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.

Happy Birthday, DW!

Also, DW turned ONE YEAR OLD this summer.

So much about our family has changed from point A to point B since one year to the next.  Last summer we had just gotten settled into our home in Louisiana.  HW hadn't been home from deployment yet for even a year and was just getting the hang of being dad to an 20 month old.  And then bam we had two!  And then before we knew it we were moving again...getting settled into life in Kansas as a family of four...and now here we are just eight months in Kansas and already gearing up to move again in three short months.  Military life is really a whirlwind adventure and finding your footing as a new family can be tough when you are constantly changing locations and support systems.  But it's what makes our family us.  It's what makes us unique.

Here's our little DW on his "birth" day.

I know, it's so cliche to say how fast the first year of baby's life goes.  But I'll say it again.  It goes by fast.  Well, it does in a sense...you begin the year with this little squishy nobody and in the course of 12 months he becomes this sitting, crawling, walking, talking, laughing, hugging, kissing, adorable SOMEBODY.  Somebody you could never have dreamed you could live your life without.  So while a year of crying, no sleeping, rocking, bouncing, shushing, carrying, nursing, and holding can seem very, very long it is amazing how quickly your little baby changes...and your family changes...in just one year.

Love you little buddy!

Summer summary. (part one: June)

Well, folks, it was a busy summer here at Ft. Nonsense.  But summer's over and it's time to get back to writing!  I'll try to summarize the last three months for you quickly in the next three posts:

We took a road trip from Kansas to New Jersey with a stopover in PA.  Two and a half days of driving.  Just me and the boys.  No we are not insane.  We are a military family.  This is just par for the course for us.

The boys were actually really great for the trip. They slept 90% of the ride and did little to no crying.  Logistics were the difficult part.  Try checking yourself and two small children and several pounds of baggage (because you need EVERY toy, blanket, snack, and baby gear gadget in your arsenal to make it through the night) into a hotel with no help as the hotel clerk just stares at you from behind the very un-busy counter instead of lending you a hand.  Tip:  Find a luggage trolley and load everything, including the kids, onto it.  Don't worry about the weird looks you get.  

Whew!  We made it!  Now pack the kids all back into the car because you need to get dinner at the Cracker Barrel...

The long drive was worth it though because we arrived on the East Coast safe and sound. We had fun with grandparents spoiling the kids. 

We ate bagels.  Real bagels.  They only exist here.  So if you haven't eaten one in the NY/NJ area, I'm very, very sorry for you.

We had a dinosaur tea party. 

We went down the shore.  Which is what people from NJ say when they go to the beach.

We ate cotton candy on the boardwalk.

And real pizza.  Same deal as with the bagels. For having been born on the west coast, it's apparent that real pizza connoisseurship (yes, I think I made up that word) is handed down via genealogy not by birth location.  AW knows good pizza.

We got DW baptized.  He liked it, really, he did.

We saw lots of family and friends, ate lots of great food, and had a swell time.  Then hit the road again.

  

Back to the midwest!

Summer summary. (part two: July)

After our trip back east we stopped at a lake resort in Missouri for some "down" time.  Only...staying in a very small hotel room with a baby and a toddler after a very long two weeks already on the road is like...well...like being locked in a room with two rabid, sleep-deprived, foaming-at-the-mouth escaped lab-experiment animals.  It was, in fact, the very opposite of this very peaceful picture of the sunset on the lake.

The resort was great for the kids though and they loved all the fun things to do.  We went to the pool.

Took a paddle boat out on the lake.  

DW fell right to sleep on the boat of course.  Couldn't do that in the hotel room though...

Went fishing.

Actually caught a fish, though we followed zero of the rules about fishing, actually, AW did the opposite of all the things one should do while fishing.  

Saw some lake creatures.

And enjoyed some 4th of July fireworks.