weekend in the mountains

 Ever since Brent and I went hiking in August, the kids have been asking to go. Well maybe just Colin. Joel isn't much of a hiker and Norah just doesnt want to be left out so she'll ask to go anywhere.  So we started looking at the calendar and this is the only weekend we could go. At first we were going to go camping too but every place was booked.  Apparently this was the peak weekend for the fall colors and it didn't disappoint.

We hiked Dark Hollow Falls again. We seem to do this every 3 years.  The last time was when I was pregnant with Norah.  Its just a great hike with kids since there isn't a chance they can fall off the mountain.  Although they did get right to the top of the waterfall with Brent and made me nervous when Colin was standing right at the top of the waterfall on slippery rocks.

 This guy surprised me by not complaining at all during the hike. He loved it and walked the whole way.

 Norah wasn't sure at first but it didn't take her long to get down and walk too. She walked all but maybe 15 minutes of a 2.5 hour hike. 

 Mary and Lenny came with us.  It was so fun to spend the weekend with Mary.  We stayed at Robbie's family's vacation house called "the getaway" and the views from the house were amazing.  Such a pretty piece of land.  Mary showed us where they want to build a house with beautiful views of the mountains.

 I'm not sure if Colin was attempting to push Joel in but surprisingly not one child got their feet wet the whole hike.

 

 It was so pretty.  Its probably been since we lived in west virginia that we've seen such a pretty fall. 

 So fun to spend time with Mary. 

 

 Mary and her baby.  Thanks for having us this weekend.  All morning Norah has been on her play phone "calling" mary and asking to talk to mary's doggie.  The boys loved exploring Robbie's land and Colin especially loved the tennis courts. 

 On our way home we stopped at Carters Mountain to pick apples.  I love these pictures of Joel!  

 So sad to see all those apples on the ground that were rotting away.

 

I think its pretty  much guaranteed by now that if theres a "pick your own" we will go and pick!  The kids each picked a bag then brent and I shared a bag and ended up with 60 lbs of apples.  So lots of baking this week! 

Artist

He is my artistic creative one. He takes after his Ma-ma-maa and Ant Ant. 

He comes home and draws and creates for hours lately. Even Legos have taken a back seat to crayons and paper. 

The picture above is an adult eagle. 

This is a baby eagle eating a pinecone. 

This is a robot. 

He also likes to use tape for just about anything. Sometimes I buy him scotch tape and he will use paper and string and make things. Right now he's got a scotch tape spider web intricately taped to his door with a very good lifelike drawing of a spider in the center. 

A neighbor was cleaning out their garage and gave Brent a box of brand new crayons and that was the best present ever to Joel. Sharpened crayons. He rationed out a few purple and pink ones for Norah and made sure Norah only took from the crayon box of broken used ones after that! 

I hope he always creates. It's fun seeing his mind work as he talks me through each piece of paper. 

October beach days

I took Joel and Norah to the beach Wednesday after school. Joel refused to go but I put him in the car and then he refused to leave the beach. I knew he would love it. 

The water is still really warm and there aren't many waves so the kids can go pretty far out wading. There also isn't many people on the beach so the kids can have the freedom to just run back and forth from the playground to the mountain of sand to the water. 

I had brought swim suits so after a while Norah changed into hers. We had to head back to get Colin off the bus or we could've stayed longer. 

October beach days might just be my favorite time to come to the beach. 

Doll

Norah has finally started carrying a doll everywhere...

Meet "hokie" and yes we know it's an RG3 robot hard plastic action figure but she is convinced it is "hokie" and calls it hokie. When she's asking "where's hokie?" We know she's talking about this doll. 

She snuggles, feeds, hugs this thing and takes it everywhere. It's been to church, stores, playgrounds, the bus stop. She even sleeps with it each night. 

You can tell she has older brothers and at least it can be easily sanitized after going everywhere with us. 

The boys have no chance of playing with it or she goes into a huge meltdown until they give it to her. Colin was trying to play with it this afternoon and Norah snatched it back. But then I saw Colin getting the after school treat basket down and negotiating with Norah. Candy for hokie. 

She sold out pretty quick and Colin was smart in giving her a bag of mini skittles because it kept her busy until he was done with it. 

Pumpkin Time

 Yesterday we welcomed October in with a trip to Bergey's Breadbasket and did their corn maze, soybean maze, hayride, corn shooter, and saw the farm animals.  We went with our community group and it was a great morning/afternoon with friends and lots of fun. 

 Becca is in Joel's class at school and its great hearing from Becca about her day so we can compare. I have learned more about what goes on in school this year than in Colin's past years. 

 We did a corn maze.  I've always wanted to do one.  We actually tried to do this one last year but a few days before we went it got blown down in a really bad storm. It started raining friday night and I was worried it would blow down again but it was fine.  And we learned how they make the mazes.  They have this automatic tractor set to this gps of whatever design you want then it just automatically knows where to cut.  Pretty cool.  The maze would've been more fun I think at night.  The kids all ran through it fast and then before we got to a dead end would loop back and yell "dead end" so everyone could hear so we were in and out quicker than we thought!

 Some of our group. 

 Tractor races.  We all ate lunch at Bergey's and then everyone left.

 But we stopped next door at the pumpkin patch and let the kids go out into the field and pick their own pumpkins.

 She will stand and say "cheese" always with her eyes closed. 

 I really wanted one of these big white pumpkins.  I did come home with a smaller white one which Joel has now claimed as his and wants to turn it into a ghost jackolantern. 

Norah wanted a baby one and they let us have it for free. She has hugged and kissed this thing ever since.   Sometimes I see that and think she'd make a great big sister one day.  But then yesterday I tried to hold a friends 6 month old and did for about .04 seconds before Norah noticed and ran over yelling and screaming and demanding me to give the baby back and I hold Norah!  My friend told Norah that she was making sure that she stayed the baby of the family.  ha! 

Colin then went to a birthday party for the rest of the afternoon and we've had friends staying with us all weekend for a wedding they were in. They brought their dog and Norah claimed the dog as hers and called it "my charlie" all weekend.  It was so good catching up with Bethany and Kristopher.  Bethany and I went for a long run together saturday and got to catch up a lot between their wedding stuff.  We will see them next month when Bethany and I run the Richmond half so that will be fun.  They left early this morning so we are relaxing and all plan on taking naps this afternoon.  Hopefully the kids cooperate for that!