Something to keep in mind with the holidays around the corner..

Wordless Wednesday

I Heart Faces-week 45 Autumn Beauty

My favorite season and my favorite five year old...

(click on image to enlarge)

Don't miss all the other amazing entries this week at I Heart Faces.

Happy All Saints Day!

Almighty God,
who hast knit together thine elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of Your Son, Christ our Lord:
Give us grace so to follow Your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living,
that we may come
to those ineffable joys
that thou hast prepared for those
who unfeignedly love thee;
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord,
who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth,
one God, in glory everlasting. Amen
Book of Common Prayer, 1979

Happy Halloween

Here's wishing everyone a safe and happy Halloween!

Top 10 lessons learned while camping

#10. When it says 32ft, that's the actual measurement inside the trailer, but what you're hauling is actually 36ft., or more like around 40ft, once you include the tow bars and all 'that' stuff.

#9. You know it really is a BIG trailer when it makes your Suburban look like a Geo Metro.

#8. And along that same train of thought, when a toll gate is labeled 'CARS ONLY', they mean it. (thankfully there wasn't tooo much damage)

#7. It's best to hook up during daylight hours. That way you won't wake your neighbors when the smoke alarms go off at 10pm in your trailer, alerting quite possibly the entire campground that, yes indeed, you are new to this whole 'camper thing'.

#6. It's always good to have the owners operating manual with you the first time out on a trip in your new camper.

#5. 8 miles to the gallon actually is considered good gas milage in some instances.

#4. If your camper is too comfortable, the kids may never go out into the cold (50*) weather to sit by a campfire and roast marshmallows (what kind of whimps are we raising anyway??!?)

#3. It's never good to corner wildlife in the campground shower stalls-- even if your dad tells you it's okay, 'cause someone's bound to get BIT, and it won't be Dad.

#2. It's not always a good idea to let your children run wild all over the campground in the dark playing 'hide and go seek', because you never know, if say the next day, you discover that bears have been roaming in the same vicinity.

aaaannnd

#1 Lesson learned while camping:

It's more dadgum fun than we evah could have imagined!!

Help me Rhonda

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Oktoberfest Edition:

(fyi: The girl won!)

Angel of God

Happy Feast Day of the Guardian Angels everyone!

Happy October!

I love October. Love, love, loooooove it! Mornings are cool, leaves are changing, nature is at it's finest. This morning we took advantage of the weather and headed out to pick APPLES.

Yummy.

Immediately, thoughts of homemade apple sauce, apple pies, apple cakes and apple butter filled my head. The reality that I've never made any of those things--ever--nor have the desire do so, is just now starting to take effect.

Anyhoo, we arrived at the orchard all bright eyed and bushy tailed. After three cups of strong coffee, who wouldn't be? Then we picked out our buckets, loaded them in the wagons and headed for the rows of trees...

Now if I were a brighter bulb in the box, I would have taken note of the SIZE of the buckets they gave us to use and the fact that we were pulling these ginormous buckets in wagons... but my head was just too full of apple dreams and cool October morning air to notice.

Everyone had a great time picking.....

Aaand eating....

to their heart's content.

We headed back to weigh our apple treasure and, well let's just say that even the Duggar family couldn't polish off in a week the amount of apples we picked in mere minutes. Here's the evidence:

If you look reeeeaal close, you'll notice that scale reads right at 25lbs. The sad thing is.... that was just under HALF of what we picked this morning. So yes, we picked over 50lbs of apples!! And just incase inquiring minds wanna know, that comes up to roughly $70 worth of apples. So I suppose I'll have to get over my resistance to only eating yummy apple creations. sigh...

Anyone got any good recipes??

Have a great weekend.

"Now's the time when children's noses
All become as red as roses
And the colour of their faces
Makes me think of orchard places
Where the juicy apples grow,
And tomatoes in a row."
- Katherine Mansfield, Autumn Song

MUBB

During this past month, now officially known as MUBB (my unplanned blogging break), we've been busy with all sorts of things. This here post is intended to catch all of you up. Now, I could dazzle you with my lack of writing skillz, or I could just show ya what we've been up to. Since I'm a visual person, I'll opt for the latter...

At the beginning of Sept, LMM (Little Missy Moo)in all her splendor looked like this:

But then as the days progressed, she looked like thiiissss: All. The. Time.

Except when she was spitting. 'Cause she did loads of that. Pedi doc diagnosed her with reflux and after a few beers for Mommy bit of medication, she now looks like this:

Isn't she lovely?

We've been blessed these past few weeks to have had lots of family and friends come and visit as well.

Little Miss was baptized. What a wonderful day that was.

We celebrated birthdays for One and Three, aaaand Grammy and Grandpa:

We made a trip to PA see and meet family. We all luuuved their back yard.

Four started soccer:

(That's him in the goalie shirt. Four likes goalie-- not much running and you get to wear a cool shirt)

And all the kiddos started school. Mostly tho, our time has been spent enjoying our baby moon with the most carried around infant in the history of mankind. This little gal's gonna be a hundred before her feet evah touch the ground.

Off to ponder a new blog name. Blessings to you all,

Sisters

P has loved having a little sister and gets her hands on her every chance she gets..

Overheard morning conversation..

Four to Three: "When a little baby poops, it sounds like someone is blowing air through a straw into a cup of milk."

Enjoying the babe and all the newness that surrounds her,

A Favorite

We've been taking lots of photos around here lately, but I'm just getting them off of the cameras.

This was one of my favorites from the hospital. Thought I'd share..

Hello World

Blessed beyond measure, we'd like to introduce our newest little Sweet Pea...
SHE was born Aug 7 via c/sect
Weighing in at 9 lbs
Measuring 22 in
(a virtual giant of a baby for this family)

More pictures to come.. hubby has to find our USB cable

Recovering nicely at home with a joy filled heart,

Wordless Wednesday~color and B&W edition

No baby yet...... finding other ways to fill my time..

Glory to God in the Highest...

Life

In light of our anticipated blessing expected to arrive in 3 weeks or so, I bring you this....

Growing ever more excited,

Wordless Wednesday

For Lolo: