Fall Fun and Leaves-oh my!

We love our trees at this house but knew there would be some sacrifices that come with them - LIKE FALL! Lots to rake as you can see but the kids have so much fun with them too - they filled the tunnel slide with leaves and then slid down through them - Morgan got a new classmate, Lauren, that moved in right next door so she is in the picture of them in the tunnel slide - she is seriously the size of Bradley and there's only 6 months difference between the 2 girls - crazy, huh? Also, the kids found the sled in the shed so they got a little creative - no injuries to report as of yet!

Ryan's boo boo

Well, Ryan got his first of what I am sure will be many bad boo-boos. He was diving around on the couch and overshot the arm of the couch and hit the corner of his eyebrow into the end table. Of course Kirk wasn't here and I am trying to decide whether this is worth a probably 6+ hour wait at Children's Medical Center if we don't even need stitches. Thankfully, across the street, we have a pediatrician and sports medicine doctor so I talked to her and she said whichever one of them got home sooner would come over and check it out. In came Mr. Corey with his rubber gloves, steri-strips, and glue to hold them on. I restrained him while he checked it out and thought it would be fine with just the steri-strips. How much easier than the ER! Love our kind neighbors!

Brownie Hayride

Morgan joined a brownie troop that is made up of Cline Elementary 2nd grade girls so she just stays after school once or twice a month for meetings. Her first outing was a trip to Windmill Farm Market and they got to go on a very fun, bumpy hayride, stop at a pumpkin patch, and get back on for the rest of it. Bradley went along too and he LOVES hayrides. The group shot is actually 2 troops, a 2nd grade troop from a neighboring elementary that they do some of their outings with. Morgan has a few girls from soccer in the 2 troops so that makes it nice since she already knew a few.

Fall Campout-Cowan Lake

The kids go to Cowan Lake each year and camp with my dad, "pappy", and his wife, Barbara in their camper. They have a great time decorating and it is a huge deal at the campgrounds - it is like Christmas except with Halloween decorations on all of the campsites-some even make walk-thru haunted houses with tarps, fence posts, etc. We went down on the trick-or-treat night to hang out and the kids had a good time - Bradley really got into it this year. Ryan just rode along in the stroller and our good friends, The Wolf's, were there so Morgan went around with AJ aka the grim reaper in the picture of them together.

Zanesville Family Picture Weekend

We had a busy weekend in Zanesville. Kirk's dad and his wife decided it would be nice to have a BIG family picture since we've just had a slew of grandbabies,(my 3 kids, 2 twin girls who will turn 1 on Halloween, a 6 month old and a 6 week old) 7 in total in case you weren't counting. Fun is not the correct word, stressful would be. We hope to have a few good ones but there wasn't a lot of cooperation from the little ones. We also had bangs cut back into Morgan's hair - squeezed in a trip to the hair salon before the pictures, basically so they could trim and blow-dry her hair so decided to try bangs again. In addition to all of this, it was Aunt Jenny's 30th b-day so we celebrated it a few weeks early and caught her off guard. Kathy made us all a family of pumpkin faces and I love the ones she painted of us, even through in Nanny Cherry's face. I think she basically did caricatures of us on pumpkins! We went the next day to a hayride/ corn maze and had a lot of fun there before we returned home to Dayton- can't wait to see those pictures!

Temporary babysitter

I had the pleasure of being a backup babysitter for my good friend Mary. Lily's babysitter had a child with the flu so she called on me and we had a great time. Ryan and Lily just kinda followed each other around and entertained each other. Thanks Mary! (for trusting me mostly!)

Light the Night Walk 2009

We got to be part of an incredible experience last night. We, along with 400 friends/acquaintances of our dear friend Ally, walked along with her to help raise money to beat the battle against leukemia/lymphoma. I haven't touched on this on my blog yet but Morgan's friend, Ally, was diagnosed with leukemia in May at the age of 7. It is such a long battle ahead but they have come up with "Ally's Army" and that consists of all who support her and follow her blog. We met Ally when she was 1 - she and Morgan went to Gymboree Playplace together. Last night 400 people showed up - JUST FOR TEAM ALLY'S ARMY!!-and together with the help of all of these wonderful people, approximately $35,000 was raised-again, JUST BY TEAM ALLY'S ARMY!! Their original goal was $10,000.00 so they exceeded that by far! It was a beautiful sight to see all of the survivors, supporters, and those who have lost loved ones carry balloons that illuminated the night.

During the walk

Ally's sign

me and the boysjust a few of the kid supporters(morgan is in the middle)

Morgan, Chloe and Maddie