My Life According to the Kids

One day I was sipping Diet Coke from a KFC cup as I was waiting patiently at the bus stop for Katey and Seth. When Seth saw my cup he was outraged that I ate lunch at KFC anywhere without him. So that got me thinking...now that both children are at school for 7 hours a day, what do they think I do while they are gone? I decided to pose that question to my little cuties.

Seth: You go to the store and get gas*. And read on the computer.

Katey: You go shopping sometimes. You hang out with your friends sometimes. You get gas sometimes.

Interesting...

*As a side note, a few weeks into school starting Seth was very concerned that we no longer stop to put gas in the van. I had to explain to him that I do that while he is at school. He now usually asks me several times a week if I got gas. I promise they are both referring to gasoline!

Apple Picking...or something similar to that

A couple of weekends ago we thought it would be a fun idea to take the kids to pick apples. I had mentioned the idea to Mike over dinner one night as a possibility but when Katey heard about it there was only reality in her mind! She was so excited to FINALLY get to pick apples that we knew we had to make it work out.

As most things in life, this trip didn't work out quite like we had envisioned. We have friends that head to Hendersonville, NC each year to pick apples. They say it is so much fun and there are lots of things to do. So, we thought we would make the 2 hour drive for our fun adventure. Then we saw the weather forecast and opted to head to York, SC which is only a 1 hour drive. The website for this orchard said they had a bumper crop this year and, way more importantly, they have the best apple cider donuts and apple cider around. We were sold! I called that morning to make sure they were open and off we went. Here were our surprises for the trip:

1. There were chickens at the orchard and the kids had a grand time feeding them some corn (thanks, Grammy, for the quarter to buy corn!).
2. We walked up to see how this works and were told that this was probably the last weekend the orchard would be open because the trees were almost bare. Grand...they didn't mention THAT part on the phone when I called.
3. We were sent out to pick apples with only our bags to carry them in. Almost all the apples left were WAAAAAYYYY up at the tops of the trees and it was posted that we should not climb in the trees. ???
4. A nice group was on their way back in and handed us a pole with a picking basket on it and pointed us towards some trees that still had apples. Thank you, nice group!
5. Many of the apples that were left in the trees were rotten.
6. Rotten apples attract bees.
7. Mike is strong and can hold Jen on his shoulders for quite awhile. The apple at the top of the tree was stronger and refused to be picked.
8. Sitting on Mike's shoulders is scary and I don't like heights as much as I used to...or maybe it is the feeling of wobbliness while sitting on shoulders that I don't like.
9. Katey loved picking apples and Seth was okay with it, too.

And, the hardest discovery of all: THERE WERE NO DONUTS OR APPLE CIDER!!!!

We all had fun despite the down-sides to the trip. Though, if we do this again next year we will most definitely travel the extra miles to Hendersonville!

Katey was better at being on Daddy's shoulders than Mommy was!

A Few of My Favorite Things

I've been thinking for awhile now about posting on some of the things that the kids are doing these days that I just love. So, here goes...













Katey
Probably my most favorite thing that Katey does at the moment is parenthetical speaking. What?!? We all know that this girl LOVES to talk and to tell stories. Her latest way to do that is to talk normally until she gets to a parenthetical side-note in the tale at which point she turns her head to the side a little and lowers her voice almost to a whisper. When the side-note is complete she returns to her normal speaking tone. It is amazing how many of her stories include parenthesis. For example, "Mommy, today in PE (I had PE today since it is Monday) I came in 2nd place in the race!" SO CUTE!!

Another thing that totally makes me smile is the expression in Katey's voice when she reads out loud. In Sunday School class she was asked to read a passage aloud from Exodus. It was one where God and Moses are speaking to each other. When she got to God's words she used a really deep and booming voice. When she read the words of Moses she sounded quiet and timid. When she read everything in between it was her normal voice. This child is creative!

Completely unrelated to words, I adore the loving nature that Katey possesses. She is so sweet with Seth and is a great big sister. She is so genuine with her gratitude and so tender with her emotions toward others.













Seth
I love that Seth is working on using proper forms of words at the moment and still gets them mixed-up sometimes. He is working really, really hard on using 'aren't' instead of 'am'. For example, he says, "I am a good bike rider, am I, Mommy?...oh, I mean aren't I, Mommy". But, even better than mis-using the tense and then correcting himself, he then scolds himself aloud. "Seth, you know that it is 'aren't', not 'am'. [then in a slightly different sounding tone of voice] Oh, right, I just forgot, sorry."

Some of you may be thinking that the word theme in this post is interesting. However, I would like to now point out that you are incorrect in your thinking. According to Seth, the theme is "in-stress-ting", but I am sure he will let your slip in thoughts slide just this one time. Hee hee hee

(And even though he has moved past this and uses the word correctly now, I can assure you that I will not ever park in a parking spot again. My van parks in 'spocks'.)

Seth came home from school one day talking about a bucket. He told us that everyone has an invisible bucket and when someone says or does nice things to you, the bucket gets filled. If someone does mean things to you then your bucket gets empty. Okay, a nice, concrete way to think about how your words and actions affect people around you. So, why is this one of my favorite things? Because a couple of times now when I have picked Seth up and snuggled him and given him lots of Mommy kisses he has looked at me with this happy little face and declared, "Aw, thanks Mommy, you filled up my bucket!"

Mike
No stories here. Just wanted to point out that Mike is one of my favorite things. I Love you!!

Aw Autumn!

I love the Autumn! Changing leaves, pumpkins, Indian corn, relief from the summer heat of NC, apple recipes, getting to wear clothes you haven't seen in 6 months...what could be better? (At least at the moment - in a couple of months I'll be longing for summer again!)

We decided to kick off Fall at a local farm called Aw Shucks. Mike took the kids there last year while I stayed at home with a cast on my foot. So, I was excited to be joining the family this year for such a fun event. And, the kids both made mention that it was my first time to go and were excited as well. The coolest part about Aw Shucks is the corn maze! The kids took turns navigating us through the maze and we discovered that Katey is excellent at reading and following a map. (Much better than her Mommy!) If you want to see an arial view of the maze, click on the "Aw Shucks" underlined above.We also had fun with the other activities at the farm. The kids fed fish in the pond, played in the tree house, took a hay ride, saw some sheep, horses, chickens and turkeys, tried their hand at cattle roping, took a nature walk to spot birdhouses and even participated in a duck race!

The kids riding on the cow after they both roped him. So cute!

Okay, so it wasn't REAL ducks that they were racing, but it was really fun and I think they liked using rubber duckies and being able to pump water even better than if they were the real thing. :-)

All in all it was a fun day. We decided not to purchase pumpkins just yet as there wasn't much variety when we were looking. Even with the promise of getting pumpkins somewhere else soon, Seth was not a happy camper. So, we left on a bad note with lots of tears and frustration and Seth saying he didn't have a good time at all today. However, after a nap, he declared that Aw Shucks was a lot of fun! (Naps are the cure-all for any ailment...that is why I like to take so many of them.) Katey was unwaivering in her declaration of fun and has now asked when we can go pick apples. Go figure.

Oh, and did I say that I love Autumn partly due to the relief from the summer heat? We trekked through the corn maize in 80 degree weather and sat on the hay ride sweating! Not that I am complaining, but it did feel a bit counter-intuitive to participate in such Fall activities while hoping to find a little shade somewhere. Gotta love North Carolina!!

I'll end this post with a few cute pictures from the day. Enjoy!