Happy Birthday "Buzz!"

Time to celebrate my favorite nephew's 2nd birthday with a Buzz Lightyear themed costume party! I looked everywhere and finally resorted to ordering online a light up Buzz that spins around just like Micah had at that age. Micah carried his EVERYWHERE! I was so excited that Tyson seemed to have the same reaction with his new toy!
'Jessie' and 'Woody' couldn't wait for the party festivities to start.

And even Aunt Beth got in on the dress up fun as one of the toy army men from Toy Story.

The kids had big fun on Tyson's new SLIDE set ~ apparently he has decided it is not a swing set, but a slide set.

Brian sported his batman shirt and I got all fancied up in my clowning around costume.

Some of the smaller kids weren't quite sure what to think of me until they saw that I could make balloon animals. I guess their desire to have their very own balloony friend overid their fear of clowns.

Savanna was in heaven getting to snuggle with one month old Bower.

My crazy brother and his 'costume'!

Crazy runs rampant on our side of the family ;)

Not real sure what the weight limit was on that slide set!

But Eric may have definitely pushed it to it's limits.

Happy Birthday To You

Girlfriend knows how to eat some cake!

Beth even made her own 'Pin the pieces on Mr. Potato Head' game.

Too bad a certain un-named 2 year old accidentally tore it up before the party even started!

It was a wonderful party celebrating Tyson's sweet life.

Here's to the "Terrific Two's" ~ Let the adventure begin!

We Can Party ANYWHERE!

Well, Meme's 85th birthday didn't go exactly as we had planned.

Needless to say, we never planned on spending her 85th birthday in the hospital.

But a blood clot, 7 fractured vertebraes, and a hospital room didn't stop us from partying!

We simply loaded up all our gifts, our dirt cake, and all the grandkids and great-grandkids we could find and moved our little shin-dig to the hospital room.

Micah helped keep Tyson and Maddox entertained by being their own personal jungle gym.

Savanna and Kaelynn definitely know their gender and had nothing to do with the wrestle mania that the boys were involved in.
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Happy Birthday to the most wonderful grandma I could ever wish for!
We all love you to pieces and wish you a quick and easy recovery!

Wedensday Walk ~ First Trips to the Pumpkin Patch

I don't know what it is about pumpkin patch pictures that makes my heart flutter! Maybe it is because I just LOVE LOVE LOVE fall so darn much that I just can't stand it!

Perhaps it's the smell of my Scentsy Pumkin Roll Candle, maybe it's the lovely flavors of fall like pumpkin spice lattes or candy corns. Whatever it is, it makes me very naustalgic and happy hearted.

After taking our annual pilgrimage to the pumpkin patch this weekend, I felt compelled to dig out the pictures from our kids' very first pumpkin love pics.

Above is Micah in the fall of '02 and below is Savanna in the fall of '99.

Can you tell I had a thing for babies in overalls?

How does your pumpkin grow?

Although we have ALWAYS ~ I mean EVERY year ~ taken the kids to what I have called a 'pumpkin patch', I finally realized that I actually have NEVER taken them to a FOR REAL pumpkin patch!
We have always stopped on the side of the road or at a local church that has already picked and cleaned the pumpkins and laid them our nicely for our convenience and photo op.

Now this is all well and good, but I thought it would be fun to be a bit more adventuresome this year and expose the kids {and myself} to a FOR REAL pumpkin patch.

We loaded up the troops and headed over to Holland Farms for our real country pumpkin pickin' experience.

These are some of the sweetest people that run the farm.

They already won Brian over when he spotted the Barney Fife poster on the wall.

Brylee found a pumpkin that was just her size.

Savanna was more than gracious to humor me by laying down in the pre-picked pumpkins at my request. She was an itty bitty little thing on her first trip to the pumpkin patch and we literally laid her down on top of all those beautiful orange pumpkins. Check tomorrow's post for our Wednesday Walk down memory lane.

Just to add to all the fun and excitement of the whole farm/pumpkin patch experience, those sweet people gave each and every one of us a cup of the BEST home grown boiled peanuts I have ever eaten!
I offered to pay, but they told us that was our gift for coming to visit the farm.

Check out Mr. Muscles with all those peanuts.

We had to stop for a few photos by the tractor before heading out to the pumpkin patch.

Isn't that just gorgeous?!

Our pumpkin patch gang!

I finally got over feeling guilty that I had never taken my children to a real pumpkin patch to pick their pumpkins right off the vine when I realized that I myself had never been to one either!
Okay, in an effort to keep things real here, I am going to share with you a few little lessons I learned in the pumpkin patch.
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1. Yellow box are not the proper footwear one should wear for such a fun family outing.
2. Rotten pumpkins do not make me feel warm and fuzzy about the onset of fall the way fresh, lovely ripe ones do.
3. Knats apparently are drawn to rotting pumpkins.
4. My body spray must in some way remind knats of rotting pumpkins.
5. Real pumpkin patches do not actually resemble the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown pumpkin patch.

All in all, it really was a wonderful family field trip on a lovely fall afternoon with great friends.
But apparently, my conversion to country life is still a work in progress and is just going to take a little more time.

Fortunately, my children don't seem at all bothered by the bugs and weeds that one might find in the country. They thought the whole thing was the best idea anyone had had in a long time. And really, isn't that what it's all about. Providing fun experiences for the kids, making memories, and spending some quality time together.

After we found our 'keeper' pumpkins, I just couldn't resist a quick pic in front of the sunflower field.