's Pumpkin Patch.



The kids sitting on top of the HUGE pumpkins.



Madison and Jonas together.

I like the sign in back of picture 2. "Goodness Grows in NC"
All 4 of us were "grown" in NC. I guess we are GOODNESS!!!!


Jason and I with the famous huge pumpkins!!



The kids on the hayride. Notice their halloween shirts. Joey's is a Mummy that says "Mmmm, CANDY!!!" And Maddie's is of her FAVE animal, an OWL!!! I love my CUTE babies!!


Look at my two hillbilly kids. I love Maddie's expression. She's so funny. Both of them look so serious.


Here is the real Maddie aka Miss Priss!!! But what a little cutie.




Jonas enjoyed throwing the hay everywhere. He'd rip it out of the bales and then throw it and laugh. He loves being destructive. My baby boy!!!



Here's a picture of the goats that we got to feed corn too. The kids really enjoyed it. I don't have any pictures of them doing it but I have a video, though it's too long to add on here.

Well that was our trip to the pumpkin patch this year. We enjoyed it and we all have our pumpkins and are ready to carve them. It will be interesting to see what we all decide to carve them into. Maddie is requesting an owl again this year, which is no surprise. :o)
I'm glad to have this fall weather here. It's just so refreshing after that hot, humid summer!! HAPPY FALL YA'LL!!!!!

5K for Leo Jenkins Cancer Center

Last weekend, Jason participated in a 5K . It was to raise money for the Leo W. Jenkins Cancer Center here in Greenville. When we all got there we found out that the kids were able to participate in a Kids Dash, in which Maddie did. Here are pictures of Jason during his run...

Here are the pictures of Maddie during her Dash. She was the youngest participant.

I just want to say how proud I am of both of them. I was so extremely proud of Madison. She was so into it that after she had finished she wanted to run some more. What a cutie!!

Drinking and Driving

Jonas likes this little John Deere Buck Truck that Sharon got him. Here's a couple of pictures that I caught of him riding on it.

Look at that smile!!! Awww, I could just eat him up!!

And yes, here's the evidence of his DUIm (Driving Under the Influence of Milk)!!! We started him early. Hope we can break this habit before it shows up on his record. LOL

Check out what his shirt says...My Daddy's a Stud too. I love this shirt. I bought it even before he was born. I had to have it. I just knew he was going to be a cutie just like his handsome Daddy!!! ;o)

My Little Dancing Queen

Today was Maddie's first day in Tap and Ballet. As some of you know, she has been taking gymnastics, though she wasn't to happy about it. She was excited about it initially but when she started going she didn't like it. She does have 2 weeks left of gymnastics but we went ahead and started her in dance classes. So like I said, today was her first day...and she LOVED it. She left there saying she wanted to go back next week. I was so excited, she never said that about gymnastics.

Well here are some pictures of her all decked out and ready for class. Isn't she precious?!?!?!?!

She's really good at dancing on her tippy-toes!! Maybe we'll have a little ballerina, yet!!

Maddie in her tap shoes. (Courtesy of Sharon. Thank you, GaGa)

Here are her pink tap shoes. She's the only one with pink ones but she ADORES them. They are pink with glitter, it just screams MADISON!!! LOL

Maddie walking into the dance building. She was so ready to go that she told me that she could go all by herself. Already to big for her pink lil' britches!! LOL

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Maddie with her other dancing friend just as class was starting.

Maddie had a great time and loved it. She looked so cute all dressed in pink. PINK leotard, PINK tights, PINK tutu, PINK hair ribbons, and 2 pairs of PINK shoes...as Maddie would say, She was PINKILICIOUS!!!!

OMG!!!!

I can't believe it has been almost a month since my last blog. I have to fess up and tell you that I have been "sucked" into the Facebook world. It's been a month or so now that I have been a member and so now the newness has worn off. So a-blogging we will go....

I know that I have some catching up to do but I know that when I go back and catch up that my blogs always turn it novels so if it makes you feel any better, we haven't really had much going on so that means not so much to blog about.

I will tell ya a little about today. It has been a good day, an easy going day. It's just me and the kids today. Oh yeah, I guess you may not know but for the last 2 weeks Jason has been on his ED rotation at Bertie County Memorial (it's about an hour away from here). His schedule for this rotation is like this: Works Tues, Thurs, Sat from 8am until 8 am the next day. Then the week after that he'll only work one day and goes back to the 3 days. So he has an easy week and then a busy week and goes back and forth until the 6 weeks is over. So his first 2 weeks have been very slack but today was his first day of his first busy week. So he's been home a lot which in some ways are good but it's challenging too.
Anyway, it's just me and the kids today. While Jonas was taking his nap (he's pretty much just down to one nap a day now), Maddie and I worked on her Halloween outfit. She is super excited about it. I think she's more excited about her costume than getting candy. If you know us then you know that we ALL love to dress up for Halloween. So I'll be working on all of those as Halloween approaches. I"m not going to tell ya what we are planning on dressing up as, we love to keep it a secret. I don't know why but we do. I'll probably slip up at some point but I'll try not to. Anyway we started making it this morning, made a pattern and then measured and cut fabric and all that. Later, I started the sewing part. It looked so cute. I had Maddie try it on for me...UH OH!!!! It didn't fit. I don't know how I could have done that. I was so mad at myself. I wanted it to be fitted but I guess I just didn't measure right. So what does that mean? That means spending more money to buy more fabric. That makes me so mad. Well anyway, I"m not going to dwell on it.
Other than that, today was good. We played outside. We had great weather. It was nice and cool but not cold. I love it. Fall is here!!!! The kids were good today. Not too much drama in the house today. It was just a simple but good day.

Our busy month of August

Well our month of August begin with a trip to Fayetteville. August 1st was the weekend of Jason's birthday so we went to spend time with the family. We mostly just hung out and went swimming at David and Tresea's. Here's some pix...


Jonas and Maddie sharing a float.

Maddie has finally found that jumping into the pool is fun...as long as the float is there.

Jonas likes to jump too but you gotta catch him or he won't be HAPPY!! But here in this picture, he's happy...look at that smile.


Daddy cheerleading with Jonas and Maddie. This is Maddie doing her Lib.


Jonas likes to swim around for a bit but then he just likes to hang out in the float.


Maddie likes for Daddy to swing her around in the water and make big waves.


This picture was taken on Sunday morning as everyone else was getting ready for church. Maddie found these tanning goggles and snuggled up with Patches in Granddaddy's bed and was watching some TV. It was a funny site and it made us laugh.

The next weekend we hung out at home and played on the Slip N' Slide. We had a good time. I got on it too but no pics of that, thank goodness. Here's some pictures and videos too.


Jonas drinking the water that is squirting up. He was so thrilled with that.


You've gotta double click on this picture to see just what it is that I'm taking a picture of...Can you say "WEDGIE"!!! LOL


Daddy and the kids just hanging out.

Jonas sliding down with Daddy.

Ready, set, GO!!! SWOOSH!!!

Jonas making a SPLISH!!

Maddie making a SPLASH!!


Daddy making a SPLISH and a SPLASH!!

Here are the videos...They aren't anything special. I took it with the camera instead of the actual video camera so they are very poor quality but at least I have them.





Maddie's dancing cracks me up in this one.

During that same week we went to the park. It was a semi-mild humid morning, so we ventured out to the park. So here's just a few of the kiddos playing there.

Maddie likes to swing in these big swings.(They are actually made for handicap kids)
She also just had to play in the wet sand and get all nasty.



Jonas riding on the bug and alligator. I love the first picture. He just looks so excited!!


Maddie and Jonas sharing a ride with 2 other kids. Just so happened that these other kids were in Maddie's Pre-School class. Seamus and Claire are their names and they are twins. They are very sweet kids.


Jonas enjoying the bouncy ride that Maddie is giving him. Maddie likes that Jonas is big enough now to ride with her.


Jonas making some chimed music. He went crazy on this thing once he realized what it did. He was just beating them all together and laughing. He enjoyed himself!!!

The next day I let Maddie play outside with her finger paints and after I had finish putting Jonas down, I come out to see THIS...

First picture was the face of Opps, I got caught. And then she so proudly showed me her paintings on paper and herself. I'm just glad it was outside. :o)

Here's just some random pictures from through out that week.

Maddie being silly with a Mr.Potato Head mustache stuck in her nose.
Maddie playing with her LeapPad that GiGi gave her for her birthday. She plays with it a lot. Her favorite game is the princess one of course.

Jonas playing hair dresser while Maddie is trying to concentrate and do her LeapPad.

(Picture#1) Jonas sitting at Maddie's little desk working hard on a beautiful picture. Doesn't he look big just sitting there and coloring? (Picture#2) I bought these boots for Maddie but I think Jonas wears them the most. He just likes to play around in them as you can see.

The following week the kids and I went for a visit to my parents. I went so that I could go to a Open House for a friend of mine that had gotten married out west a few weeks before. I also got to see my BFF, Cathryn and we took the kids (her 2 and my 2) to Chuck E Cheese. Though I enjoy seeing my family and friends, it was not a good trip up there. The kids didn't even fall asleep until like 45 mins before I got there and it's a 4 (that turned into a 5) hour drive. After that I remembered why I don't drive there without Jason. Luckily, the drive home wasn't as bad, not good but not as bad. Here's 2 pics of Maddie playing dress up in my sisters old play stuff.

Silly Little Maddie, but a cute one.

We drove home the 4 hours on Sat and then on Monday was Jonas' appt at Duke so then I had to drive the kids 2 hours to Durham for that. On the way up there, I gave Maddie one of those Handi-Snacks Cheese and Stick things and she took the cheese and smeared it all over her arms and face and some on Jonas' cheeks. The appt took longer than usual so we didn't get out until after lunch time. So that means that they were tired and hungry. I stopped at a McDonald's and let them eat and play for a while. This made them full bellied and exhausted so they actually fell asleep in the car, which they rarely do now. After we got home, a few other things happened that caused me to lose all sanity. Maddie took her sippy cup and splashed her cranberry juice all over the floor. Then later while Maddie was going poopoo, she allowed her little brother to play in the toilet. This is the point of where I LOST it. I screamed and yelled and punched the wall, I was just so angry. Everything had just been building up over the last week or so that the POOP did me in. There was poop all over Jonas and Maddie and smeared around the bathroom. I knew that he was in there with her but I just never thought that I'd come to find that!! But we did all live through that experience...barely.

Here's some more random pictures of the middle of the month.

Daddy taking Joey and Maddie on a little ride around the back yard on the motorcycle.
In picture 3 is Jonas crying b/c he wasn't finished riding. This boy LOVES the motorcycle.


First pic is of Maddie with her sunflower that was planted on Earth Day (April 22) and now it's as tall as her. Second pic is of a weather confused girl with a summer dress and toboggan on.



The kids taking turns swinging on a tree branch here in the front yard.


One of very few pictures of me...but I was giving Jonas a piggy back ride. He enjoyed it. (Please ignore that I look like crap and a little on the WT side.)


Daddy helped our little monkeys climb the tree. Maddie climb up pretty far without much help but a little scared about coming down.


My handsome little fellow. First picture if you look close you can see that he has a paci in both hands and the obvious one in his mouth. And as you can see, he's already a Tar Heel fan too. Cute HUH?

First picture is of him folding his arms for the prayer. What a sweetie!! He has started mumbling too when we say prayers. He's trying to say his own. I''m sure the Lord knows what he's saying and that's all that matters. :o) Second picture is of him after we told him to close his eyes.



Here's Jonas playing in his room like a good little boy. I love the first picture, the way he's got his chin resting on his hand while he's playing. That's so cute!! Pic3 he's making his animals sounds.
After he was all done playing with his barn set he decided to read a book.

Well we are finally at the end of August Updates. The last thing that happened in Aug was Jason's Triathlon and I'm going to blog about that separately. And I'll just go on from there. Sorry this was so long but I don't want to leave anything out for my own future use. This is kinda like a journal for our family so that's why there's so much in it. Thanks for reading!!!

I never want to see pancake syrup again!!!

Ok so this is the second time that this has happened except this time it wasn't just one child but two. Today I was just gonna take a few minutes to post an ad for David and Tresea on Kijiji.com so that they could sell their birds. After a couple of minutes, Maddie comes in here to the computer where I am and is smacking her hands together and I can see that they are all sticky. And I looked at her and said, "PLEASE tell me that isn't syrup!" Then she laughs and runs put of the room. I go to check out the damage and there sits an empty 24 ounces of bottle of pancake syrup. Both of my children are standing in the puddle of it, just stomping up and down. Thankfully, most of it was on the area rug in the living room. I was angry but I didn't yell...I just looked at Maddie and said, "WHY did you do this?" And she said Jonas did it. Now she does already understand how to put the blame on her little brother but I did believe her when she said that it was Jonas b/c for some reason when the cabinet is open, that's the first thing he goes for. When we do have pancakes, I don't give him syrup so it's not like he knows what it is and he just wants it. I think that he just likes it b/c he likes to flip the lid open and closed. We do have child locks on the cabinets but there's one that doesn't and it just happens to be the one right next to the one that has the syrup in it and so as they have done before, I guess they reached through the "unlocked" one and grabbed the bottle.
Anyway, so after I found the mess, I grabbed the rug and threw it out on the patio and then grabbed the kids and threw them in the bath. And like I said, I have been through this before when Maddie was about Jonas' age now. I had taken Jason breakfast in bed on a Sunday morning and forgot to take the syrup back into the kitchen and she had gotten a hold of it while Jason and I were getting dressed for church. That time I had jumped on the computer and "googled" the best way to get it up. So that's the same way I did it this time...just diluting it with water and soaking it up. It worked pretty well. The only thing left are just spots you can't see but you can feel the stickiness when you are barefoot, I guess it's from the kids running around after pouncing in the puddle. So then I made both of them go to there beds and have quiet time and it ended up that they both fell asleep. WOO HOO!!! So then I went outside to spray off the rug and was hoping that it would come out easily. I'll have to see how it looks after it is fully dry. I'm hoping that we won't start having those tiny ants everywhere. One good thing is that we are only in this apartment for another few months and then we won't have to worry about that spot anymore. I just hope that nothing like this happens in a house that is finally ours. I know I usually grab my camera when things like this happen but today I was a little more worried about it seeping into the carpet so no pics of soppy, syrupy kids and carpet, SORRY!!! I'm just glad that we all made it through it alive and somewhat sane. And I say that with a smile :o)!!