Playing catch up again

Our last few weeks have been full of craziness and excitement. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with great friends. And then a few of us girls did some mad Black Friday shopping. We left the house at 3:45 and got back home at about 12:30 with many wonderful finds. I was extremely pleased with my purchases. I have never done Black Friday shopping before because I've never lived anywhere with any shopping around, but I have to say I have become quite a fan! It's definitely worth braving the crowds if you ask me.

Saturday morning we took the kids to the mall to see Santa. Parker was pretty excited about it. And he loved chatting with Santa. Kaeson on the other hand doesn't consider Santa much of a friend just yet. I'm pretty sure I have a very similar picture of me sitting with Santa at this exact same age. While we were waiting in line to see Santa, they had some of the crazy mirrors, and the kids were pretty entertained by them. Parker kept jumping up and down to see how it distorted him and laughing. Kaeson just kept getting really close to it and putting his face against it.

Last weekend, Gina and Dave flew out to visit us for the weekend. We were so glad to have the company and I had a great time hanging out with them. Lance had finals to study for, so we weren't able to do a lot of fun stuff, but we were happy to have them here! Parker loved having Peyton around to play with.

We are heading out tomorrow to spend the holidays with family. We are so excited! It's been since July that we've been out with family. It will be so fun to have a break from the stresses of school for a few weeks, and just enjoy family and the holidays.

Shh! Don't tell Lance

The other night, Parker and Lance were out, and it was just me and Kaeson at home. We were sitting on the couch, and I just couldn't resist the urge to put one of my bows in his hair! So here he is, wearing a bow in his hair. He kept trying to pull it out, be he did think it was pretty funny when I had him look at himself in the mirror. Lance knows I took the picture, but I don't think he would be too impressed that I posted it on the blog!

Halloween Pictures--A little late.

I'm a little slow to post, but better late than never huh?  We had a great Halloween this year.  The weather was pretty nice, and the kids were cute as ever.  Parker was "Super Why".  For those of you who don't know who that is, Super Why is a PBS cartoon that solves problems by going inside books and changing the story .  Super Why is the main super hero in the show.  Parker loves the show and he was really excited when we found this costume.  Kaeson was a very adorable Tigger.

Parker marched up to every house and said Trick or Treat without hesitation.  He got a little sick on Halloween day, so we thought it might keep us from doing much, but he toughened up just in time!  Kaeson just kept stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, putting his pumpkin down, and taking candy out and staring at it.  He held up all the kids behind us!  Between Trunk or Treating, the Jtown pumpkin fest, and regular trick or treating, we have more candy than we can ever get rid of!

Great Wolf Lodge

Last weekend, since we were unable to do anything fun during Fall Break, we decided to take a little trip to Great Wolf Lodge just past Cincinnati.  If you haven't been, you should definitely go check it out.  We had so much fun, and we really want to go again.  It's a cool hotel with lots of cool stuff for kids, and they have a HUGE indoor water park.  Our awesome friends Katherine and Taurean came with us, which made it even better!

Here's Parker and Taurean at the front of the park.

The boys in the little pool.
This is why you don't see me in the pool with them!

My cute little boys!

Parker must have gone down these kids' slides at least a hundred times!  He loved it.  In the past he hasn't always been that fond of water, especially water slides, but we were pleasantly surprised to see how great he did!
They even let the little kids go down all the slides, and Parker even loved all of them too.  The very last one we did was way fast, and he wasn't thrilled about that, but the rest he did quite a few times.  It was so fun to go down with him, because you could hear him giggling the whole way down.  Kaeson on the other hand, never cried or anything, but he never moved a muscle or made a sound.  I don't think he loved the water overall, but he was a real trooper.  
Parker going down one of the bigger slides by himself.
Poor little Kaeson in his life jacket!  He couldn't hardly move in this thing, but he tolerated it pretty well!
We are so mean, we even made him go down the slides by himself like five times.  But again,  although he didn't seem to care for it much, he put up with it!  He's such a good kid.

We definitely recommend this place to anyone who lives around here!  We can't wait to go back!  They even have storytime three times a day for kids, an arcade and game room, and a craft room with projects for kids.  They also had a lame haunted house while we were there, which we were told was going to be trick-or-treating, but it wasn't--just lame!  But everything else was great!

Happy Fall

Last week for FHE we had our annual pumpkin carving night.  Parker's is the painted one.  Our good friends, the Smiths came and joined us.  Thanks guys!  As you can guess mine is that ugly one in the middle! Mine's always the worst one.  I'm not so artistic, I guess!   

I tried to take a picture of Katherine and Taurean, but apparently the camera doesn't like Taurean, so this is the best we could get.  

Last week Parker and I went out and gathered all the pretty colored leaves laying around outside and made this beautiful fall tree out of them.   
Happy Fall Everyone!

Katherine and I also did a craft fair a few weekends ago.  Here is a picture of our sad little table!  The night before, when we were setting up, this sweet little lady thought we needed a doll for Katherine's hats, so she was so excited to bring one the next morning.  She brought this huge sad old doll with pen all over her face.  Lots of people that came by even thought that the hats were for dolls!  But look how cute her hats are.  I think every little girl needs one!  She even sells them on Etsy, so you can order them from her.  Her etsy site is cherrytreeroad.etsy.com, so check it out!  The fair was so fun and we are excited to do another one if anyone wants to join us!

Feeding and Chasing the Ducks

Ok, so I know it's been forever since I've posted anything!  Sorry!  We haven't really been up to much exciting lately.  Lance has been studying a lot this year, so things have been pretty boring around here.  

Quite a few weeks ago, we went to a park near us to feed the ducks.  It is such a cool park and the kids love it.  We actually go pretty often, but we don't take many pictures.  There are a ton of ducks there, and sometimes if you get lucky they will come all the way through the field to get the food.  One day, we started walking toward the river, and over a hundred ducks swarmed around us and literally ate right out of our hands for nearly an hour.  It was so cool and I wish I had my camera!  Kaeson started getting a little irritated at them, because they kind of bit his fingers a few times!  It was pretty funny to watch him try to shoe them away!  

So here are a few pictures from our last trip to the park.  Kaeson isn't much for feeding the ducks, he prefers just chasing them.

They have these walking/running paths all around  the park, so we went exploring for a while.  Parker loves to hold hands and walk with Kaeson everywhere we go.  Every time they do it, Parker just giggles with excitement.  I don't know what it is that makes him so happy, I'm just glad he still likes his baby brother so much.
Here's a picture of Kaeson trying to feed them.  They weren't as aggressive this day as the can be sometimes. It was a little hard to get them to come close.  That's about it for excitement with us the last month.  
I will post our pumpkin carving pictures soon.

Camping, Climbing, and Riding

Last weekend Lance went to camping with the scouts and decided to take Parker with him.  They seem to have had a good time, and it was fun to have a weekend with just me and Kaeson together. Parker came back full of exciting stories to tell!

Look how beautiful it is there!  

Kaeson is becoming more active and busy every day!  He is always wandering away and exploring something new everywhere we go.  He continues to climb on EVERYTHING!  I tried to capture a few of his recent climbs.
Here he's just playing at the park, and looking adorable.  He loves the park and loves to explore everything there.
One of his favorite climbing places!  It's nearly impossible to get dishes done when he's awake, because I cannot keep him out of there.
He LOVES the slides at the parks.  He climbs to the top all by himself, and slides down all on his own.  He's taken some pretty good spills at the bottom because he never waits until I'm around to catch him.  It's funny to see how different kids' personalities can be.  Parker was so old before we could even convince him to try the slides, and then he would do it one time and want nothing else to do with it!  

Apparently it's not fun enough to just sit and ride on his bike, but he has to balance on the little tiny sit and stand there!  Not only does he love to climb on things, but he always has to be as high as possible, so he is always standing on or in stuff.
Like so.  He won't sit in the stroller while we walk, he has to be standing the whole time.  And it doesn't do any good to sit him back down, because he just gets right back up again.
And again, climbing into the wagon, and then standing tall!
Here he is so proud of himself!
And again!  He climbs onto this table twenty times a day!  He hasn't mastered getting off of things just yet, so I have to get him back down, and then he's right back up!

He just learned this one yesterday!  It scares me to death.  Luckily so far, he's only figured out how to get to the second step, but it's only a matter of time before he figures out how to get all the way up.

And in other very exciting news: Parker finally learned how to ride his bike!  It was a very exciting accomplishment and he is very proud of himself.  He still has a tough time if he has to go uphill at all--it's a lot of work--but he is doing great and he loves it!