Logan's Portrait of Gramma

Take a look at my little man's drawing of his Gramma:

Notice the fingers and toes! This is the first drawing, other than a smiley face, that Logan has ever done that actually looks like what he intended.

Adventures in the Pumpkin Patch!

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day so Andy and I loaded up the kiddos for a trip to the pumpkin patch.

Andy found a great place about forty minutes away, and after buying our tickets, we headed straight for the corn mazes. We tried to keep Emma and Chloe in their stroller, but were quickly curtailed by the fact that this corn maze was located in East Tennessee and not southern Minnesota (i.e. hills). Luckily we weren’t that far in, so we unloaded the girls and Andy found a parking spot for the stroller.

Andy took the lead and Logan and Chloe stayed close behind him most of the time. I ended up carrying Emma at first, but she eventually wanted to walk too. You would have never have known, though, based on the various grunts and whines escaping for her mouth. Every once in a while I would ask her if she wanted me to hold her hand or carry her and she would tell me “uh uh.”

We finally made it back out of the corn maze with the same number of children we went in with, and I ran to the car to put something away while Andy took the Logan, Emma, and Chloe over to a play area the farm had set up. On my way back, Andy was waving me to hurry up and I just assumed that it was almost time for our hay ride, but when I got back Andy informed me that the police had just chased to people into the corn maze and that we should probably go.

Cue one broken-hearted three-year-old who was geared up for a hay ride to the pumpkin patch and a daddy that ended up with a wet shoulder.

We drove around for a bit pondering what to do and, after producing three lollipops that calmed the broken-hearted down a bit, we decided to get some lunch and then head back to see if corn maze thugs had been caught so we could continue our fall festivities.

An hour later we returned and were glad to see the police cars were gone. We parked right in front of the big red hay ride towing tractor and headed back to the barn to find out if all was well. After confirming the bad guys (or guy and girl in this instance) had been caught, we headed to the “back barn” where there was a huge slide and a very small petting zoo.

Andy took Logan up to the second level of the barn so he could go down the slide. Assuming Emma and Chloe would be terrified to slide down the two story tall black tube that ended with a manmade berm, the girls and I stayed at the bottom to make sure Logan didn’t fly out and over the gravel hill. After one more trip down the slide, we headed into the barn to see the animals.

Chloe was drawn immediately to a “puppy” that looked a lot like a baby goat.

Logan started making slop with some hay and a bucket of water he’d found like he’d been living on a farm all his three years.

Emma enjoyed everything from a distance.

Before we left, Logan finally got his hay ride to the pumpkin patch. Emma and Chloe loved climbing the hay bales until the tractor started. (With the first rumble of the engine, Chloe scrambled onto my lap and Emma headed straight for Andy’s.) A short ride across the field later, we had a chance to pick out our pumpkins and, after our return trip, a very happy Logan told the tractor driver that “that was so much fun!”

If you would like to see some photos from our pumpkin patch adventures, make sure you check them out here.

Family Photo (Thanks Gramma!)

Logan sings his ABCs!

I took this audio clip with my iPhone Sunday night, but couldn't figure out how to post just the audio. So I picked a photo (from our apartment in Minnesota!) and turned the audio clip into a video.

I love that Logan loves to sing!

Photo Updates!!!

I've posted new albums for the Logan, Emma, and Chloe! You can use the links on the sidebar to view each album or you can go to our Smug Mug site to check out the featured albums.

There IS an Arizona.

Andy and I are home after a week in Arizona without the kiddos, our third trip to the state, but our first trip by ourselves since Logan was born.

Let me tell you right now, seven days away from your kids is waaaaaaaay too long.

We left early Thursday morning and, thanks to Arizona’s hatred of Daylight Savings Time, arrived late morning in Phoenix. Since I can’t seem to sleep on planes, I had to relearn how to read more than a few paragraphs at a time in my newly purchased book.

And other than eating at a great Mexican place recommended by a friend, that’s all I can remember about Thursday.

Friday was a day to relax and unwind on my end while Andy attended his conference. I had a hot stone massage. (I’m a fan.) Then, after a long lunch, I got my hair cut for the first time in something like eight or nine months.

It was lovely.

Saturday and Sunday, I hit the road with a friend from Florida whose wife was also attending the conference with Andy. Saturday we saw Montezuma’s Castle (AKA a cliff dwelling), Montezuma’s Well, and the red rocks of Sedona, where I happened to not get struck by lightening. Sunday, we traveled the Apache Trail which included not only gorgeous must-sit-down-to-enjoy vistas, but also places such as the Elvis Memorial Chapel, complete with horror movie posters on the walls, and a bee invested cliff dwelling where we could hear the buzzing from a good fifty feet away.

Monday was another relaxation day. I drank coffee. I read. I sat by the pool.

Tuesday Andy and I headed north to the Grand Canyon. It was a little surreal to leave the desert of Phoenix, drive through the forests of pine trees in Flagstaff, and end up at a place that you can’t fully take in with your eyes, let alone through your camera lens. I was truly at a loss.

It was worth the nearly eight hours round-trip it took. Andy, as a matter of fact, already has our next trip to the canyon planned, including a hike down to the river.

I, of course, took hundreds of photos of all of the above but I may not get to them until our next trip. I’ll post a link here when I do, though.

Wednesday we got up at about three in the morning to catch an early flight home. It was, thankfully, an uneventful trip back. I have to say I was quite excited to find a Caribou Coffee at the Denver airport, though, especially since I had been up for about six hours without a drop of caffeine. We got home in time to get everybody up from their naps. And, honestly, I think the kids were more shocked to see us than anything. It didn’t take long for things to get back to normal, though, and I am completely happy to be home and back with the kiddos.

(Check back with me in about three years.)

Shop till you drop... (video clip)

We went to IKEA today and one certain little girl (Emma) did NOT want to miss a thing. Check it out:

An Ordinary Day

We started today with a trip to the barber since it’s been rather difficult as of late to actually see Logan’s eyes. A quick search on Google pointed us to an actual barber shop that had a choice of a race car or a carousel horse to sit on during the hair cutting process. (Yes, Logan chose the race car. It went with his Lightening McQueen shirt and underwear he had chosen for himself earlier in the morning.)

Have I mentioned Logan is potty-trained, at least during his waking hours?? It happened almost immediately after her turned three.

After the barber, we headed to the mall, a place I loathe yet seem to end up at quite a bit as a mother of three toddlers. I mainly wanted to pick up some photocards I had ordered online, but apparently, sometime in the last eleven years or so, the particular camera shop I was looking for has moved out of the mall.

As I pondered where the store may have moved to, I took the kids to see if it was time for new shoes. Logan was fine, but Emma’s sneakers were a size too small and Chloe’s were nearly two sizes too small! Needless to say, we left the mall with two new pairs of shoes.

At that point, I remembered where I had seen the camera store, so we bought cookies for good behavior and headed back to the car. I think it took the kids less time to eat their cookies than it did for me to load the car up with stroller, diaper bag, etc., and receive comment 5,987,643 from a lady in the parking lot about how I have my hands full.

When we got to the camera store, I didn’t feel like hauling the stroller out again so I braved going into the store without my containment device. (Cue comment 5,987,644 about the fullness of my hands.) I picked up the photocards without incident and we headed back home.

The kids “napped” and I ran two miles.

We had dinner and then Logan and Emma spent the remainder of the evening scooting around the house on a blanket while I contemplated staying one step ahead of them with the floor cleaner. Instead I sat in a chair with a cuddly Chloe and watched my crazy kids entertain themselves with nothing but an old green blanket and their imaginations.

It was a good, if ordinary, day.

An Emma-doodle Update!

Hi everybody! It’s something called August now and Momma said it was my turn to write to you!

Last time I wrote, I was just starting to walk like my big brother Logan. Well, now I am something Momma calls “an old pro.” And guess what? I have a new house to walk around and it has something called stairs! When we first moved to our new house, Momma or Daddy would have to carry me and Chloe up and down the stairs, but now we can climb up and down them ourselves. Sometimes I even try to walk down them, but that makes Momma too excited, so I turn around and crawl the rest of the way.

Guess what else? Momma says I am a chatterbox. I don’t know what “chatterbox” means, but I like to talk. I like the words “duck” and “done” and “mine.” The other day when Daddy got home, I heard him shake his keys, so I yelled “my Daddy!” I also like to sing and when Momma sings “Twinkle, Twinkle” to Chloe at night-night time, sometimes I help. (Chloe helps Momma too when she sings to me.)

Now that we live in a place called Tennessee, I get to see Gramma and Mamaw and Papaw all the time! They come over to our house on Sundays and play with me and Chloe and Logan. Today, after we ate our tacos, we all went outside and played! Papaw pushed me around in our little red car and even let me ride superfast down the hill! It made me giggle a lot, especially when Momma would catch my car at the bottom and push me around in circles. After we played, we came back inside and had ice cream sundaes. I had never had an ice cream sundae before, but I am pretty sure it is the best thing I have ever eaten. I even wanted to lick the bowl, but Daddy said I would get too messy!

I like making messes, though, because I get to clean them up! Sometimes when Momma isn’t watching me, I like to turn my milk cup upside down and bang it on the floor. That makes milk come out of it, so I say “uh oh,” and run to the kitchen. When I get to the kitchen, I go in the bib drawer and get a little washrag out of it to clean up my mess.

I don’t like to clean up my toys after playtime, though.

Oh! You know something else I like? Books! Every morning when I wake up, there are three books in my crib for me to look at until it is time to get up. My favorite book is a big one that has lots of pictures of things in it. Sometimes before night-night time, after I brush my teeth and Momma tells me to pick out a story, I get that big book and make Momma tell me what the pictures are.

Well, Momma says it is way past my bedtime, so I better say night-night now.

Love,

Emma Elizabeth

Blueberry Hill

Last week we got to do something I had wanted to do in June when we were still living in Minnesota: blueberry picking!

The kids and I headed to northeast Tennessee late Wednesday and spent the night with a friend. We then got up super-early, pretended it wasn’t pouring down rain, and drove over the river, through the woods, and up the mountain to a blueberry farm in North Carolina.

Thankfully it wasn’t pouring on top of the mountain, but it did feel like we were up in the clouds. We collected our buckets and were told which row to pick and got started. Logan helped me fill our bucket at first and, luckily, it took a while before it even occurred to him to eat the berries he was picking!

Being that it was wet and muddy, not to mention we were on the side of a mountain, Emma and Chloe spent the first part of our picking adventure in the stroller watching. Every once in a while they would start to fuss about the unfairness of it all and Logan would take them some blueberries. That would make everything okay for about three minutes and then they would start fussing again.

After Logan and I had filled one bucket to the brim with blueberries, I let Emma and Chloe down to explore blueberry hill. Emma headed straight for a bucket while Chloe focused on the berries on the ground. She was less than thrilled when she popped an unripened berry in her mouth, though. (I quickly followed it with a blue berry and all was right once more.)

It got a bit harder to pick berries with three little ones running around, but we managed to fill a few more buckets. Around lunch time it started raining again, so Logan, Emma, and Chloe took a blueberry-eating break under some shelter while I attempted to top off one of the buckets. When we had six full buckets, we called it a day and attempted to scrape the mud off the kids before loading them up for the drive back.

Blueberry picking was a blast and we’ll definitely do it again next year. I believe Emma and Chloe would be happy girls if I only served them blueberries. As a matter of fact, I made blueberry pancakes this morning with some of our crop and the girls picked the berries out of their pancakes instead of eating them whole!

If you want to see any of the photos close-up, you can check them out here.