A trip to Pumpkin Hollow.

It's almost Halloween!  That means pumpkin patches, jack-o-lanterns, candy and costumes.  And CANDY!!!

I took the boys to a local farm the other day for some fall fun.  As I was rummaging through DW's closet to get them dressed for the day I found a pumpkin shirt that was AW's from his first Halloween a few years ago.  I thought, "Oh! That will look so cute...and might as well get one more use out of this shirt before it's too late."  Here's DW rocking his pumpkin shirt on his life size pumpkin checker board.  I bet in his head he's trying to reenact a scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone or something.

And now I'll let you in on my rookie parenting mistake of the day: if you are going to put one of your children in a Halloween shirt, you'd better make sure you have a Halloween shirt for all the other children as well...or you will find yourself doing something like...well, printing off spider clip art from your computer and scotch-taping it to your other child's shirt to keep him happy...

It may not look super classy...but I will say, the spider paper did stay on his shirt all day, which was pretty impressive seeing as he was rolling around in corn mazes and hay bales...and not once did he think there was anything wrong or different about his cool "halloween shirt."  Win for me!

The farm had so many really neat things for the kids to do at "Pumpkin Hollow."  A hay slide, corn maze, barrel tractor ride, horse-drawn hayride, and a huge container of corn just to sit in and go nuts. They had a great time.

This is why I can never get anything done.

Because my attention-seeking, love-starved, cuckoo-crazy cat just will not leave me alone once the kids are in bed (she hides from their "loving affection" all day in my closet).  No matter how many times I push her out of the way, she just plops her furry behind right in front of the computer screen.  Oh, MVGC, what will I do with you...

Sunflowers and apple picking.

Nothing says Kansas like sunflowers.  And nothing says fall like apple picking.  So what do we do in Kansas in the fall?  Visit sunflower fields and apple orchards of course!

One fun Sunday, HW had to study all day (as usual) and I was not in the mood to stay home on a gorgeous day.  So I decided it would be fun to take the kids apple picking.  I dressed them, got them all excited, packed them up in the car and drove to the orchards.  Trouble was, I arrived at 10 AM and they didn't open until 12PM.

Sooooo....there was this sunflower field only a half an hour away.  We rode over and we got some precious photos of AW.  (DW was passed out)

 Here a random dog just wandered into our shot.  Thanks, random dog.

Things were going pretty well at the ol' Sunflower fields so I packed the kiddos up and headed to the apple orchards.  It was a really cute place. It had a little country store, a fire pit to roast marshmallows, a duck pond and food to feed the ducks, and a fun tractor took you out to the fields to pick your apples.  Here the boys are enjoying the spoils of their picking.

 

What you don't see in these photos is me.  Mom.  Mom, who had a large diaper bag, camera bag, and 10 lb bag of apples in one hand and whilst with her other hand simultaneously is trying to help her short 2 year old pick apples from a tall tree branch and corral her curious, crawling one year old from diving straight into piles of rotten apples and bumblebees on the ground.  Apple picking alone with two toddlers sucks.  

Please lick the door quietly.

We were pretty fortunate in AW's first year of life to have avoided any type of sickness.  I was blissfully unaware of earaches and tylenol dosages. This was most likely because I rarely left the house with him and we kept pretty much to ourselves.  But here in Kansas,  we don't like to stay home all day and the boys have been germing it up with their peers non-stop.  Sometimes it feels like constant barrage of runny noses, fevers, puking, sneezing, and diarrhea is plaguing our home.  

I'm usually not much of a germaphobe but toddlers are straight up disgusting little creatures.  They eat dried up old food off floors, wash their hands in toilets, drink bathwater, lick toys, lick doorknobs,  lick shoe soles, lick their friends, sneeze on each other, wipe their noses on their sleeves, their blankets, their mom's new shirt...I could go on and on...just really, really, gross.

And sick kids don't sleep.  Or they will only sleep if you stay awake all night to hold them.

And sick kids like getting sick on a Friday so you have to go to the ER for care instead of being able to make an appointment with the pediatrician.  

Here's DW & AW practicing stellar hygiene at daycare.  Ebola outbreak, say what? 

 

But as much as these sick little disease carrying kids gross me out with their antics - I keep hugging and kissing them all day long.  And as much as I'm tired from holding them all night, I would feather be tired than see them suffer.  And as much as I love going out club-hopping with my friends on the weekends, I'd would rather spend my Friday night in the waiting room of the ER if it means they'll get the meds they need to get better quickly.  They really are just that cute...even covered in gooey boogers.  

Now let's cross our fingers these boys stay healthy throughout flu season.