Punkin Pickin'

This past Thursday, I took Bella and Austin to pick out pumpkins. We all had a great time. Austin enjoyed wandering around trying to pick up all the pumpkins. Bella enjoyed looking around trying to find the perfect one. And although having 2 kids in an open outdoor space by myself feels a lot like herding cats, I had fun as well.

Austin headed straight for a pallet of small pumpkins. He really enjoyed taking them all off the pallet and putting them on the ground. I enjoyed getting to put them all back on the pallet when he lost interest and walked away.

And here's Bella with her small pumpkin.

Decisions, decisions...

Examining the pumpkin closely to be sure it's worthy of sitting on our front porch.

I really wanted a good picture of Bella and Austin together. This was the best I got. It is almost impossible to get them to both look and smile at the camera.

A decent shot of the two of them, although it looks like Bella's got Austin in a choke hold.

Bella's signature picture pose: smiling, but looking just to the right or left of the camera.

My handsome fella.

"Hey Mommy, I think this is the one I want."

"What are these things? They don't look like the rest of the pumpkins here..."

"Put the camera down and let's go!"

Austin wanted to push the wheelbarrow.

"I think I'll take this one." And, I might add, this was right before his little foot got wedged in the slats of the pallet and I thought for sure he had broken his leg. Luckily, once I freed his foot (with the help of the man working at the pumpkin patch) he was fine.

While I was frantically working to free Austin's foot, Bella amused herself with a game of jack-o-lantern cornhole.

We enjoyed our pumpkin patch adventure. Austin is fine (except for a few bruises around his ankle) and our pumpkins are proudly displayed on our front porch! Up next- I think I'm going to let Bella and Austin paint their pumpkins- should be fun and messy!

Rainy Days

Last week it rained. And rained. And rained. And when we couldn't stand it anymore, it rained some more. It rained for 4 days straight. I'm not talking a little drizzle either. It was a downpour with flooding and all. I can't remember the specific total, but it was over 22 inches of rain, which I think was some sort of record. Even beat out a hurricane. So, when Thursday rolled around (rain day #4), I decided why not try and make the most of it. I decided we should all stay home together as a family and just have a cozy day inside. The plan was to bake cupcakes, watch movies and just make the most of a blah day. Bella even stayed in her pajamas all day. Austin would have, but his pajamas have footies which makes walking difficult on the wood floor.

Here's just a little of the water that was standing in our yard. The rain almost washed all the dirt away from my little gardenias.

Our cupcakes. Bella was a great helper. Of course we had to make her favorite- chocolate cupcakes with strawberry icing.

Everybody thought they were delicious!

What's better than cupcakes? Getting to eat the leftover icing!

You know they had to be good- she ended up with crumbs by her eye!

Austin decided to chill in the highchair as if it were a lazy boy recliner...

And this is what a 3 year old girl's bedroom looks like at the end of a day stuck inside...

Finally, around 4pm, it stopped raining. It was way too soggy to go in the yard, so we all huddled on the porch, just to get the feeling of being outside. We all had to leave our wet footprints on the only dry part of the porch. Austin's are the 2 on the left, then it's Bella's, mine and Scott's...

We enjoyed our rainy day inside, but were certainly glad when it stopped. Cabin fever was certainly beginning to set in! It's now 5 days later, and our yard is still not dried out. At least we've saved money on having to run the sprinklers!