Four of our boys have birthdays this month. Nolan and Nevin turned 6 on the 18th, Bryson turns 8 on the 29th and Ashton turns 14 on Halloween! October is such a fun month for us! We celebrate and have special traditions all month long!
Last Saturday, we had our 6th Annual Octoberfest! We had beautiful weather and lots of family and friends that joined us to celebrate! We had a pinata, pumpkin painting, face-painting for the kids, and of course, lots of yummy food for everyone! It's such a fun day for everyone, not JUST the birthday boys!
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| The kiddies wait in line to do the pinata |
Time to sing "Happy Birthday"...
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| Nevin |
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| Nolan |
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| Ashton |
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| Bryson |
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| Everyone insisted on singing to Mama too! =) |
I love seeing all of our family mingle! Dave's side and my side all seem to enjoy each others' company and all of the kids get along great!
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| My hubby and awesome in-laws. Seriously, I am one blessed lady to have these sweet peeps in my life! |
On Sunday, we wrapped up our soccer games. We definitely didn't have a winning season, but all of our boys played awesome and had a great time doing it! A couple of our teams didn't have subs, and I will say that our boys played their hearts out! Often times, they would come off the field after a game feeling like they were gonna get sick from so much running! I was proud of them sticking with it and doing their absolute best, no matter what! Unfortunately, I am terrible about taking my camera with me to the soccer games. Scratch that, I am great about taking the camera to the soccer games, it just usually stays in the van during the games!! I never think about it until we are leaving! I did manage to get a couple though! Oh well...
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| This guy is a go-getter on the field! He wears me out just watching him! |
Tuesday was my birthday. Dave and I had celebrated last week with a day trip to Brown County since we knew he had to work on my actual birthday. (Hopefully a post on that trip to come!) I had fun plans to go out to dinner with my BFF and have some girly gab time. Unfortunately, those plans got interrupted when our littlest guy, Tucker woke up in the middle of the night sick! He was throwing up all day, poor guy! Mama needed to stay home and get extra cuddles! Birthdays Shmirthdays!
On Thursday, the kids got out of school early and the weather was PERFECT...upper 70's and sunny! We decided to head over to Curtis Orchard. We try to make it over there every year once Fall rolls around. I am so glad we did too! We had fun just horsing around and taking our time.
And my favorite one of the day....
We also stopped by and visited Dave's dad at work. He works over in Savoy, so we don't usually get to drop in on him with all of the kids. He just happened to have some spare time, so we made a quick stop! It's been a couple years since we made it over, so the little guys were thrilled to try out Papa's desk and get a tour of his workplace. We had a such a nice visit and his co-workers couldn't believe how the kids have grown since we'd last visited! I think Papa's office saw a lot more action than usual that day. A certain curious 6 year old (cough.. Nevin...cough) got his finger stuck in a hole on some post-it notes. We all couldn't quick giggling when we looked over and saw the concerned look on his face as he dangled the whole stack upside down. It was so funny, but I think it was a "you had to be there" type of thing.
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| This was just a cell phone pic, but it was too cute not to post! |
After that, we decided to splurge on a trip to Dairy Queen. This was a first for our kids. With our tight budget, we are usually fans of Mike's Chill or else the $1 cones at Mickey D's! We took them in and let them order whatever they wanted. They were in hog heaven! I asked Nolan if he wanted a blizzard and he replied "What in the world is a blizzard!?!?" I told him it was ice cream with candy mixed up in it. Well, his BIG eyes let me know his answer! He finally settled on an Oreo blizzard and ate every drop of it! Perfect way to wrap up a fun afternoon! =)
On Friday, the kids were out of school and Dave didn't have to work. The temperature had dropped about 40 degrees, so other than a quick trip to the school for parent/teacher conferences, we were completely thrilled to stay in!
Our conferences were first thing in the morning. I just have to say that I LOVE my kids' teachers this year! They are such fun, creative teachers and the kids are loving school. The teachers had SO many nice things to say about our kiddos. ( I really could go on and on, but I will spare you!) It's always so nice to hear, not only how smart they are, but also how they are kind and considerate of other kids. Both of the teachers mentioned that all 3 of my boys were friends to everyone and always wanted to make sure that everyone is happy and taken care of.
We had a nice lunch that afternoon, homemade chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, green beans, and homemade bread. With the cool temps outside and the good-smelling food inside, it made us all anxious for Thanksgiving!
After lunch, we got to carving our pumpkins! Oh my, what fun we had! It's funny, when it comes to carving pumpkins, Ashton and Nevin were totally grossed out by "digging out the guts", as we call it! The other kids all enjoyed it, but NOT those two! In fact, Nevin is our "gagger", so a couple of times, he about lost it! We couldn't help but laugh! He would just watch people pulling out the "guts" and it was all he could do to NOT throw up! He he! Here's a few pics from that day...
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| Even Tuck enjoyed carving pumpkins. He was very direct w/ telling daddy what he wanted him to do. He pointed out exactly where he wanted the "trigangles". =) |
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| Mama helped these guys |
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| The girls particularly liked digging the "guts" out. They were both very creative w/ their pumpkins! Taelyn even gave her pumpkin a mustache! Silly girl! |
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| Finally done! |
Today, we got to go out to Camp Assurance and enjoy our annual church picnic! It was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast! The weather ended up being great... ideal for our hayride! My mom remembered her camera, so we took some cute pictures with it. I will try to post those pics soon! After all, those pics have some very incriminating evidence against our Pastor, who I am sure will say he was perfectly innocent in the "Hay War of 2012". I think we all had hay in places we never thought hay could be! Needless to say, my van needs vacuumed out and the kids all had baths as soon as we got home! =)
I am feeling very blessed this week! I love that God has given us so many friends and family to celebrate the different seasons with!
