Leaf Maze!

It's not often I come up with cool ideas, but today I did! We were outside playing and I made a leaf maze for the kids to run around the yard in. At the rate the leaves are dropping it will probably be cover up by tomorrow, but it was a fun afternoon activity and required little work!

Stella standing in part of the maze. (This is about 1/10 of the leaves we will be gathering up! The trees in our yard have just started to fall.)
Porter making his way through the maze.

Stella on the swing set.

Stella and Mike racing each other.

My THREE kids!!! :)

Leaf fight!

The next photos show our beautiful trees, still mostly full.

Porter was very proud, he climbed up here all by himself!

My monkeys in the tree.

Porter took this photo!
Our front door, all ready for the trick or treaters tomorrow evening! :)

Start of Halloween Fun!

Sunday morning, bright and early!!, Stella was ready to carve her pumpkin. She had been waiting for sometime as they got their pumpkins a few weeks ago when we went to the orchard.

Here they are drawing the faces on their pumpkins. Mike (not yet fully awake!).....take that pumpkin!

Porter, he didn't want to grab any of the pumpkin guts out of him pumpkin this year! LOL!

Stella, of course, loved digging in! :)

The finished pumpkins. They are dressed up for the Monster Mash that the library put on on Sunday afternoon. Porter is a Red Power Ranger and Stella is an ice cream cone this year.

The library put on a really cute program for the kids. They had storytime with musical instruments, a parade around the library, crafts and games and a little goodie bag to bring home.

Here Stella is "Pinning The Nose On The Pumpkin"

Porter playing a bean bag toss game.

Creating green monster balloons.

The finished balloons.

This photo was from yesterday. Stella's school is celebrating Red Ribbon Week this week. Yesterday was dress as your role model day. When I was explaining what a role model was, she immediately said she wanted to dress up as Mrs. Gaul, her first grade teacher whom Stella *adores*!! For you MA peeps, Mrs. Gaul reminds me of Katie (Taylor) Coulson, she a tiny petite lady with short wavy blonde hair, glasses and is just super sweet. So we sponge rolled her hair on Monday night, borrowed glasses from Hannah and dressed her in an outfit that looks like one Mrs. Gaul wears. She even took her pointer that Nana gave her for Easter! She was very excited yesterday! :)

Rakin' Up Some Fun!

It was a gorgeous Saturday here in central Iowa. We spent a large portion of the day outside enjoying this beautiful fall weather. We got a head start on our raking....too bad our trees are still 95% full of leaves. The majority of what we raked today was from our neighbors trees, but it was a good day to be outside and a good workout!! :)

The kids loved helping rake this year. I'm sure this won't last too many years! LOL! After all their hard work they got to reap their rewards. Jumping!!!

This photo is mostly funny because Porter is in the background with a very large stick looking like he's about to strike his sister!
Karate-Chop!

Awww.....this is the life! :)

Center Grove Orchards

Today we visited one of our favorite fall destinations: Center Grove Orchards. We've been going here each autumn since Stella was 18 months old. It's such a fun place! The weather was amazing today, we actually all ended up with a little sunburn!


Mike and Stella:

The corn pit was their favorite place to play! This was our first stop and we actually ran into our good friends The Ricklef's here!

Then we moved over to the children's hay bale maze.

It was popular place today, but the crowds weren't too bad. Here's Hadley and Stella going down the giant slide.

Mike and Porter, Jason and Owen are off to a late start!

The giant jumping pillow worked up a thirst!

On the hay rack ride out to the corn maze and pumpkin patch.

Ready for the corn maze!

The corn maze is a lot of fun. There are 10 stations in the maze and at each station you can paper punch a "symbol" off the maze sheet. If you find all 10 symbols you get a prize, a temporary tattoo! We found all 10 stations in about 30 minutes. Here they are at a station, punching their maze sheet.

At the pumpkin patch, ready to pick out their pumpkins!

They have the Three Little Pigs houses, checking out the house made out of hay.

In the one room school house. Stella was learning about one room school houses a couple weeks ago at school, I'm glad she was able to see one in person so close to learning about them.

Back in the corn pit! Stella ran into a friend from school when we stopped here for the second time. I just love her toothless smile!

I snapped this picture of Mike and couldn't believe that he didn't blink! I just had to share it with the world! LOL!!

Porter "Planking" in the corn. He's so trendy and doesn't even know it! ha ha!! He loved rolling all over the corn. At one point he stood up and had two kernels of corn stuck in his nose! Funny!

Celebrating 40 Years

We spent a long weekend in the Ozarks last weekend celebrating my parents 40th wedding anniversary. We had such a fun time, having the family all together. I've always admired both of my parents, but even more so now that I am a wife and mother. Their marriage is one full of respect, love, kindness and laughter!
I took so many photos and I apologize because these are all out of order, but it was overwhelming trying to decide which ones to upload. We really had a lot of fun and hopefully these photos do the weekend justice. Thanks mom and dad for giving me a great example of what a marrige should be! The ups and downs and the inbetweens!!!! :)
Sporting their 40 eye glasses. Mom and Vada at the lake

Porter and Isla

If you are happy and you know it, raise your hands!

Vada playing with her belly button!

Swimming in the lake! Only the kids were brave enough to get in that chilly water.

We toured Bridal Cave and it was very interesting for all of us (the guys were golfing).

Wes and his side kick, Isla.

The house had so many amenities. The video game Tron, ping pong, pool, air hockey, hot tub, etc. A great place for us to hangout!

Stella lost two teeth in the Ozarks. Luckily I remembered to pack her tooth pillow! Here she is with her tooth pillow, that Nana made her, Nana, and her tooth! :)

Playing monopoly with Papa

Vada and Pat

Porter miniature golfing.

We had a great time at Pirates Cove! A'hoy, Matey!

Stella holding Isla

The boys busy in the kitchen one night.

On the way to Go Kart!

The guys took the kiddos go karting while us women shopped at the outlets. It sounds like everyone had a blast racing around the track!

The grandkids in front of the signs they made for mom and dad.
Anna rolling down the hill with Stella!