November News!

Believe it or not, November is already halfway over. We have been totally excited about the month of November too-- when my friend was over on Halloween night, Lucy said, "Tomorrow is going to be the BEST DAY EVER!" Confused, my friend asked, "Don't you mean right now is going to be the best day ever because it's Halloween?!?" Lucy replied, "No, I mean November 1st, because it means I get to see my Grandma and Grandpa this month!" And that certainly is better than Halloween!

 The leaves turn SO beautiful right at the beginning of November, but don't last very long. The tree right in front of our house turns this amazing fiery red, but it's so hard to capture fall colors on camera. Oh well. The kids are still cute dressed up and ready for church!

 This past Saturday we took a picnic and walk along the reservoir trail in Southern Pines, while the kids rode their bikes. They had a great time and the weather was a balmy 70 degrees, so it was nice to enjoy some fresh air. I'd prefer it a little cooler this time of year, but I'm sure I'll be eating my words when we end up somewhere cold and snowy in another year or two.

 The trail is about 2 miles long with some elevation gain, and Lucy was a total stud and rode her bike the whole way around without complaining or getting tired. Zach on the other hand made it about halfway and then Jon and I had to take turns pushing Leah in the stroller and Zach on his bike.

 Ahhhhh, life in the swamp. Perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, snakes, and spiders. And speaking of snakes, that very afternoon Jon had to remove a 2 ft. long corn snake (?We think?) from our very own backyard! At least there are no gators, right?

 Leah sat awesome in her stroller the entire time, mostly thanks to the chocolate chip cookie we sneaked her before we started.

 Ain't she purty?

 After our little outdoors excursion, we checked out the new Aldi grocery store just opened up in Aberdeen. Just goes to show you how starved people are for anything new to do around here-- but last Saturday at its grand opening the line to get in was out the door!! It's just an Aldi, people! Imagine what a Target or Toys R Us would do to the excitement level around here...

 We decided to cap the night off with a little bonfire and the quintessential roasting of the s'mores.

 Zach was more than happy to oblige by eating his weight in chocolate. I have to keep an eye on him whenever the good stuff is out in the open-- he'd mowed through about 1 1/2 Hershey's bars before I caught him red-handed!

 Leah also had no problem contributing to the depletion of our marshmallow and chocolate supplies.

 Jon the Mountain Man taming the fire! He is hands-down the world's BEST marshmallow roaster. I don't know how he does it, but he gets them perfectly golden on every surface, every time. They sploosh magnificently! 

 All dressed up for church in her new birthday dress!

She's still not walking, and surprisingly I'm really glad. I think if it were the other two I would be kind of annoyed-- like, "Come on and walk already!" since she's sooooo close. But since she's the baby, at least for awhile, I'm glad she's content to just crawl around the house following me wherever I go.:) Happy November!

It Was Scary, But It Wasn't Halloween!

Scary Story No. 1:

This is a black widow spider. Want to know how I'm so certain it's the infamous black widow? Easy; I saw one. The forecast was calling for freezing temperatures on Thursday night, so as I was pulling out my petunias from the flower pots by the front door in preparation, one of the above little guys scurried out right next to my hand to say "hello." I know they're pretty common in the South East, but this is the first one I've seen. Naturally I didn't even have my shoes on to step on it, and my little Leah was playing right next to me, but at the sight of its tell-tale crimson hourglass I smashed it with a nearby broom and that was that. It just makes me sooooo much more wary to leave our strollers and beach stuff, etc., in the dark corners of the garage! Eek!

Scary Story No. 2:

The other night while I was cooking dinner, I assigned Zachary the task of watching Baby Leah. That was probably my first mistake. I had just finished pulling out some raw chicken from a Ziploc baggie, and chopped a few of the fattier pieces off and then thrown it all into the trash. Next thing I knew, I turned around to find Leah playing with the sticky chicken juice bag and she had the pieces of raw chicken stuffed in her mouth! GAG! I was totally freaked out that she was going to get food poisoning or salmonella, but the 36 hour incubation period has long since passed and gratefully, no sickies! Phew! That girl is unequivocally the cause of all these gray hairs I keep finding...

Happy Birthday Leah!

Happy Birthday to our beautiful, indomitable, Southern belle-- Miss Leah Gene! One year ago today, after a very looooong sleepless night for mom and dad, this little lady made her way into the world at 4:47 a.m. and joined our family.

  

This is one of the first pictures we took of Leah, and it turned out to be quite telling. Here she is, literally minutes after birth and she's wide-eyed, alert, and facing life head on. Not much has changed!

And here she is exactly one year later. It's amazing how you can love such a little person so, so much. She has spent the last 12 months bringing joy, laughter, spunk, and attitude to our home. I have to admit, I was a pretty content mommy with just Lucy and Zach to take care of, but I knew we always said we wanted "one more." I remember feeling so nervous back when I was pregnant with Zach-- that "what if" I didn't love my second child as much as you adore that first baby, and "what if" I can't give my first the same amount of attention when the new baby comes, and they suffer as a result of it? I remember Jon's Grandma Cardon gave me some pretty profound words of wisdom. She said, "Always remember that love never divides, it only multiplies." And that has been true not once, not twice, but three times over. I think our capacity to love only expands with each little baby! When I see my kids playing with each other, and looking out for one another, it melts my heart, and Leah has absolutely been a missing piece in our family puzzle!

 We started the day like any other: Up at 6:30 a.m. to get the older two kiddos ready for school and out the door by 7:15 a.m.  After a nap and a trip to the gym, we headed to lunch at Panera (mommy's special treat on this day, since one year ago she was practically a zombie). Leah loved the broccoli cheddar soup! 

 We had to wait until daddy got home before the festivities could officially begin, which was much, much harder on Lucy and Zach, than it was on Leah who was mostly oblivious to what was going on. We started with presents first! 

 She definitely liked the ripping-the-paper-to-shreds part, as she causes complete and total mayhem wherever she goes these days, but when she discovered there were TOYS beneath the paper she got very excited!

 With a little help from Lucy and Zach she got them all unwrapped and was super excited about her stuffed dog. She LOVES animals-- especially dogs. Look at that little grin with all those teeth!

Playing with her new birthday present-- the balls pop out of the top and roll out the mouth. Oh yeah! **insert Vector hip thrust**

 Time for cake and ice cream! I'm almost embarrassed to post the pictures of my kids' birthday cakes-- cake decorating is obviously not my forte, but it goes into the blog book for them to see many moons down the road, so here it is. Jon came home from work and asked, "Why did you make her a reindeer?" Guh. It's a d-o-g.  The cookies on top are floppy ears, not antlers!

 Oh well. It might not have been a good-looking cake, but I made up for it with a good-tasting one. Singing Happy Birthday! 

 I knew Leah would have no problems feeding herself the cake-- look at those two-fisted handfuls of cake being shoved in her mouth! Atta girl! She has definitely got a sweet tooth.

 And not even five minutes later.... Party's over! Cake chucked overboard onto the floor, and the kid's ready to dance on top of the table.

 Zach-O and Lucy liked my cake, and Lucy helped with the decorations. They are such nice siblings-- they absolutely adore Leah and she has them wrapped around her little finger. She figured out pretty quickly that if she squeals, and squeals loudly, she gets whatever she wants!

 A quick bath to wash off all the chocolate and it's off to bed for the birthday girl!

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEAH! I am so thankful to Heavenly Father for the opportunity to be this little girl's mama-- we are truly blessed to have her as a part of our family.

And one more for fun since I'm walking down memory lane tonight. Isn't she precious?!? (Don't mind me in the background-- I'm just gettin' ready to have my epidural ripped out of my spine, thanks). Love you, Leah!

Halloween 2013

Happy Halloween! Seems like Halloween was slowly beginning to take over our lives-- so I'm kind of relieved it's finally November. Now we have a couple of weeks to get back to our normal routine before Thanksgiving and Christmas hit!  

 Wednesday evening we had a pizza party and carved the pumpkins we got at the pumpkin patch last weekend. Unfortunately they were a bit mushy (it's been hot here! In the upper 70's all week), but Lucy was determined to do hers all by herself-- and true to her word she mucked it out and poked the holes. 

 I finished my jack o' lantern (in honor of Leah's little grin) fairly quickly, and Jon finished Zach's Batman pumpkin in a snap, so meanwhile we watched "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" cartoon while Lucy finished poking her holes. Leah loved the Headless Horseman part-- it had very exciting music!

 Jon did the carving on Lucy's beautiful owl pumpkin, and all 3 turned out great! I think one of my favorite scents of Halloween is that faintly cooked pumpkin smell when you've left a burning candle inside for a little while. Reminds me of my childhood!

 On Halloween night we threw a party and invited our friends the Durtschi's over. I hardly ever go all out on things like this, but I got excited about some of the things I'd seen on Pinterest, so the kids and I had a blast getting ready. Here are our "Witchy Fingers"--sugar cookies with cocoa powder dusted over, and a slivered almond for a fingernail.

 Chocolate dipped Oreo cookie brains and eyeballs. 

 Donut Vampires! 

 Monster Mouths with apples, peanut butter, and marshmallows (probably the only slightly healthy item on the menu).

Mummy Dogs and "Three Witches Potions" (cream soda and root beer). We also had taco soup which I loaded with veggies to make up for the complete lack of vitamins in this meal, ha, ha. It's only once a year, right?

Poor Zach could not wait to dig in, and asked like every 20 min. all day long if he could have an eyeball, or a donut, etc. I had some friends post on Facebook yesterday how much they hate Halloween, but I love that Halloween is so fun for kids! I really don't have a problem with all the candy and costumes, etc. I guess it does make more work for me, but it's nice to see my kids happy!

 Lucy and Lizzie drinking their potions and chowing down on mummy dogs before the main event.

All the kids lined up and rearin' to go trick or treating. So cute!

 Lucy and Lizzie are two very beautiful witches!

 My little Minion! She was very tired and lasted about 2 houses in the stroller, and then was a good sport as long as she was being carried. Jon had competed in a 6 mile "Zombie Rucksack Run" on base earlier that day with the Special Forces guys, where they have to run with a backpack weighing 30 lbs., so he was exhausted. And he finished in 3rd place. I know. He's awesome. But it meant I got stuck carrying Leah on our 90 minute trick or treating trek, and she's heavy! I kept remembering last year when I was hugely pregnant and lugging that kid around, so it put it in perspective. And then she was born 1 week later! 

 My little ghosties all set to cover some serious ground. I love Zach's action pose!

Aaaaand 2 miles, 90 minutes later. Zach ended up riding in the stroller, but Lucy and Lizzie walked, er, or ran at breakneck speed the whole time and were absolutely exhausted by the time we finished. The houses in our neighborhood are seriously far apart-- so they had to work for that candy! You can see how full their buckets are though, so it was worth it. Happy Halloween! 

Things Are Getting Spooky Around Here!

This weekend was very Halloween-y. We missed Lucy's school Trunk or Treat while we were in Pennsylvania, so to make up for the tragic loss of candy we headed to Jon's work Trunk or Treat at Pope Air Force Base on Friday night. The kids were soooo excited to finally have an excuse to don their costumes.

 Little Zach-O finally narrowed his costume choices down to the one and only Batman! Doesn't he look tough?

  Lu decided to be a witch. In her own words: "I want to be a good witch, but a little bit scary, but mostly beautiful!" Just try and impress your 6 year old with THAT make-up demand!

 And together they formed one awesome crime-fighting, er, candy collecting team!

 Just had to nab one more shot of those beautiful blue eyes! I love my little super hero. I'm going to be so sad the day he stops really believing he has super powers when he puts his costume on.

 We got there a little early so we could decorate our trunk. I wish I had been a little more creative and prepared with our decorations than the last minute, mad-dash, panicked trip to the Dollar Tree would indicate, but Lucy helped me set everything up and she said it looked pretty good. It was non-scary and kid-friendly at least, unlike some of the other trunks. Sheesh!  

 Aaaaand my little goober. We dressed Leah up like a Minion from Despicable Me, and she was seriously SO. CUTE! I thought for sure she'd be pulling at the hat and goggles all night, but she left them on and was such a good sport to my very pleasant surprise. She just loved being in the thick of the action.

There was even a Despicable Me trunk, so we had to get her picture with Gru and Agnes!

 There weren't very many kids, but there was TONS of candy, so it was the perfect formula for mass pandemonium: Costumes+ kids+ trick or treating+cupcakes+bounce houses= 1 AWESOME Halloween party!! Now, who says I can't do math?!? 

 Saturday afternoon the weather was crisp and cool and absolutely beautiful, and the countryside was calling our name! We decided to drive up the road and take a hayride to pick some pumpkins.

 We recruited our friends the Durtschi's to help us make it even more fun. Lizzie and Lucy get along really well, and are such cute girls! It was chilly on that ride too-- and finally beginning to feel like fall around here.

 Zach was very ready to pick the perfect pumpkin to carve into a Batman jack-o-lantern.

 My friend Nicole and I, and baby Leah, who just wanted to get down on the ground and crawl around in the hay. And pull her socks off. (She would NOT leave them on!) Achoo!

 Ta-Da! I think he actually had more fun stepping in all of the rotted pumpkins than picking his own pumpkin, since he basically chose the first one we saw.

 True to form, Lucy carefully and methodically walked around until she found a nice orange one without any bumps or bruises, and held it very gently on the hayride back (while Zach's rolled around the bottom of the wagon).

 Leah could care less which pumpkin she got as long as we let her crawl around in the dirt first!

 Happy Halloween from North Carolina!