Simple Pleasures

Jed loves playing with a ball.  He is pointing out anything that even resembles a ball and says, "ball".  It's just too cute.  He is obsessed with seeing his collection of balls in the garage.  When we walk through he always points them out.  Sometimes he continues to point to the garage door and say "ball" after we have been inside for a while.  The word "ball" is the first word that I recognize him use in context (other than uh-oh).  

 

Evangeline auditioned for the school talent show.  I love her confidence.  She was nervous to try out.  She sang au Capella in front of the panel of judges which consisted of Mrs. Cannady, Mrs. Engledow and Mrs. Stone.  I was so excited for her when she found out that she got a spot.  She came running down the hall to me after school with a little bag of Skittles and a note attached that said to continue practicing because she gets to preform in the talent show.  She was thrilled to pieces.  She is going to sing Just a Closer Walk With Thee with Kyle again.  (We don't have time to learn a new song.)  

 

Evangeline always likes to play in my classroom after school.  She play school, look at books, help me with things and makes any craft that we happened to do that day.  I always save her a copy of things I think she might enjoy.  A few weeks ago my kids did a paper where they got to write and draw what they think I should be for Halloween.  I knew Evangeline would get a kick out of this.  She did one and I stuck it up on the bulletin board with my class' work. 

 

Evangeline was in a play at church last weekend, "The Technicolor Promise", a production about Noah's Arch.  The kids had been practicing since June.  It was fabulous.  They did a dress rehearsal for the residents at the Villas of Hollybrook.  Sunday was the performance at church.  Evangeline sang a lovely solo.  Again, my heart was bursting with pride. 

 

Carving a pumpkin with Jed was pretty hysterical.  He loved sticking his arm inside the pumpkin and pulling out the goo.  They were fun to watch.  At one point Jed took off with the top of the pumpkin.  He strutted all around the front walk shaking that thing wildly.  We all got a kick out of it.  I am just so thankful for these two.  They are the joy of my life.

Here he is taking a big fistful of pulp and attempting to put it back into the pumpkin much to the surprise of big sis. 

 

Oh my goodness, this picture cracks me up every time I look at it..... 

Grandma was there.  It's always nice to have an extra set of hands.

 

Sweetness

Another pumpkin patch last weekend.  That's two in the past week...not too shabby.  This time we went with Zach, Candice and Cale to a new patch in Paris.  It was fun.  Hay bail jumping, hay rides, a huge bouncing pillow, live music, corn mazes....it was the quintessential fall outing.  Jed had a great time throwing dirt in the air.  There was so much dirt in his shoes and hair when we got home.  Cale loved the slide.  

 

Jed's been loving table food lately.  I let him go to town on some spaghetti last night and let me tell you, it was fun for everyone.... gives a whole new meaning to his nickname, Jedie-Spaghetti.  

 

Jed is the king of the kisses right now.  He blows the sweetest kisses and also gives them with a very exaggerated "mmmm-aaahhh".  He'll just come right up and lay one on ya out of the blue.  It's precious. 

Jed also decided to become an official full time walker last Thursday (October 13).  It's pretty fun around here!

Peggy sent me this picture of Jed in Grandpa Roy's boots.  She said he was fascinated with them.  

 

Here's another cute picture Peggy sent me of Jed at Peggy's friend's house picking pumpkins.  She said he loved sitting on that little car and he cried when it was time to get off of it.  

 

We've been working to clean up Evangeline's playhouse.  She has had so much fun making it homey on the inside.  She's got big plans for this little house....

 

The second graders have all been challenged to visit the library during the month of October and complete a series of tasks.  These tasks include things like, reading to a librarian, getting a library card if you don't already have one, getting your picture taken with a Cat in the Hat hat on for the newspaper.  Evangeline could not wait to do this.  We made sure to go the first Monday in October.  The librarian sent me this picture.  This is the one that was in the paper.....

 

I love reading the school papers that Evangeline brings home.  One thing I absolutely adore is the fact that she still says "thumpthing" and writes it in her school papers.  How long will it last?  I don't know, but I'm not about to correct her any time soon. 

The Great Pumpkin

We made an unplanned stop at The Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur, IL on the way home from Springfield on Monday.  There was an awful lot of see and do there.  There were also some pretty tasty treats.  A band was playing and nowadays, every time Jed hears music or any kind of rhythm, he's gotta boogie.  Evangeline picked out a pumpkin and took that job very seriously.  It was pretty amazing to see all of the different varieties of pumpkins and gourds.  

 

I enjoy seeing all of the horse and buggies in this big Amish community.  You can see one in the background in the picture below. 

Springfield Family Vacey

What a lovely Columbus Day weekend!  Kyle and I took the kids on a 3 night trip to Springfield, IL.  The kids really enjoyed our stay at the Crown Plaza hotel.  It was wonderful having uninterrupted family time.  We visited New Salem, the settlement were Abe Lincoln lived for a few years upon arriving in Springfield off of the flatboat.  We toured the Old Capital, which was absolutely incredible.  On Sunday we spent several hours at the Lincoln Presidential Museum.  The museum is just phenomenal.  We also returned to New Salem Sunday night for a candle light walk complete with apple cider and gingerbread.  Before we left on Monday we stopped at a huge sporting goods store.  We were there forever...I had to drag Kyle out of there.  He was in his happy place.  It was such a big store, there was a full sized Farris wheel inside.   

 

Here are a few pictures from New Salem.  The weather could not have been any more beautiful.  I think I might have said, "This weather is absolutely perfect" a million times over the weekend.  I just couldn't help myself, the phrase just kept coming out of my mouth. 

 

Evangeline and I were totally impressed with this massive wool carder.  It took oxen walking on this treadmill thing (pictured) to move the carder, which is located on the inside of the cabin.  

 

As I mentioned, the Old Capital was so neat.  There is so much history here.  It's amazing how much of it has been preserved.  Here we saw Lincoln's original campaign posters, a flag carried in the Civil War, the furniture that was in the train car that carried Lincoln's body from D.C. to IL., the room where Lincoln gave his "House Divided" speech, which was also the same room where Lincoln lay in state.  75,000 people came through this room to pay their respects to him before his burial. It was just an amazing place.  

 

I could just tell that Jed was really taking in all the history.  

 

Jed just loves practicing his walking skills.  He spends more time walking than crawling right now.  He's still not 100% committed, but he's getting close. 

 

This precious little guy enjoyed getting held while napping and sleeping in bed with us for the weekend.

 

The Lincoln museum gets me every time.  I seem to always leave with tears.   

We walked from the museum to Lincoln's home.  Jed was a bit of a handful, but we managed to make it through. 

 

There's Mr. Lincoln's house in the background....

The candle lite walk in New Salem was lots of fun, other than the fact that there were tons of people there.  We were shocked.  The gingerbread and apple cider was a nice touch.