Jumping Jack!

I thought while I was sitting here at the computer I should probably go ahead and post the fall leaf pictures I've been hanging onto.
We have, without a doubt, the most beautiful tree in the neighborhood come fall. It produces BEAUTIFUL colors! We normally wait until it's peak and then we build a pile full of I'm sure thousands and thousands of leaves to jump in.
This year we just about missed it while we were on my birthday trip in the mountains. The Sunday we got home Aaron rounded up as many leaves as he could and we had a ball!!

Pickin' of the pumpkins....

I couldn't help myself. I couldn't take the family to a grocery store and let them pick out there pumpkins that way. There is NOTHING wrong with that however K has always been to a pumpkin patch and I'm just not willing to let that tradition go.
We didn't do any of the frills and whistles of hayrides, corn mazes, apple picking, etc. With K doing that twice already this month-I think he's gotten his farm filled fun in already. We did however find some good pumpkins and had a great time checking out the baby farm animals.

We're going to wait until a little closer to carve these babies. Can't wait to see what the boys come up with!

It's OCTOBER!!!!

Alright boys..... We're getting ready for Halloween.....I've made the wreath! :) The Halloween decorations will hopefully go up this weekend, and the costumes have been bought. My Warrior Ninja and lil' sock monkey are ready to be in full swing!! It should be a fun season.
I'm struggling a little on how to keep the two of you entertained. We normally hit up the apple orchard and pumpkin farm but I had no clue that between kindergarten and after school fun, you K, would already have made two trips there....I'm sure we'll come up with something! Let the good times roll!!

My new obsession

I'm always looking for something new to dip my toes into. Sometimes I get in over my head....Sometimes I discover that I'm really not that good at it and should keep on searching....Sometimes I find that it just wasn't what I expected and don't enjoy doing it as much as I thought I would. This year has been full of  soul searching between photography, gardening, canning, learning to sew, in two months I will go on my first zip lining adventure through the mountains and trying to get more in touch with my creative side. With all this being said, I decided I wanted to attempt to make my own wreath.

For my first wreath this took a while. The whole circle is wrapped in yarn. The argyle and flowers are made from felt. Learning to make a felt flower was a new task all in it's own. Needless to say, I am in love! I have a new obsession. These wreaths are beautiful for indoors or out. They can be made for every season, holiday, and perfect for gifts. I wanted this Christmas to be homemade since the funds aren't exactly flowing at the moment and I think I have finally found the perfect gift! Each wreath can be made to show the personality of the specific family that it's being given to. I am just so thrilled with this new project. Stay tuned for many more wreaths to come!!

Goodbye Summer

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard! It's been a great summer. As I said in the last post~It's been the best yet! This is just a highlight of the fun that we had. Goodbye Summer. We'll see you next year.

Dear Photograph,

Dear Photograph,
Who doesn't love the dog days of summer!?!?

xoxo,
K.....

Going...Going....Gone...

To my dear sweet boys,
I've been spending the past few days thinking back on our summer....The fun and exciting camping trips we've been on, the lazy days at the house, the chaos of getting all of us up and out the door in time to get Mommy & Daddy to work. I've watched you both grow so much.
E, you are just starting to become your own individual. You love to sit back and play with cars and trucks all by yourself yet you want to do everything with your older brother and your goal appears to be just like him. You are our cuddlier and in the mornings you'll take turns sitting with each of us, almost as if not to hurt any one's feelings. You were born to be outdoors and cry when we come inside. You've become quite the kisser and love to give good morning, good afternoon, good night, and all day kisses. I love to watch your little wheels turning and think you are growing up to be quite the ladies man...
K, you are getting to be one big boy! You have gone from being a little boy in my mind to a kid that is getting ready to start school! You love and want to be just like your Daddy. Your excitement for camping and trucks is almost too much for you to handle. I love watching you play by yourself when you think I'm not watching. The conversations that your cars and trucks have with each other are just so cute and grown up in their own innocent way. You have a sweet sweet soul and can't stand to hurt any one's feelings or to get in trouble. When you think you've done wrong you stick yourself in to time out and it always pulls at my heartstrings. You will be having a visitor, the tooth fairy, come by real soon and we can't wait!!
Both of you have made this the best summer ever for me! I love you both and can't wait to see what the fall has in store for us.
xoxo,
Mom

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet....

I'm not much of a bird watcher....Actually to be honest-up until today I really paid no attention to them. I love the sound of birds chirping in the yard. I love to find a random birds nest when we're out on a bike ride....but really-I care nothing of watching them on a day to day basis....Until today.

Something caught my eye. It was beautiful and bright blue. I was watching him and all of a sudden I saw a couple of them.

The more I watched the more I was in amazement. Aaron joke around and said he felt like he was watching the discovery channel and I was the narrator. It was obvious...There was one female and three other males. They were all fighting for her attention. It's mating season, right!?!? Who was going to be the King of Kings...The Bird of Birds...

I guess I never gave birds credit. To me they were these strange, boring little things that flew around...made beautiful music, laid eggs....and were never seen again.
Watching them-It was quite a show they put on. Gosh, if only Aaron had put that much effort into trying to attract me.... ;)

It really opened up my eyes to bird watching. I truly enjoyed watching these beautiful creatures.... I found where one male has already set up house...I can't wait to see little tiny heads poke up in hopes of fresh worms.

E-baby was also in amazement. Perhaps he was enjoying watching me run around the yard with my camera...looking like a crazy woman. Either way...He was very much entertained. ;)

Spring has Sprung...and I am so thrilled.

A Glimpse of Summer

March is such a fickle month. We have had some great great weather lately. This past weekend it was in the 70's....and this weekend is promising to be even closer to 80*. With that being said though today is cold and rainy....One never knows.

We really enjoyed this past warm weekend. I couldn't believe it when my 4 year old broke out the bathing suit and played in the sprinkler.

One of K's favorite parts of the sprinkler okay, maybe I should just admit it....it wasn't a sprinkler but rather a hole in the hose.... ;) was putting his foot over the hole and making a rainbow.

While we were busy pretending it was summer we also decided to take part in some watermelon. I'm very excited....We have two different varieties of watermelon that we plan to grow in our garden this year. Hopefully there will be more pictures of those to come!

With that being said....some of our homegrown has started to bloom. I'm a little worried about such an early spring. Our plants are being teased into thinking spring and summer are here when truth be told...some of our biggest snow storms have been in the mist of March and April. Let's  hope this year they decide to hold off.
Here is a picture of our beautiful blueberry bush setting itself up for blooms.

I am so excited to have a tasty snack and to make some homemade blueberry muffins and pancakes!

A Taste of Spring

One of the joys to me for living in the south is our normal mild winters. Here we are still in January and yesterday was absolutely beautiful! My son was so excited to be able to pull out the shorts and flip-flops!
Of course we've all had a little cabin fever after being stuck in the house for what seems like weeks with winter weather so the first thing on the agenda was to head out into the neighborhood and take a little Big Wheel ride!
We were in no hurry to get back to the house so we did a little exploring while we were out. We came across this dead butterfly. I'm not sure where he's been seeking shelter to avoid being destroy during all of our weather but regardless he was really beautiful! They are normally something you look at from afar so it was quite fun to get an up close and personal view.

Next we decided to head down to the pond in our neighborhood. We literally would be able to spend hours there if we could. Unfortunately this is someones yard. The house is unoccupied for now but I'm sure it won't be for long.
Aaron and I sat back there dreaming about if this were our house. Maybe we could just tear this house down and move ours across the street....Wishful thinking, right!?

"I wish...I wish...I could play basketball and baseball..."
Such sweet innocent wishes! This was K's wish as he picked up this dandelion to blow off into the wind.

I was also able to snap a couple of pictures of E in his birthday shirt....A little late but better than never. Some of the pictures turned out okay...I think we'll need to have another "photo shoot" again soon though...

Now back to reality...The hi today is only in the mid 40's....Windy and Rainy. There is even talks of a bit of snow come Friday. We did enjoy it while we could though. It was a perfect taste of spring!

South's Big Snow Storm

Well they said it was going to snow and boy did it ever!!! I woke up around midnight & 2:30 both times running to the window to see nothing! What a disappointment. When the baby got me up at 3:30 though it was a whole different story. I was about so excited that I couldn't go back to sleep. Finally I did for about another hour and a half and this was our view when we woke  up at 5 am. Just beautiful!!

They say we may get a good 9-12 inches...If that's the case this little one isn't going to be able to walk soon. :) Baby, it's cold outside!! I'm entering this picture into Allie's Happy Monday Photo Contest-with the theme of "Something Cold"

I wanted to snap this picture of the boys playing in the backyard because when I opened the gate you could get a true idea of how deep the snow was so far. Keep in mind, it's still coming down!

SLEDDING TIME!!!

WIPE OUT!!!

I'm sure we'll get back out there....but for now with the exception of our dog, Boodro...We're enjoying the warmth inside while watching the beauty continue to fall.

Also last but not least I wanted to join in on Jill's and Ashley's photo challenge called Shoot & Edit. Here you link up a photo SOOC (Straight out of camera) and later on in the week they will walk you through a tutorial on how to properly edit the picture to it's fullest. I'm really excited about this because I have Photoshop Elements 9 but really need help on how to use it. So with that being said here is my photo I'm entering this week:

I think this picture could have lots of potential so later on this week we'll see what we can do with it.
Enjoy your Monday! I'm off to go gaze at the snow.