Jack O'lantern

Okay, Bobby claims he has never carved a pumpkin but he said he would do try anything that would make the kids happy. The boys have been begging us to carve a face on their pumpkin. We found a book with some templates in it to make the carving a little easier and Bobby said he would give it a shot. We started out on Sunday evening a little before bedtime. You will notice that the kids change from play clothes into their pajamas before this is all over with. Our kids are not really good about sitting still and not touching things so I thought it would be best if we watched the carving process with little breaks. So we start off on the porch and Bobby cuts the top off and opens the inside. He had the kids smell it and he thought Eli was going to throw-up all over him! After he cleaned out the inside.....we all went in to take baths. Bobby worked at carving until we had a really cute little pumpkin face. You did good Daddy! The kids were so excited!

Mossy Creek Barnyard Festival

The past weekend we went to the Mossy Creek Barnyard Festival. It is a festival held twice each year that is mostly an arts and crafts/music festival. The kids enjoyed the petting zoo area as you an see from the pictures.

Pumpkin Pickin'

We went to a farm about 30 minutes away last night because on the website it said you could pick-your-own pumpkin. Well........they had a patch and a few pumpkins thrown out in the field but we were pretty disappointed in our experience. The "farmers" had closed down the store early that day because it had been slow (school was out,etc.) and were working on their mounds for the strawberry patch that they have in the spring. They were using stuff that was not good for kids to be around so they had closed up shop. She let us go out in the "patch" and get a pumpkin since we had traveled a ways. The boys wanted to take the first one they saw but Bobby walked around and showed them a few more before they picked. We thought about getting another one but when we went to pay for that one we were glad we had only chosen one. It cost $9 for a pumpkin that we could have gotten at Wal-mart or the commissary for $4. We probably won't go back for that experience again....but like Bobby said we would have never know if we hadn't tried it!

Georgia National Fair

We went to the Georgia National Fair in Perry, GA this weekend. The first thing we did when we got there was eat! Then we went to the circus. Heath loved the acrobat lady who did all kinds of flips and stuff on a bar. He has been trying to learn her moves on our trapeze bar in the backyard. Eli liked the motorcycle riders that rode in the steel ball. He said it was really "tool." The girls seemed to like anything that had music. After the circus we walked around and saw all the stuff. We went to a petting zoo and saw all kinds of animals up close. We visited the horse and cow barns. I think the highlight for the boys was the chickens. They have a little display showing how a chicken farm works and they got to see chickens in all stages of development. They even got to hold a chicken that had just hatched that day. I think the kids really enjoyed the fair and we did too!

Kittens

Our neighbors cat had kittens and they are now old enough to be out and running about. We had already been spending time with the momma cat (we call her Penny) because she would often come into the backyard and visit. Now we are spending time with her sweet little kittens. Of course the kids would love for us to take one into the house and make it ours.....and our neighbors would like that too....but I just don't want to take on anymore responsibility! So we will just love on them whenever they decide to come into the fence. Heath spends a lot of time climbing the fence and sitting and watching them play on the other side begging me to let him go and get one to play with. They surprising find their way into the backyard on their own and seem to like being carried around by four little people. The girls yell "kitties" whenever they see them and Eli has gotten a lot better at being gentle. He had to have some lessons in that because everything Eli does is wide-open and often is not gentle! So you may see pics of the kittens from time to time....but we are not going to have a cat of our very own!