Lately

As usual, I'm behind in my posting so I'm just going to drop in a bunch of random photos and narrate with what we've been up so far this month.
Clayton had his first concert of the year. It was so cute! The theme of the concert was 'Families'. Each class had to wear a different color shirt so the kids looked like a rainbow standing there.
These aren't the greatest pictures, but they're the best I've got.
Clayton was so cute, everytime he would look at us he'd wave and smile. I love how he lit up when he looked at us!
You can tell that Josie was excited to be there.
I am so proud of my boy. He did so well. I do have video of some of the songs, but I'll upload those in a different post.
This was picture day at Noah's school. I didn't buy any pictures, but he looked so cute and grown up that I couldn't resist snapping one of my own!
Justin and I found him like this the other night. He loves to curl up on Disco's pillow. Poor Disco, he probably doesn't even realize that this pillow is his.
We went on a field trip with Noah's class to the pumpkin patch. This was our second trip to a pumpkin patch this month. This pumpkin patch had a petting zoo, a nice playground, a corn maze, and pumpkins that you actually pick off the vine!
I just love this face she was so determined to climb up the slide!
The corn maze. It was really fun. We let Noah lead us through the maze and he had a blast. We got lost several times but it was worth it!
This cute girl enjoyed a ride from her daddy.
Although sometimes riding on daddy's shoulders is a little tiring.
Noah showing me how strong he is lifting his pumpkin.
Last Sunday my cousin Matt came down from Michigan for Sunday dinner. Between our family, my brother's family, and my cousin's family there were 12 kids. I didn't get many pictures but you can see how many kids there were. They had a ball!
We had people eating on every surface. It was so loud and messy and fun. Just like a family dinner should be!
Lately, the boys have been fighting so much. I keep threatening to take pictures of them so that they'd know how ridiculous they look. Today, I did it. Yes they look a little ridiculous, but it makes me laugh (they're fighting about making their beds).

She looks so grown up to me lately. Kind of sad actually.
A preview of Josie's Halloween costume. I took Noah's monkey costume from two years ago and turned it into a monkey ballerina. I love how it turned out. You can see that she seems to like it too!

So that's a taste of how our October has been going so far. Up next for us, a visit from my parents, trick-or-treating, and Justin's vacation! Stay tuned!!

18 Months!

Holy smokes! Where does the time go?? It seems like overnight my little baby girl has become a sassy little person! Since today is her 18 month-day, we celebrated with a party that brings joy to the hearts of children and parents alike - yes, I'm talking about nursery! I walked her in there, said goodbye and walked away. No tears, no turning back - for either of us! She followed in the footsteps of her older brothers and made herself right at home in nursery. I wasn't ever really worried but it was nice all the same to know that she's not going to have any adjustment issues.
Since she is Little Miss Personality right now I wanted to share some of the things I love (and don't love so much):
-She still has those killer blue eyes. 18 months was around the time when the boys eyes started changing color. She's still sporting the blues and I hope they stick around!
-She's a monster eater - but only if it's snacky, noodly, or fruity. Meats and veggies, forget about it! We keep offering and hopefully at some point she'll start to like it, but for now she just sticks with what she likes (and makes Disco extremely happy because she shares with him the food that she doesn't want).
-She loves to be center of attention and can turn on the charm rather quickly when she suspects that people are watching her.
-She's a tad dramatic (one of the bigger differences that I've noticed between her and the boys). But it doesn't take too much to snap her out of it.
-She's very girly. I love it. She loves shoes - especially heels, make up, hair ribbons, jewlery, etc. It's very cute to see her snag one of my make up brushes and try to use it.
-She has a handful of words. 'Daddy', 'Keen' (Clayton), 'Oww' (Noah), 'Ooh' (Disco), 'Uh-oh', 'Mama', and 'Wasdis' (What's this). I'm convinced that she actually has many more words, but I just haven't decoded them yet because this girl is a talker! She is babbling all day long.
-She loves her big brothers. They are so good to her. She's a pest at times to them, but they (mostly) tolerate it well and love her tons. She is constantly following them around and I think she gets a little lost during the days when they're both at school and we're just hanging out at home.
-She's funny. She will act crazy and if it gets a laugh out of you she'll repeat it over and over until you stop laughing (which sometimes takes a while).
-She's SO social. She has no problem going right up to strangers and holding her arms up demanding to be held. She'll 'talk' to anyone anywhere. She's outgoing.
-She's independent. She knows what she wants and, even though she can't always express it, she tries to get it! She won't be left behind. She always wants to be right in the thick of things!
-She loves to dance and sing! In the mornings, when we're getting ready for the day all I have to say is 'Dance Party' and she starts grooving! Amazingly to me, she seems to understand the beats of different songs. She dances appropriately for the speed of the song. It's pretty incredible to me - maybe I DO have a future ballerina!
I love this little girl so much and am so grateful to have her in our family. I'm not sure what we'd do without her, but life sure would be a lot more boring and a lot less fun! Love you Jo, I'm glad you're 18 months now!

Train Museum

Justin was on call on Saturday. Usually, when he is on call on a Saturday, I try to get the kids out and do something special and fun. I do it for the kids, but really getting out helps with my sanity too. I'd been thinking about what to do and I remembered that Elkhart (a city close to South Bend) has a train museum. I'd heard about it from a neighbor and had been meaning to check it out but had never gotten around to it. So I decided that Saturday was going to be the day.

I'd never been to this museum and didn't know anything about it so I needed to call and ask about admission price and hours of operation. When I did, the man on the phone told me I was in luck because they had just redone some of their exhibits and therefore admission was free that weekend! SCORE!! I was so happy, because the only thing better than a super fun outing is a FREE super fun outing! We were in for sure.

My brother and his family happen to live in Elkhart so I called them to see if they wanted to come with us (or at least, if we could bring some of their kids with us). Turns out my sister in law and their two oldest kids were in too! So we went and picked them up and headed to the museum (and left Josie with my brother - thanks Jared)!

I have to say that the train museum didn't disappoint. Even if we had paid admission, it would have been worth every penny. The museum is totally kid friendly. They had exhibits for the kids to touch and anything that they didn't want kids touching, they cleverly put behind glass (genius). I didn't have to spend one second worrying about my kids breaking something and I never once had to say, "Please don't touch that!" It was nice.

The highlights of the museum included: a giant ride-on Thomas the Tank Engine, a large train table with Thomas and Friends figures, a massive working train set for the kids to watch, and a trainyard full of old traincars that you could climb inside and walk around in! My boys are crazy about trains and could have spent days here just watching and playing. This is officially one of my new favorite spots in Indiana!

Here's why:
Playing at the train table. My boys have a train table at home, but this one was much better! They were in Heaven!
Ride on Thomas! (Side note: Noah has started dressing himself. As long as it's seasonally appropriate, I let it go. Today was one of those days. Also, he didn't want me to fix his hair. I said okay. You pick your battles. He won but he looks a little ragged.)

They had these huge display cases with all kinds of model trains. Seriously, huge. Floor to ceiling and covering at least three walls.
Watching the model trains drive on the track. This track took up about half of the room. The kids loved watching it!
Noah and Tori.
Me and the kids in the dining car. I just mostly love Noah's face in this picture. What a ham! (Also, in addition to free admission, they had free popcorn. Awesome.)
Dear Ashley and Anisha, I saw this and thought of you. I hope it makes you giggle. I did. Apparently I'm still 12. Love, Ariane
Outside in the train yard. The tires on this one were HUGE!
Our own little 'Boxcar children'.
I think that, eventually, the goal of the museum is to restore all these old traincars, but it was really cool to see them as they are. They were really interesting. We all loved how blue this one was.
I forgot my camera so Kerstin was the designated photographer. She's so talented. Love Clayton's face peeking out.
Inside one of the traincars. The only rule was: No laying down on anything. We had to enforce it a lot. Gross.
I just love the faces Noah pulls. Someday he's going to look back on this and laugh at himself.
This is the BEST picture of the day (maybe even the best picture of the year). I dare you to look at it without laughing because I've seen it about 100 times since we went to the museum and I still laugh out loud every time. Perfect.
Our trip to the train museum lasted about 2 hours. If we wouldn't have had to rescue Jared from Josie we might have stayed even longer. The kids really didn't want to go. They wanted to go and do everything again. It was so hard to pick a favorite part about this museum. I loved it all, but I think the fact that it was free is going to have to win (this time).

Our day ended with pizza at the Peterson's and ice cream from Culver's. Aside from Justin not being there - it was a pretty perfect day. We'll for sure be going back!

Pumpkin Patch

I know I keep saying that I love fall and it's so true! There are just so many things to do, so much good food to eat, and so many fun things to see. Yesterday I took Noah and Josie to a pumpkin patch with some of our playgroup friends. The pumpkin patch we went to was awesome! For $6 total we took a hay ride, got to pick and eat grapes right off the vine, pick and eat apples, pick 2 pumpkins, have a 'story' told to the kids, and sample apple cider! It was made even better by the fact that the weather was perfect. A little cool, but not too bad and sunny!

Our trip was pretty self-explanatory so I'm not going to really go into too much detail except to say that we had a great time with some good friends at a fun place! I will, however, show you the pictures!
Noah looks like he's being so sneaky. In this particular shot he wasn't, but I did have to chase him down a few times while we were there.
Sweet Jo. She loved everything about this place. I think she was mostly just excited to be stroller free and have tons of room to run and play.
The hay ride was a lot of fun. I think it may have been Noah's favorite part!
The first attempt at a group picture. Yes, I have very dark hair now. It was shocking at first, but it's really grown on me and now I really like it.
Noah and Daxton waiting for the 'story'. There really was supposed to be a story, but seeing as the oldest kid in our group was 4 and there was an inflatable Winnie the Pooh in the story area, the kids were WAY to crazy to sit for a story. So the story-teller, in her infinite wisdom, just let the kids explore and talked to them a little about apples while they wandered.
The grape vineyard. The grapes were purple seeded grapes but they were SO delicious. Of course Noah was all over that! Josie ate a few too. I tried to get the seeds out of hers, but I changed a couple 'seedy' diapers today. Whoops!
We did get to pick a few apples, but nothing like when we went apple picking a few weeks ago! This was for snacking purposes only. I have learned that my Miss Jo does love a good apple!
Mmmmm, my two fruit eaters. I love this picture!
Our little group. I guess I shouldn't have had them looking into the sun, but it makes for an interesting picture. Hee hee!
She loved eating that apple with all her heart and was devistated/really angry when she dropped in the dirt by the pumpkins and I had to throw it away. At least she was mostly done with it by that point.
With the pumpkins. This was the main event for Noah, he couldn't wait to get one. He spent a good amount of time looking for just the right one!
Attempt #2 at a group shot. This is right after Noah completely knocked me over. Carissa got some good shots of me falling down but I choose not to post those.
Ah, the perfect pumpkin!

We ended out trip to the pumpkin patch with a picnic lunch. It was a very good day and I can't wait to do it two more times this month (once with Noah's preschool and once when our surprise visitors come out)!