Fall Break Camping Trip

The kids get a week off at the end of each quarter of school.  Since they started in August, their fall break came at the first week of October.  We decided to take the kids camping because Ron has lots of leave saved up and he could take the time off.  There is a great campsite called Otter Creek, just a few minutes from Post, which is so convenient!!  It was a great campsite, and believe it or not noone else was camping in October on a Tuesday, so we had the whole site to ourselves - SCORE!!

This is what it takes to take a family of 6 camping - family camping as Ron would say.  And to be fair, Ron didn't pack the trailer tight at all, but its still crazy how much stuff you need to go camping.  Bringing Hailey along did add some extra baggage.

 Everyone happily helped set up our campsite - can you tell?

Home sweet home for 3 days

The kids did get a little bored waiting for dinner and luckily we brought some cards along

Did you know that they still sell Jiffy Pop?  And did you know that its yummy popcorn?  It was our kids favorite treat, even over the smores.

 We went on a hike down to the Ohio River.  It was gorgeous country, and Tessa sang songs the whole way.

The mighty O-Hi-O River.  The kids haven't seen rivers this big before.  And I had no idea how long the Ohio River is - goes from Pennsylvania East to Kentucky.

We came back later and tried our hand at fishing.  Tessa loved looking at the worms.

Despite the fact that the kids were suprisingly quiet, we didn't catch a thing.  The kids were pretty bummed.  We must be doing something wrong because we never catch anything.

Despite the lack of success at fishing, we had a wonderful time camping.  We can't wait to go again in the Spring.

FALL BIRTHDAYS

Fall is a busy time for us for birthdays.  Mine is mid September and then Emma and Ron are back to back on the 8th and 9th of October.  For my birthday I was out in Utah running the marathon, so I got to party twice - once with my parents and brothers and sisters, and then with my family.  Ron made me a cake, and it was super yummy!!!  In Utah they bought me one of those double chocolate cakes from Costco (you know the one with the chocolte shavings on top? - Delicious!!) , I was just bummed I only got one slice.   

We had tons of cake and ice cream for almost a week and a half!!  It got to the point that I was asking the kids if they wanted any cake, because I wanted it out of the house!!  Ron got a chocolate cake with whip cream frosting and a vanilla pudding center.  Emma wanted a Barbie Fairy cake from WalMart - yeah! I only had to make 1 cake!!  Ron turned the big 38, Emma turned 9. 

Lots of fun birthday parties!!

Sunrise

We had a gorgeous sunrise the other day.  With the daylight savings coming so late in the year, our sunrise comes after the kids get on the bus.  I suppose one positive of that is I get to see the sunrise, when normally I'd be sleeping!

Halloween 2011

Halloween in Kentucky is awesome because it was perfect Fall weather, 60 degrees and all the beautiful fall colors on the trees.  Unfortunately I was pretty lax with the costumes this year.  Nobody could decide on what they wanted to be, except Zach he wanted to be a ninja.  Tessa wanted to be a fairy princess or a fairy mermaid, and we had everything for that.  So I basically didn't worry about it at all.  Until the day of the Trunk-or-Treat when Tyson and Emma informed me they wanted to be ninjas too.  So back to the PX I went and luckily they still had ninja costumes.  They didn't have one big enough for Tyson, so he had to wear Ron's PT pants because the other ones were WAY too short.  So Tyson and Zach were Ninja Masters and Emma was their apprentice.

 I strongly encouraged Tessa to be a fairy mermaid because her princess costumes are in pretty bad shape.  Thanfully it wasn't much of a fight.  She is my best poser when it comes to taking pictures!!  She is sitting next to her pumpkins.

My Ninja crew.  What is a group of ninja's called anyway?

The time honored tradition of trading candy after the Trunk or Treat.

 Pumpkin carving.  It was really hard to find pumpkins here - no pumpkin patch!!   I couldn't believe it!!  WalMart was almost the only option for pumpkins - so sad!!  We found 2 pathetic ones at a church - the boys didn't want to do pumpkins this year.

Emma's pumpkin was hard as a rock.  Ron almost had to bust out the power tools just to carve it (of course he liked that idea), but Emma was pretty bummed that she couldn't carve her own pumpkin - can you tell?

I love our trees, they turned a beautiful shade of yellow.

What a crazy group I have.

Veterans Day

On the actual Veterans Day we celebrated Tessa's birthday.  But on Saturday we went to the Veterans Day Parade.  Emma walked in the parade with her Girl Scout Troop.  It was a fun parade, and we got more candy then we did on Halloween!  I think everyone was trying to get rid of their left over Halloween candy - and we benefited.

Tessa is a total ham waiting for the parade to start.  We had an hour to kill before it started,so we got donuts and chocolate milk.

The Fort Knox Army Band was awesome.  There are several Jr. ROTC companies from the local High Schools, and they looked fantastic marching in their uniforms.

Emma loved throwing the candy to the crowd.

We had a great time.

Tessa Turns 5 (sort of)

My baby is 5!!  I really can't believe it.  I remember so clearly the day she was born, and how I would just sit and hold her all day long when she was a newborn - cherishing every second with her.  She is such a joy to our family, and so full of life.  She is in preschool every day, and it is so fun to listen to her talk about school and watch her learn and discover new things every day.  We absolutely love her to pieces. 

We celebrated her birthday on November 11th, even though her actual birthday isn't until December 11th.  I just like being able to focus completely on her birthday and not have it mixed with Christmas; and it helps that she doesn't know any different.

We started the day with m&m pancakes.  She kept asking us to sing the "Happy Birthday" song to her.  She wanted her birthday to last for "lots of day!" 

She absolutely loves balloons, so they were a must have for her special day. 

 There was no school on her birthday so we let her open one present in the morning.  We decided to give her the BIG present first - her princess scooter.  She was so excited!!

Chocolate birthday cake with chocolate frosting was her order.  She wanted it to be a Barbie Fairy cake so we threw on one of her toys.  (I really need to learn how to make cool cakes, but at least they taste really good)

Her two favorite presents were the scooter and a teddy bear that her new BFF gave her.  She loves telling everyone that she is 5 now. 

She is my little angel.