Pumpkin Farm

We've made two visits to the pumpkin farm so far this season and still have one to go!

The first one was with the boys' playgroup.

Look closely at Curtis's eyes - you can still see leftover blue from his body coloring episode the day before.

We went back to the same farm three days later with a group from our church.

Curtis got a splinter in his finger at this point, so he wasn't interested in any fun pictures.

So I stepped in. 

Graydon had another scheduled visit to the pumpkin farm with his preschool class.  It was supposed to be today but has been postponed due to rain.  By the time this last visit is complete, we'll have 11 pumpkins on our front porch!  I think we'll be doing some carving pretty soon!

Life: Cell Phone Pics

Our favorite dinner spot when we feel like a little splurge: Bobby's Burger Palace!

The books for our ladies' book club arrived!

A bag of balloons.  Hours of entertainment for my kids who love balloons.  87 cents well spent!

Bella trying on costumes at the Disney Store.  Such a magical place. 

Boys coloring on our Tuesday morning play date. 

I went on a field trip with Graydon's preschool class to the Aquarium.  The turtles were his favorite part.

I think he enjoyed the train ride there just as much!

Curtis and I made some caramel corn together one Friday morning while Bella and Graydon were at school.

Selfies with the kids.  This is me making more of an effort to get in front of the camera with my kiddos.

Andy's interest in archery as resurfaced after many years - and he's getting the kids involved too!

My hydrangeas turn a pretty dark pink every fall.

Morning reading time. 

The boys' new hats for the season. 

Somebody got a hold of my cell phone. 

And somebody else got hold of a blue marker.

"I didn't have any paper." 

"I was just trying to be a super hero." 

Love this crazy life!

Autumn means. . . apple picking!

This is one of my favorite fall traditions.  And this year it got even better.

Every year we pick apples at Johnson's Farm.  It's a really nice farm, but a bit commercial and pricey for my liking.  But we could never really find a better alternative.  Until this year.  I'm not sure why we didn't think of it before.

A friend of the church has a farm stand.  Every year, they donate all of the peaches for our church's peace festival.  On the same plot of land as all of those peach trees are all of their apple trees.  Andy asked if we could go apple picking there - we'd pay for any apples we pick, of course.  Not only did he say yes, he said we could pick for free!  There were no crowds and no getting 'nickle and dimed' anywhere.  Just our family picking apples.  I loved it.

This one makes me laugh.  Looks like Bella has a green mustache.  Didn't realize that until looking at the photos later on.

I see lots of apple pie, apple crisp, apple cake, and applesauce in our near future!

Eleven years!

We celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary this past Saturday. Technically, we didn't actually celebrate it until the next day.  Andy had a meeting in Philadelphia that morning and the kids and I were at Bella's soccer game.  We both had Sunday school classes to prepare for the next day as well as other church preps; so we just decided to have our night out on Sunday.

Our friend Jane came over on Sunday evening to watch the kids.  They all love her and she is so wonderful with them.  Andy and I got dressed up and went Seasons 52.  We sat in the lounge area and were serenaded by a piano player with an Elton John vibe.  Nice atmosphere, delicious food, and a definite step up from our usual date nights that are generally at the Panera Bread level. 

I brought a little "relationship scrapbook" with us that I had given to Andy on our wedding day.  With about a half hour left after dinner until we had to be home, we decided to drive around and park in a vacant lot so that we could look through it.  I'm so glad that I made this book as there are many details from our early days that we would have otherwise forgotten.  Andy turned off his car and turned on the interior lights.  After about 20 minutes of looking through the scrapbook, it was time to head home.  Andy turned the key and NOTHING!  Apparently our 20 minutes with the interior light on drained his car battery.  Since we had parked just a little way up the highway from where we live, we just walked home.  But it's a busy highway.  In our over six years of living here, I have never walked across it.  It's actually known as the most dangerous highway for pedestrians in New Jersey.  I told Andy that we can't die since we haven't completed our wills yet!  Fortunately, we were very careful and the walk only took about 15 minutes.

During our dinner, we were trying to recall each anniversary and what we did.  Things got really fuzzy around years 6, 7, and 8.  Now that we had this tiny car glitch, I think we'll be able to recall year 11 a little easier!