Happy Birthday Pappy

We headed off to the Kersey Valley Maize Adventure . I found it on the internet and although it's only 30 minutes from our house, I don't know anyone that's been there. We got a little nervous because the final couple of miles to the "farm" is not the most attractive. Then all of a sudden there is this little mini theme park oasis. It was fantastic. It was all set up like an old west mining town. We had a great day!! Hope you had a nice birthday Pappy!

There was a big bear and this huge jack-o-lantern carved from tree stumps.

Not sure who had more fun on the Jumping Pillow, the kids or Daddy!! I'd never heard of these before. It's like a giant balloon buried in a sandbox. So cool.

Cameron didn't want to jump, he was content playing in the sand.

The little kids went through the small maize maze and collected their ABC's along the way. The big maze was 4 miles long and can take several hours to get through, so we skipped that one.

After digging for dinosaur fossils, we cooled off in the water and panned for gems. This was Abbie's favorite part.

A beautiful day at the Amazing Maize Maze!!

The Big 3-6

Happy Birthday to me. Tim was in class and Abbie was at Girl Scout camp but I still had a fun day with Grandy, Aunt Cathy and my boys. We drove an hour or so to the Brushy Mountain Apple Festival. We had a great time and other than a 20 minute scenic route detour when we missed the sign for the shuttle parking, things went very smoothly. "We" enjoyed the obligatory festival indulgences of funnel cakes and cotton candy, a couple of apple treats of the caramel and candy coated variety, and the tad unusual roasted corn on the cob :)

The crafts were the best part. The pottery was beautiful, some photography and prints came home with me but my most favorite was some recycled art...glass bottle wind chimes from Bottle Benders. They either use flattened (how do they do that?) vintage bottles attached to driftwood (what I got) or they use newer discarded bottles and color them in all kinds of ways. Seeing a whole tent of them displayed in the sun and chiming in the breeze was so beautiful. So creative.

The boys enjoyed visiting with each and every single one of the hundreds of dogs welcomed there.

BUT, Cooper trampling through a pile of doggy discards was easily the lowpoint of the day :( It was quite obvious that the pile did not belong to the teeny doggie in the picture. It was much more likely to have come from some ginormous mutant dog/horse hybrid.

All in all it was a great day. And tomorrow wil be too. Off to a pumpkin patch adventure for Pappy's birthday. I predict more photos.

Transitions

I've been cleaning out closets the past week. Trying to stock them with appropriate attire for 45-85 degrees. Gotta love the seasonal transition into Fall. I do love Fall but it is hard to dress for the day sometimes.

My biggest saddness though has to be that this is the first year that my baby girl can hardly wear ANYTHING from the previous year. She had a tremendous growth spurt over the summer. Some growth up but mostly out. It really surprised me because we were very active at the pool this summer so I didn't think that it was just weight gain from being sedentary at home over the summer. Her spurts had usually been coming towards the middle of the school year. I really think she's just hitting that "stage" already. Ugh, boo-hoo. It might have been my mom that said she's transitioning into a young lady. But I want her to stay my baby girl.

I was an early bloomer. I got my first bra in 4th grade, she's just a year away. It's also incredibly hard not to impose my body image insecurities onto her. So far that's been my biggest struggle. Not to tell her to stand up straight and suck it in. I have said it to her and it kills me that I can't take it back. I'm not one that remembers lots of things from my childhood but I have vivid memories of being teased by my dad. I can't believe I'm possibly doing the same thing to my daughter. She already seems so much more confident than I felt at her age. I don't want to damage that. I think we're heading into that age range where they say that it's harder raising girls than boys.

Smarty pants

Cameron brought me a decorative plaque that I had layng on the shelf in the den. He handed it to me saying, "Mommy, dis a octagon, dis a octagon." I had to count the sides real quick but sure enough, he was right!! And they say TV is bad for pre-schoolers!! I sure didn't teach him that :)

Family Day

I was worried this weekend that we wouldn't be able to go to our first family Wake Forest football game. It rained non-stop for like 36 hours or something crazy like that. It finally stopped enough for us to attempt it. I'm so glad we decided to go. We had such a good time even though Wake got beat bad! We almost left before halftime because Cooper started getting a tummy ache but he perked up quickly and started hooting and hollering like all the rest of us.

His favorite thing was yelling "TACKLE HIM". He was so cute. Later in the game the sun barely poked out and there was a rainbow for about 5 minutes. We finished off the day with Hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the way home.

2nd runner-up

I changed my picture tonight. We were having a fun family night dinner and the kids started getting silly so I grabbed the camera. Later, I remembered this picture I took at Harkers Island over Labor Day. I love this one too but I think I'll stick with my choice.

Busy day...

Today was picture day at school for the boys. I'm so glad that they'll only be seen from the waist up. They had cute matching $2.00 yellow polos thanks to bargain queen Grandy. For bottoms, I just put them in khaki pants. Problem was that I just grabbed Cameron's from last year and they were major highwaters. And I couldn't find any shoes that looked right so he wore his ratty hand me down Thomas sneakers. It looked pretty funny actually but who cares... it won't be in the picture!!

After we dropped the boys off, mom and I went shopping where some of "Her Royal Bargain-ness" rubbed off on me. I need to find a dress for Tim's graduation in January. I was planning to look in the after Christmas sales but I was just flipping through the clearance rack at Marshall's and POOF! the perfect dress jumped out at me. The right size, not strapless (UGH), not pink with purple polka dots, only $20.00...perfect!! And mom found the perfect shoes to go with it...also on the clearance rack! A whole formal wear outfit for $50.00!! I'm so excited!! We will have to buy Tim a new suit. His last suit purchase was when he was 50 pounds heavier.

Later, mom watched the kids while I went with Cathy to what turned out to be her pre-op visit for having her pacemaker replaced. After running the diagnostics, turned out that her battery went in to "backup" mode on the 3rd of the month.

I'm ready for the weekend. It's supposed to be really nice weather and I want to get outside in the yard and do some desperately needed weeding. The crabgrass is so overgrown from all the rain we've had in the past few weeks that it is all the way up to the house in some places. It doesn't even look like we have any pine needles around our shrubs. I'm sure our neighbors love us. Before and after photos??? We'll see.