Favorite Fall Festivities!

FOLIAGE HIKE
I have to say, fall is my absolute most favorite time of the year. I'm sure if I wasn't in the east, I wouldn't appreciate it quite as much. But nothing beats foliage like this...
It almost doesn't look real! We went on a short hike with some friends and at the end came to this vista. It was so beautiful that I asked my friend Nancy if I could come back to her house and take Blake on the hike. He loved it just as much as I did. So beautiful!

FOOTBALL
Nothing says fall like a good 'ol college football game. Thanks to Aunt Nic, Ethan and I were able to go with her to watch the Army/Air Force game at West Point. If you've never been to an Army game, it really is something else. Cannons are fired each time points are scored and some of the cadets do push ups for each point. It was very exciting! Ethan came dressed in his full army gear (official army combat uniform courtesy of Aunt Nic).

Here's a picture of Ethan and me outside the stadium.

All the cadets in their dress uniforms.

West Point field.

Aunt Nic, Uncle Pat and Ethan enjoy the game (well, Ethan enjoyed his nachos while WE enjoyed the game!)

LEAVES
Lucky for us we have very few trees in our yard (mostly in the back of our house). But, it's just enough to have to rake the backyard and get some good leaf piles to jump in.

Ethan relaxing in the leaves.

Ethan shows Addie and Grant how to enjoy a good leaf pile. Grant wouldn't sit in the pile for more than a second. Addie on the other hand, sat there with her arms out because she couldn't figure out how to get out. They are so funny!

FALL COLORS
I tried to snag a picture of the kids before church in their fall colored outfits. This was the best we could get and that was a MAJOR accomplishment!
PARKS AND DRIVES
One of our favorite parks to go to is in Chester. It's great because I can keep the twins contained in swings while Ethan runs around and climbs on everything. The drive to Chester is beautiful too so we usually drive around the area and look at the picturesque little churches and farms.

Grove Street Park, Chester

Ethan proudly shows me that he climbed to the top of a huge web sort of structure. Once upon a time I would have been totally freaked out about this. I guess three kids tend to wear you down!

Grant and Addie swing in front of a BEAUTIFUL tree!

THANKSGIVING

I'm kicking myself because we just came back from thanksgiving with my sister, Natalie and her family in Richmond, VA. We were there for a couple of days and I didn't take any pictures. AAHHH! We had a great time hanging out with cousins, eating yummy food, jumping on the trampoline and shopping at 4 a.m. on Black Friday. We're so lucky to have some of our family close to us. We have so much to be thankful for!

Now...I'm bracing myself for WINTER. Ugh!

Happy Halloween!

We had a great time kicking off Halloween this year. We started out our weeks of festivities by hosting a Halloween playgroup party at our house. The kids had a great time decorating paper pumpkins, taking a walk down the street in their costumes and eating treats, of course!

I let Ethan pick out a pumpkin at the store to carve and it turned out to be a great one! He was a little hesitant to get his hands dirty at first, but after a few minutes, he jumped right in. I was finding pumpkin seeds around the kitchen for a good day or two afterward!

This was the face Ethan designed himself. Spooky!

Some friends of ours, the Cooks, hosted a couples Halloween party which was a blast. We had yummy food, fun games and good times. As you can see, Blake and I decided to sport some fun afro wigs this year.
Since Halloween was on a Sunday this year, we tried to get in as much trick-or-treating as we could. We went with our friends, the Teeples, to a local mall and let the kids trick-or-treat from store to store. Unfortunately the kids wouldn't really cooperate for a good picture of their costumes (Iron Man, Mickey and Minnie Mouse).

They were also able to get some candy at our ward trunk-or-treat which was a really fun night. Nicole, TJ, and Pepe joined us at the church for the festivities. They were the most popular place for the kids to trick-or-treat to because they were handing out full sized candy bars. Yum!

A Few "Ethanisms"

I have to write these down because they were so funny to me and some day I know I'll forget them all.

• Today Ethan was rummaging through his Halloween loot and found a blue Air Head. He looked at me and innocently asked, "Mommy, if I eat this, will I get air in my head?"
• Last week I took the kids to Walmart to pick up a few things. Of course by the end of our trip, all three were beginning to melt down. As we approached the registers, two nuns came up to me admiring my darling kids. They were asking about the twins at first and then proceeded to ask Ethan, "what's your name young man?" He looked at them and stuck out his tongue spitting. I wanted to DIE! Needless to say, he had a time out for that when we got home!
• The other night Ethan was doing something naughty...I honestly can't remember what it was. We had tried time out but to no avail. Nothing was reaching this kid. So, I tried a new tactic and threatened to send him to bed without dinner. It worked! He immediately started bawling and flopped to the ground begging me to give him dinner. Then, it was like a lightbulb went off in his head and he ran up to me and said, "Mommy, don't look at where I'm going and don't listen to me for a minute, okay?" I agreed but of course I looked to make sure he wasn't going to cause trouble. He ran into the family room, dropped to his knees and this is what I heard, "Dear Heavenly Father, please bless mommy that she'll give me some dinner tonight." At the conclusion of his little prayer, he ran into the kitchen and proclaimed, "HA! Now I've gotcha mommy! Now you HAVE to give me dinner!" It was all I could do to not bust up laughing. If only it were that easy. :)
• One afternoon I had put the babies down for a nap and was trying to get a few things done during my only quiet time. Ethan came in and asked me to play a game with him and I agreed but I told him I had one more thing to do. He began whining and told me he didn't want me to do ONE MORE THING! So, I let everything go went with him to pick out a game. As we were doing that, my mom called so I ran to get the phone. The next thing I heard was Ethan yelling..."Mommy! Are you doing ONE MORE THING?!!" Grammy cracked up!
• Here's a new one from today:

E - Mommy, why do I only have one sister?
M - I don't know...why? Do you want another one?
E - Yeah, I'm getting kind of tired of this one. She's pretty boring.

Fall in NJ...
My favorite time of year!

Since the start of fall, we've been trying to take in as much as NJ has to offer. We celebrated the first day of fall by going to a farm with my friend and letting the kids climb the haystacks, feed the animals, etc. It was the perfect way to kick off the season!

Ethan on top of a HUGE stack of hay!

Addie tries to figure out what this hay stuff is...

Grants favorite spot was the picnic benches. He kept resting his head on the bench saying, "awww."

Addie runs through the hay stacks.

Ethan rests for a second from running through the hay tunnel.


Then, last week, we joined our playgroup to go to Ort Farms in Long Valley. We've gone for the past few years so it's become a little tradition of ours.

Addie finds a pumpkin to take home. She can't quite lift it yet!

Ethan found his right away. Score! (He had to make sure it had a nice stem and no yucky parts if it was coming to our house.)

Grant wouldn't really cooperate for pictures but I did manage to get this one quickly!

My munchkins enjoying the hay ride. (Can I just say how happy I'll be when the day comes that I don't have to constantly worry about them falling off of things!)

Me and the gang!

Ethan feeding the animals. He was pretty brave and got right in there with the corn kernals. Can we say HAND SANITIZER?!

We've got a few more weeks of beautiful fall weather so hopefully we'll have more adventures to come. Special thanks to Aunt Nic for furnishing the adorable Halloween shirts and to Grammy for Addie's darling sneakers. The kids got lots of compliments!

End of Summer Highlights

Budd Lake Beach: One fun thing about our town is that there is a free beach we can access during the summer. It's nothing fancy but there's water and sand which is all my kids care about. Ethan had a blast floating out to the docks with us out in the "deep" end. I took him out there once and discovered when I got home that underneath my swim suit was some green slime from the water. Needless to say, Blake has been the one to take him out in the water after that.

Ethan hanging out with our buddies the Teeples at the lake.

Point Pleasant Beach: Blake and I got married on Feb. 1st so every year we try to celebrate our anniversary, it gets lost between Blake's birthday, Ethan's birthday, Valentine's Day, other family members birthdays, etc. So, we've decided to start celebrating it during the summer when we can really have some time to enjoy. This summer we snuck away to Point Pleasant for two days, thanks to Aunt Nic, Uncle TJ, and my mom who were willing to watch our three munchkins. We love going to Point Pleasant because it was one of the places we went when we were first dating and had such a fantastic time. It brings back so many fun memories!

Boardwalk Bar and Grill - We eat here every time we can. Our favorite thing to get is the pina coladas. FABULOUS! And, you can't beat the view!

Yumm - O!

Isn't the view incredible?

Zeppoles - Our other MUST DO is to eat Zeppoles on the boardwalk. If you don't know what a zeppole is, imagine a funnel cake that was just a ball of dough that was fried and then powdered sugared. There's no delicate way to eat them but they are FABULOUS!!

We spent part of our trip driving up the coast line of NJ exploring shore towns we haven't been to before. We had to drive through one of our favorite towns called Deal. Blake loves it for the good surfing spot. I love it for the amazingly beautiful homes and manicured lawns. Isn't this house incredible?

This is one of the streets in Deal. So beautiful!

We drove out to the tip of Sandy Hook to see the lighthouse. One of my favorite things to do is visit lighthouses. Unfortunately this one was pretty run down but there's still something so historical and majestic about them.
Swim Lessons: This summer Ethan took about 6 weeks of swimming lessons. I was very impressed at how quickly he acclamated to the water. Remember, this is the child who runs through the sprinkler with goggles on and holds his ears shut when I help him wash his hair in the tub. So, I was thrilled to watch him kicking, blowing bubbles and going under water!



Summer Visitors: This summer we've had a few visitors, some welcomed, some not so welcomed. Read on...
One morning while feeding the kids breakfast, I looked out the kitchen window and to my surprise, saw this fella right behind my house. I jumped up and screamed for Ethan to come look out the window. He walked right behind our house, around to the front, across our driveway, down the lawn and across the street (where I finally was able to get a picture of him without the fear of being eaten.) Needless to say, I'm a little more timid about letting my kids go out to play...

I'm not sure how well you can see them but after Ethan got a bee sting out on our deck, we discovered why he was targeted. He had been playing by the railing where, unbeknownst to him, the bees were busy building a hive. But, Ethan and Blake got sweet revenge after a trip to Hope Depot and a can of bee poison put an end to their productivity!

One morning I was standing at the sink doing dishes when I realized that we had some adorable little guests in the tree outside my window. It's a little hard to see but there's a mommy bird with three little beaks anxious for a meal. It totally brightened my day to see these little ones so anxious to see their mommy. It cracked me up watching them whine and fight for food when she came back. Guess it reminds me a little of my life!

Daddy's Week Off: Blake hadn't taken much time off all year so I convinced him to take a week off and have a stay-at-home vacation with us. It was SO terrific. It reminded me of the days when Blake was in law school and was around so much. We went to the park, the beach and just had a great time together as a family.

Ethan spinning at the park...

Addie and Grant swinging...

Beach trip to Deal...Addie tries to see if she's cut out for surfing!

Grant is kickin' it in the beach chair. What a life!

Random Ethan:

The other day Ethan was playing with his red Hess firetruck. He became frustrated that the ladder kept coming off. So, I fixed it once for him but it came off again. He then told me that he'd better say a prayer to Heavenly Father and Jesus to fix his firetruck. His prayer went something like this, "Dear Heavenly Father, I really need your help. The ladder on my firetruck keeps coming off and my mommy can't even fix it. So, I guess it's a job for you this time. Can you please use your special powers to fix my truck?" It was so cute, I had to run and get my camera. Is that bad to take a picture of a prayer? :)

Hose obsession: If you know Ethan well, you know that he has a slight fixation with spraying things. He could spend hours spraying the lawn hose, spraying the sprayer in the sink, with a spray bottle, etc. The other day is was pouring rain but did that stop him? Oh no! So we got him outfitted and here he is...helping Mother Nature with her watering.

OBX: In August, I took a mommy vacation to the Outer Banks of NC with my mom and sister, Natalie. It was a much needed break for all of us! We slept in, sat on the beach, read books and magazines, collected shells, sat in the lazy river, swam, shopped, visited a lighthouse and watched the sun set. It was fabulous!

Nat, Mom & me on the beach in Corolla, NC.

Lighthouse in Corolla, NC. I've been to this one before with Blake and Ethan a few years ago. Really neat!

Beautiful sunset on the bay.

The girls at sunset on a pier.

Labor Day Campout: Over the Labor Day weekend, we camped overnight with some friends of ours from our ward. Unfortunately we got there a little late so we missed the fire and s'mores. But, I didn't let that stop me from roasting my own marshmallow over the electric stove in our cabin and making my own. We had a blast hanging out with friends, canoeing, playing games, etc. Fun times!

Grant plays with sand toys at the lake at the campground.

Sleepy Addison rests on a chair with her baba.

Blake watches Ethan swim out in the lake. Ethan was a little fish that day and couldn't get enough of the water and canoe. Such a little boy!

So, even though we didn't have any big trips planned this summer, we had a great time just spending time locally together as a family.