Our weekend...

We had a busy weekend. On Saturday, we went to church for the Harvest Party. There was games, candy, inflatables, and a movie in the Celebration Center. The kids all had a great time. Papa, Yaya, Aunt Becky, Jaron, Kelton and Landon went with us. After the party we went to Mc Donald's for lunch. I think about half the people from church did the same thing, it was really busy! After church on Sunday, we went to Papa and Yaya's for lunch. We carved our pumpkins and made caramel apples. Jim has been in Las Vegas for business since Thursday so was good to have a lot to do so we wouldn't miss him too much! We are all looking forward to him coming home today! The kids picking out their pumpkins.
Tanner happy with his "catch" of m&m's at the fishing game.
The kids ready for the party! 

Making caramel apples.

Busy carving with Papa and Yaya.
The kids with the finished products. Brinlee's is a kitty, Tanner's is Dracula pumpkin and Brenton's is a scary face pumpkin. Brinlee picked up Yaya's ghost candy dish and was rocking it, calling it her baby. It was really funny! 

Pictures of the kids....

Heather, from Party of Five, showed some matching outfits she got for her girls at The Children's Place. It reminded me that I never put these pictures on the blog of the kids in their matching clothes from The Children's Place. I had my dad take them (he is a professional photographer) a month or so ago, in my parents' backyard. They turned out pretty cute. We bribed the kids with tubes of mini-m&m's. You can see Brinlee's wedged between her arm and side in the first picture. She hid them behind her back in the rest of the pictures. There was no way I was getting them out of her hand. Whatever works, right?!

 

8 years!

Jim and I were married 8 years ago today! I keep flashing back to the wedding day and remember how excited I was. I couldn't wait to be Jim's wife. Last night, Jim and I were talking about how, 8 years ago tonight we were at our rehearsal dinner, now we are trying to get three kids to bed. Crazy as life is now, I wouldn't change a thing! I do have a had time remembering what we did with all of our free time before kids! Happy Anniversary Jim!

Hey Heather, I am not able to get to your blog anymore and I miss it! Everytime I try to log on it tells me my password and ID don't match. I have tried to change my password and it still won't work. I think since we had a google acct. already before they switched, now it is recognizing me as barrymail@comcast.net. Could you enter me as that so I can get back on? Thanks so much. I need to get updated on your life!!!

Our mini-vacation!

My family went up north to the Mackinaw Bridge this last weekend for a mini-vacation. Last year at this time we were at Disney World . We couldn't afford to do that again, so we thought we'd do something on a smaller scale, and still have a great time together. We all had so much fun, we thought we would make it an annual October event! There wasn't much color left on the trees, but we found a lot of great sales, since everyone was closing for the season after the weekend!
Brinlee floating with her mermaids in the hotel pool.
Cold kiddos posing by the bridge.
Our family!
Brenton and the "Big Mac". On the way home, we went through McDonald's drive-thru and Brenton insisted on getting a Big Mac in honor of our vacation!
Brinlee as we were crossing the bridge. I just got her this new car seat, as her old one broke last week. It is just a shoulder belt and was working great, until we were in the car for 5 hours and she got sick of sitting and realized she could unbuckle herself!
The kids playing on the pirate ship outside "Sea Shell City". Everyone wanted to go there for old time's sake. Papa said it hadn't changed a bit in over 30 years! We tried to take the kid's to Castle Rock, but it was closed for the season. We were so disappointed, we planned on looking for Yaya and Auntie Great's initials that they carved 40 some years ago!
Jaron with his treasure chest he bought at Sea Shell City. He was so proud of this and carried it all around the rest of the night, filled with all the treasures he found.
We stopped in Gaylord for pizza and it had an arcade attached to it. We had the whole place to ourselves.
The whole gang (minus me, the photographer).
Brinlee and Kelton with the pirate loot.

Brinlee's 1st Haircut.....

Brinlee got her first "real" haircut in a salon yesterday. She loved every minute of it! She sat very still and kept smiling at herself in the mirror.
I didn't get an "after" picture yesterday when we got done, so I took a few today. Check out the snow we got this morning!

Tanner's first field trip....

Tanner had his first field trip to Robinette's Orchard last week. Daddy took the morning off to go with him. They both had a good time and were excited to spend some time alone together. Tanner picking his apple.
Learning how to make cider.
Eating his donut with Ethan and his dad. We finally learned Ethan's name last week. Tanner would come home from school and talk about his "friend with the Thomas shoes"!
The class posing in front of the big apple.

Tanner with his apples!