Picnic

We had to take Grandma to the airport yesterday, and after the way the kids acted when we took David there on Wednesday, I wanted to be sure I had a distracting activity up my sleeve. I had thought about the zoo, but by the time we got our errands done, the kids were getting pretty tired, and I didn't want to have to carry anyone. All Grace asked to be able to do was go to a park to play (I hope she remains this easy to please!), but we were all getting hungry, so we decided to have a picnic. Thanks to my trusty GPS, I was able to find a park in the area we already were, so off we went!

Always the princess

I couldn't keep them distracted with food for too long, so they didn't eat much, but they sure had fun playing.

We eventually had to go to the bathroom - something I never look forward to in places like this, but with two kids and an hour or so drive home, it's inevitable... Tristan decided that there was a structural problem with the bathroom since there were no solid walls.

He said "Mommy, dis idn't built very well" as he stuck his hand through the bars. But could you imagine the unpleasantness there would be if there were walls??? 110+ heat daily during the summer with no airflow... GAG!

The Pumpkin Patch

We headed off to Apple Annie's to pick pumpkins last weekend. The kids really like going there to pick apples and vegetables, so we thought we'd try pumpkins this year.

On the hay ride to the pumpkin patch

The search begins...

We told the kids they could choose any one they liked, as long as they could carry it.

The search for the largest pumpkin in the patch... my husband knows no limits!

When we stopped to get our corn a few months ago, we didn't have time to go to the orchard, so after we picked our pumpkins, we went over there to get our apples so I could make David some pies.

Ready for work!

Grace and Grandma, eating on the job!
It turned out to be a really good thing that you could eat anything you wanted since the line for lunch was terribly long - we noticed some people in line who had been at the pumpkin patch, and after we had been to pick our apples and come back, they still hadn't reached anywhere close to the front of the line!







The true hard worker!

Another fabulous day picking fresh produce!

A busy day

After our adventures picking pumpkins and apples (of which I'm still making pies from), we headed over to the Chiricahua National Monument. Mom said that she'd like to see the rocks in person since she thought our pictures were so neat, so we drove south a ways (since we were already so far east, we thought we'd save ourselves some time in the car and do it all the same day).

Ready to do some rock climbing
I was really nervous with my baby girl up there...

Please note that that object in the purple circle (above) is my daughter. She showed absolutely no fear this day, and took off scaling the side of a rock before David could tell her to stop. I was sick to my stomach to think that she was that high off the ground, and I had no idea what was on the top of that rock. We did manage to talk her down, and David provided foot holds for her as she got closer to the ground...

David trying to teach the kids how to catch a lizard. Don't you have to know what you're doing before you can teach others how? ;)

Birthday Pictures

Let me warn you from the beginning - there's gonna be a lot of pictures in this blog!

We went and had Grace's 5th birthday pictures taken yesterday, and boy did she ham it up!!! We didn't have to tell her to smile once. She posed, the photographer shot, we were done. Then came the difficult part of deciding what poses to get...

I know I might be a bit biased, but is she not the cutest thing you've ever seen???

We also treated her to her birthday ice cream at Cold Stone the other day.

Birthday cake flavor with Oreo cookies mixed in.

Mmmmm mmmm good!

Grandma's Handiwork

My mom has been busy since she stepped foot off of the airplane! She finished up the dinner gloves to the Belle dress just in time for Grace to ask her for some nightgowns...

And since Grandma doesn't know how to say "no" to her granddaughter's requests, she's been slaving over the sewing machine for days. Grace requested 10, but Grandma decided that 5 would be plenty! This is just one of the nightgowns she made for her. David says they remind him of Little House on the Prairie nightgowns.

The finished product - Belle with blonde hair.

Dancing with the Beast

Another success

David was voted Instructor of the Quarter for his Battalion this last quarter, and will now be competing for the Instructor of the Quarter for his Brigade. Instructing is his favorite part of his assignment here at Fort Huachuca.

We are so proud of him!

Happy 5th Birthday, Princess!

We celebrated Grace's 5th birthday on October 3rd. We woke up to a gloomy, rainy day, so I was really concerned about what I was going to do if I had to have 35 people in my house. It did clear up long enough to dry out the bouncy house and allow the kids to jump awhile before it got rather cool and wet again. We all had a good time and the kids (all 17 of them!) ran around the house and had a great time playing with each other.

As is becoming a tradition in our home, I made the cakes for Grace's birthday. Grace had said after her last birthday that she wanted an Aurora birthday this year. So, as requested, she had another Princess themed birthday party, and I made her an Aurora cake, and a castle cake (I was afraid one cake just wouldn't feed 30+ people). The castle didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, but I did have fun making them.

It was the first time I used fondant, so I was a little nervous about how they'd turn out, but I did find that it's a fun material to work with. I did learn though that the cakes needed to be heavily coated with butter cream prior to putting the fondant on because it is not the best tasting stuff!

Supper time!

And on to everyone's favorite part of a party...

Can't go wrong with Princess stuff!

The one request that Grace had is that she wanted to have a Belle dress up dress. So I put a call into Grandma since she had already made her a beautiful Aurora dress.

She made it complete with dinner gloves.

Needless to say, I think that was Grace's favorite gift.

We need to work on the candle blowing out...

All in all it was a great party - and all the kids were happy, so all was good!