October 27, 2007 - Pumpkins!


Would you believe that with all of the beautiful weather we had this fall, we picked one of the coldest weekends to go get our pumpkins. Both Nicholas and Gabrielle had field trips to a pumpkin patch or apple orchard, so we just headed to a farm market stand near our house to purchase our pumpkins. We got them there 2 years ago, and they have a wooden tractor/play area that the kids loved. We decided this would be a good place to go again, especially considering the weather.

Measuring up!

The tractor/play area

Sam checks out one of the few pumpkins they had left.

Sam checks out the tractor, too.

Posing for a picture

"Driving" the tractor.

Wrong way Allison, you're supposed to go down the slide, not up!

This is fun!

October 25, 2007 - Patty Cake, Patty Cake

Sam is 9 months old today. His newest achievement these days is that he loves to do patty cake. He has finally figured out how to get those two hands to come together when he actually wants them to.

(You'll have to excuse my starting to call Sam a girl, I kept hearing Allison in the background and then when I started talking to Sam I said girl instead....oops. However, around this house it's not the first time and it won't be the last.)

October 25, 2007 - Scratchies!!

We noticed a few red spots on Allison's trunk when putting her to bed the night before. Then she got herself dressed in the morning, so I never looked in the morning. However, part way through the morning I noticed what looked like a very puffy and red bug bite on the side of her foot. That reminded me of the spots the night before.

When I lifted Allison's shirt - this is what I saw... Then I started looking at the rest of her body....
I was appalled. She had spots covering her entire tummy, underarms, back, and legs. She wasn't itching or anything but kept calling them scratchies. I immediately thought they were hives, but I took some pictures and e-mailed them to my boss (a dermatologist) to confirm my diagnosis. He stated "that's quite the case of hives she's got there". The question was what gave them to her. He started asking if she had been eating Halloween candy yet, like red licorice etc. She hadn't been eating that, but she had been receiving candy corn for a treat whenever she went potty. That very well may have been the culprit, but we will never know for sure. We switched to a different potty incentive and after several days and many doses of Benadryl, the hives finally retreated.

October 17, 2007 - My First Wagon Ride!

I don't know why it took this long, maybe I was just nervous about Sam being able to sit up well enough in a moving contraption, but Sam finally had his first experience riding in the wagon. As you can see he was happy as a clam.

October 12-14, 2007

The Final Camping Trip of the Summer

After a week or so of struggling with where to take the family for our final weekend in the trailer , we decided on trying our first state park. We headed out to the Muskegon State Park - Channel Campground. It is a different type of camping than we have done before, no water hookup and the trailer was parked on a cement pad. We had a great time, and setting up was so easy - no deciding where to put the trailer on the site and no leveling. The hardest part was deciding which campsite to choose as the campground was pretty empty. It was a cold weekend, but we had so much fun. We chose a site that had no sites behind us, and there was a small hiking type trail leading right from our site to the beach on Muskegon Lake. We decided that the kids would love having a little bit of freedom to explore this area, and we were correct. The loves playing hide and seek. Believe it or not, this was also our first camping trip with no one else camping with us. We had such a great time, as a family. It was cold, but we stayed dry except for a few raindrops Sunday morning that never even got the ground wet. Here are some of our memorable moments.

Enjoying some hot chocolate by the fire.

Sam is bundled up by Papa

The small wooded area and short hiking trail leading to the beach

on Muskegon Lake.

We are used to seeing sunsets, this time we got to see the sun

come up in the morning.

It was a brisk morning, but we are ready to explore the campground.

I knew there was a pretty decent playground on the other side of the channel, so this was the perfect weekend to take a drive around Muskegon Lake and let the kids check it out.

We walked down by the Silversides Submarine to look around. The kids posed for a picture atop a torpedo they have on display on the grounds.

Back at the campground - A hike up the dune trail

Papa and Nicholas are the first ones to declare themselves "King of the Mountain"

Allison did so well, for being so young. She never complained and was very motivated to "reach the summit"

Gabrielle joins Papa and Nicholas and encourage Allison (and Mama with Sam) to join them at the top.

I'm almost there Papa, can you help me out a little?

I did it, I'm Queen of the Mountain, too!!!

The kids decided they could slide down the dune, on their bottoms.

Walking back to camp via the beach on Muskegon Lake

Posing for a picture on a log at the beach

We got in the truck and drove down the Lake Michigan Beach Access to watch our final sunset for the year. We missed the sunset because of a cloud bank, but the kids had a blast running around, and even posed for some great pictures with the awesome lighting coming from the sunset.

I cut my bottom teeth while camping this summer, so I decided I better cut the top ones while camping too.

Having fun on the beach

Posing for some pictures with Papa

The sunset before we lost it behind the clouds.

Some pictures of the kids to close out the camping season.

It looked like it was going to rain Sunday morning, so we packed up the campsite first thing. After everything was packed up, we drove down (with the trailer) to the winter sports complex at the other end of the Muskegon State Park (across from RuthAnn's for those who are familiar). We had a map of all of the hiking trails that go through there and set off for one final hike. We will definately be making more trips there next year, it was great. Nicholas, in particular, LOVED using the trail map, and finding the navigation markers in the woods to get us where we needed to go. The trail we selected took us through the LUGE run they have there. The kids loved having to climb all of the steps and check everything out.

Looking for the next trail marker, to lead us out of the woods so we can head home.

October 7, 2007 - Gabrielle's First Field Trip

After one weather related cancellation, Gabrielle finally got to go on her first field trip. We went to Nelson's Farm Market in New Era. It was still a little rainy and quite cold, but we bundled up and had a good time. (Gabrielle wasn't very interested in cooperating with the camera though). Getting ready to walk over to see the animals.

Snack time and Storytime was in a great big teepee. Gabrielle liked her donut, but didn't care for the apple cider.

Boarding the wagon to take a tour of the orchard.

Picking some apples, Gabrielle picked the red delicious.

I wonder how many apples I have in there???

October 6, 2007 - A Fun Day with Friends

Ever since Nicholas was 6 months old, we have been involved in a playgroup with neighbors. Once a week we get together and just let the kids play while the ladies socialize. One of our families moved out of Ravenna down to Kalamazoo last December. It has been quite sad for Nicholas because they have a boy 6 months older than Nicholas and they love to do a lot of the same things...they can play together for hours.

(They also have a girl a little older than Gabrielle, a boy 2 months older than Allison and a girl 6 weeks younger than Sam). We have managed to get together every couple of months by either them driving this way or us driving that way, so the kids have managed to stay in touch so far.

This particular October weekend however, the parents of this family needed to go out of town for a family event. 3 of the kids stayed with my neighbor across the street and Carson got to stay with us...much to Nicholas' excitement.

It was a beautiful weekend so we met at the local park, so that all the kids could play together. We managed to catch this photo opportunity as the kids decided to make a "log jam" on the slide. There were 8 kids on the slide (Allison was busy swinging and obviously the the 2 babies were not included). The kids had so much fun spending the weekend together. Bottom to top: Nicholas - 5 1/2; Carson - almost 6; Nyla-4 1/2;

Tori 4 1/2; Kylie-almost 7; Aubrey-5 1/2;

After Aubrey (in orange) you can just make out the top of

Arie John's head-2 1/2; and Gabrielle-almost 4

October 3, 2007 - Eight Months Old and Counting.....

Just wanted to post a quick photo-op of our 8 month old little boy. His independence continues to grow and he is FAST!!!!! He loves to discover new things, and today he discovered Nicholas' toy dinosaur. Paul was playing with it, when you push this button the front leg stomps and it makes roaring noises. Sam found this fascinating and after a little exploration got his hands on this interesting new toy.