Amish Country

Adrienne & Nana & I traveled down to Lawrence County with some friends that used to live in the area to see the Mennonite community. Most of these photos were taken from the hip, literally, as the "Plain Folk" do not approve of picture taking. We were blessed to have beautiful weather & everyone seemed to be out enjoying it, especially the children. At times they were literally shielded from view by their Mothers so we could not see them. Once we started talking to the women however, they opened up & our children would peek at each other from around whatever they happened to be hiding behind...a door, a window, me, the van. I tried speaking to the little ones but they remained silent. They did give us big smiles & waves however & I wished I could have taken all their photos they were so sweet looking.

Two little ones.

A community building.


Adrienne & Trapper in a store with Amish handcrafts.


Building a new house & putting up the chimney.


Two women & one small girl in a covered buggy.


The open air buggy.


Going for a wagon ride.


A family car.


Hitching up the horse.


Taking a cow for a ride in the cattle buggy.


This is a deluxe buggy with an extra row of seats in the back. This family has money.


The houses are white & the workshops are red. We "English" only got to go into the red buildings.


The kids were fascinated with the peacocks & the albino bunnies they had at this home.


What a beautiful view of the pasture & the hills with the autumn colors.

Laundry day.



This man sold us some soap & candles. We found out that his oldest son is getting married this month. He said, "My son decided it was time for him to get married. He just had his birthday & turned 21 on October 30th." I asked if the girl was from around here & found out she was from the other side of the highway which is considered far away by buggy.

Frisbee

The weather was so nice on Sunday that we decided to go to the park. As an added bonus Daddy was still home & Nana was here for a visit. We all decided to go out & play frisbee. (& yes I did put down the camera to toss it a few times myself.)


Adrienne in action!


Eli hamming it up for the camera.


Nana being athletic. She said that any "athletic" photos of her had to go on the blog as proof!


Eli would toss to Daddy & if he missed Adrienne was his fetcher & then she would throw it back to Daddy.


He caught this one with his knee!


Adrienne was hanging upside down on the bars & her poncho fell right over her face. It was so funny when she landed right side up & had this beautiful "poncho hair".

Halloween Day & Night

This is Eli's class all dressed up for the day. They were asked to dress up as a character from their favorite book.


We went the opposite route. We had a costume & found a book that went with it. (:0)



This is Adrienne in her bat costume that she so desperately wanted me to make for her.

After school I took the kids trick or treating on the square downtown. All the businesses around the square were handing out candy. It was nice to do that in the daylight. You could actually see all the costumes!

This was one of the employees handing out candy but I thought the costume was so funny I had to take a photo.

As we got ready to go around our neighborhood later my bat asked to be made into a princess bat. I got out the glitter & did my best.

Here is my camouflaged man. I bet Uncle B could have put the face paint on more realistically!

Trick or Treat!!

Walking with Daddy. We were lucky that he was home to take them out & they loved it!

Fun times at Harvest Hoedown

Our church had their annual Harvest Hoedown & we took the kids to have some fun. They said about 15-20 thousand people came during the course of the day. It was crazy but fun.

There were lots of inflatables.


Adrienne was brave enough to get up on a large bull.



It was the most patient bull I have ever seen. It let all the kids climb up & never even shook it's horns or anything.



The kids got to ride the ponies. This pony's name was patches & was a favorite of Adrienne's.



Of course what's a festival without cotton candy?



I don't see the attraction. I could live without the stuff but the kids truly enjoyed it.



Adrienne played carnival games & won candy as a prize.



Eli also played. He was a pretty good shot with the beanbags.



The kids were allowed to come in costume. Adrienne wanted to be a pink kitty. Surprisingly, not a pink kitty princess.



We also have these wonderful pumpkins decorated with stickers in our home now. Nice and small & when the stickers fall off they will look great on the Thanksgiving table!

Bunco Dress up

At Bunco this month we dressed up.

I borrowed Eli's rubber snakes & dressed up as Medusa.

Eli took this picture of "Mother Medusa", as he called me.

I came in second place to a gun totin' Sarah Palin in the costume contest. (I voted for her too.)

My friend Penny dressed up as a 50's homemaker. She makes these cute aprons. Makes me wish I wore aprons more.

Happy Birthday To You...Cha Cha Cha...

Here's Eli & his friends celebrating his birthday!

The Birthday Boy!

Eli had a fun birthday all day long. He got to open up some presents & cards from family after breakfast & then we were off to school. Here he is with the "cone-cakes" he requested for his class.




This is his friend Ethan who also was invited to Eli's party. It's nice to have a friend in his class that also lives only a block away!


Adrienne wanted to have lunch with Eli for his birthday. Personally I think she just likes being a big kid & hanging out with the first graders.


The cool thing about cone cakes is you don't have to mess with unwrapping your food. Easy & fun to eat!


The official birthday class photo (with Adrienne smack dab in the middle).

After school we had a few of the boys in the neighborhood come over for pizza & a pirate party. After dinner we went on a treasure hunt that ended with the appropriate pirate costuming for everyone.

Fierce, no?

Eli requested brownies instead of cake. Works for me. (It's a pirate flag.)

You should have heard all the squeals from these boys as Eli opened his gifts. I thought girls were noisy!



Here are some of the decorations. Adrienne helped me scour the house looking for "pirate-y" things to put on the table.



She even offered some of her jewelery. So sweet.



I put in the goblets that Tony & I used for our wedding toast. Can't you see a pirate captain drinking from one?

My Happy Birthday!

My birthday had a very good start to it thanks to a good friend bringing me Starbucks in the morning & another taking me out to lunch at Macaroni Grill. The kids were especially pleased with lunch because they could draw all over the table & draw they did!! I figured while we were out I'd pick up a few things for Eli's birthday party - pirate goodies of course. The kids & I got that all taken care of. Phew!

Right when we got home Adrienne asked me to carry her in the house & up to bed. Normally I'd say, "tough it out", but she had a such a tired look on her face. I should have known better. I was halfway up the garage steps when she suddenly threw up on me & the steps. I did the only thing I could think of & ran her outside & let her finish throwing up all over the driveway. She looked at me when she was done & said "maybe that's why my stomach was hurting". Kids are so smart!

I cleaned her up & put her to bed for her nap with a lovely barf bowl next to her for comfort. After naps both kids woke up feeling good. I was relieved. I figured she must have eaten something bad but at least now it was out of her system. Right? My husband came home & made plans to take us out to dinner for my birthday. We repeatedly asked Adrienne how she was feeling & got the green light.

As we were putting on socks & shoes Adrienne came to my room & looked at me funny. You know that look...the one that says I'm about to throw up all over your carpet & you'll never get the smell out. I grabbed her like a football under my arm & started to run with her to the bathroom. We almost made it. Almost. Two feet from the bathroom door suddenly my feet started slipping & sliding on the hardwood & I went thudding down on one knee in a painful attempt to not drop my "football".

We finally made it & after we finished up in the bathroom I looked out at the tracks I had made in the vomit on the floor & all I could do was laugh. There's not much else I could do at that moment, plus I'm sure we were a funny sight. Needless to say we did not go out to eat. I had a toaster strudel & a cup of decaf coffee for dinner & let my wonderful husband clean up the floor for me!
Fast - forward 24 hours as we made a second attempt to go out. As you can see by the photo we did finally make it & had a yummy dinner at O'Charlie's. I would have been happy with Taco Bell!



Thank you to everyone who made my day so special with phone calls & emails & singing "happy birthday". I may not have gotten a cake but I have wonderful family & friends who made my day just as sweet (with a lot less calories!).

Apples

We were given a lot of apples from our neighbor across the street & we decided to make some apple sauce & of course an apple pie. (Never mind that I haven't made a pie crust in about 10 years.)



I think they turned out tasty. A few days later a different neighbor gave us some more apples & Eli had an apple tasting in his classroom (where he found that yellow was his favorite). We were surrounded by so many apples that Eli wrote a poem about them.

Apples by Eli Ward

Green is too sour
Red is too sweet
I think yellow
is just too neat