Happy Birthday Caleb

Yesterday, my little baby boy turned 4! It's still hard to believe. We've had a very event filled weekend and day yesterday celebrating. It's amazing how quickly time flies. I think Caleb really enjoyed his birthday party and his birthday. He ended up with a ton of toys, which he loves, and some clothes too. He's been playing with his new toys non-stop and I have left most of them all over my living room floor until today. I figured that everyone would like to see some pictures from the excitement.

Caleb wanted spiderman on his cake this year. He also wanted a tractor, but I didn't know how to incorporate those so we ended up with two separate cakes.

Here's the tractor cake. We used it to celebrate at home on his birthday! The cat may have tried it earlier when no one was looking and boy was I mad!

Caleb and the cake saying cheese to the camera .

Cake and Icecream!

Opening presents at the party

Painting fun at the party. I always have to have a craft that the kids love and the parents hate!

Of course Caleb picks Chuck E. Cheese for his birthday dinner. He actually loved the pizza and ate 2 pieces.

Trick or Treat

Last week flew by in a whirlwind! All of the Halloween festivities made for a busy week and lots of fun for the kids. The kids have enough candy now to keep them sugared up for months. Leah got candy from her bus drivers and had a big Halloween party at school. They did the traditional Halloween parade with the kids around the school. Caleb, Alissa and I did go and watch the parade. It was very cute. Leah's school party and trick or treat were both on Thursday. It was a busy day, but the kids were wired. I was very thankful that there was not any school Friday. On Saturday, I took Leah and Caleb to a Halloween Party at the YMCA. They had a good time playing games and eating treats. The best part for them was getting to dress up again. This time they both dressed as something different. As you look at the pictures, you'll notice that Caleb is dressed as 3 different things. He thought that this was great!

On Thursday when Alissa and I went to watch Leah's parade at school, we went to the park by the school where we knew the kids would be walking. We got there early and walked around the park. Caleb had to dress up since Leah got dressed up in a costume so he was a dragon. Many of the other kids siblings were also dressed up so it's good that I let him. While we were waiting for Leah, Caleb decided to go and play in the grass. I didn't realize that there was a huge mud puddle in the grass where he was playing and of course he falls directly into it. It was a good thing we did have multiple costumes or he would have been trick or treating in a mud covered one!

Leah's parade and her teacher. The teacher's were all dressed as dalmatians and the principal was Cruela Devil.

Here are the pictures of Trick or Treat. We always go trick or treating with my brother and sister in law. We don't really have a neighborhood and the kids love to go trick or treating with their cousins!

I only got a couple of pictures from the Halloween party at the YMCA. They looked cute in their other customes!

Pumpkin Carving Fun!

The pumpkins have been officially carved! It always seems to sneak up on me that we haven't carved our pumpkins and Halloween is here. Although we should have done it on Sunday or Monday when the weather was nicer, we did it last night. It was sprinkling out, but we did the carving in the garage and only went out to light them and do pictures. The kids didn't mind the rain at all. The all loved it. I am still looking forward to when they are old enough to do all the work themselves. This was the first year we did more than one pumpkin. We let Leah and Caleb each have their own pumpkin. This time Rod actually did some of the cleaning out pumpkins and carving since there were two to be done. When will Alissa get her own? I am not sure, but I am going to try and hold it off a bit longer. She did have a little pumpkin to carry around and she loved that much more than anything we were doing with the carving process!

Leah drew her pumpkin's face this year by herself!

Every year the kids are very excited to see the inside of the pumpkin, but then want little to do with the process of getting it out. Even Alissa was saying yuck this year!

Say Cheese with the pumpkins!

We had to get the classic picture with dad being goofy. Problem was that Alissa want to get the lighter!

Cat Girl

Yes, Leah is the cat girl and we have a cat collection at our house!

Some of you may know that I have an indoor cat. I have had her since I moved to Columbus in 1999. She was our only cat for quite some time. When I was pregnant with Leah a neighborhood cat decided to have kittens in our attic. She got access to our attic because we were doing an addition at the time. She wasn't a friendly cat, but I am a softy for kittens so I had to see them. I gave one of them away, one died and we kept one. The mom cat disappeared, but the cat that we called Pinky stayed and was our outside cat. She was great with Leah and both Leah and Caleb played with her. However, last summer she disappeared and this made Leah very upset. Because we felt sorry for her, we let her get a kitten from my Dad's farm. Ever since last summer we've had this one outside cat.

I am not exactly sure what has happened since then, but this summer one full grown cat decided to take up residence at our house. Any neighbor cat that comes near our house is quickly welcomed by Leah and so we ended up with outdoor cat number two.

All summer we've had two cats and although I haven't been altogether thrilled with the increased number, Leah loves them and two isn't terrible. While Rod was in Colorado another kitten showed up in our yard. Leah was very eager to greet the kitten with open arms. This kitten is extremely loud and meows all the time. She loves it and when I told her that when Dad came how he was going to have to shoot it because I couldn't bear to listen to it meow all the time, she freaked out. She also promised to feed it all the time so it wouldn't meow. She of course started to feed it, so obviously that cat isn't going anywhere and now we are up to outdoor cat #3!

No, that's not the end of the cat girl story! This Sunday we were leaving for church and what is sitting over in the pine trees beside our house meowing, but another kitten! Leah makes a mad dash over to see it. She is very excited that she has found another kitten. Great! We have to pull her away from it to get into the van and head off to church. At this point, I am praying that the kitten decides to keep moving and is long gone by the time we get home. No such luck. As soon as we get home, cat girl runs out and starts calling for it. It comes running and Leah has to feed all four of her wonderful new friends! Yes, we know have 4 outdoor cats and one indoor. If this keeps up we may need to buy stock in cat food!

Here are 3 of the four. The other is near, don't worry!

Pumpkin Field Trip

Leah had her second field trip on Monday October 19th. This field trip was to the pumpkin patch. Leah said that I had to go again as a chaperon and I wanted to so I signed up. I actually enjoy chaperoning because I get to see Leah interact with her classmates and I get to put faces with the names. It got a little crazy for me when my friend who was supposed to watch Alissa and Caleb ended up with a very sick child of her own, but everything worked out okay when my sister-in-law agreed to watch them for me. It caused me a lot of extra running around, but Leah would have freaked if I couldn't go and I would have been disappointed too.

The field trip was to the same pumpkin patch that Caleb had his field trip at, but this only made Leah more excited. She was telling all her friends how her brother went on a field trip there too. The kids all had a good time and were able to pick out pumpkins at the end. Here are some pictures of the experience. The teacher split the class into groups of 4 so you will see Leah with the same 4 kids in most of the pictures.

He's back and I made it!

Rod got back from his hunting trip in Colorado on Friday. We were all very excited to have him come home and we're glad that he made it back safely. He had a good time. He was gone for 10 days. I know that for some of you, that may not seem like a long time to be dealing with the house and kids on your own. However, for me it was an extremely long time! I am not used to having to do things without some break and Rod's help. I guess that Rod does help around here more than I like to give him credit for.

He had a good time in Colorado. He did see several Elk (what he went hunting for) and he did shoot at one in particular, but the Elk stayed alive in Colorado. Although, I know he had a good time, I know that he was also glad to get back home and see us.

The guy's home for a week.

Beautiful country, I would love to see it too, but I would prefer a cabin to stay in!

There is a mule deer in this picture, I think!

Rod did take the kids to the park and store on Sunday. They were gone much of the day and it was nice to have some time to myself. I definitely think that I have some more days for me like that in store as pay back! I am still not back into my normal routine. I am hoping to get back soon and hopefully I will become more regular with my blogging.

Field Trip to the Pumpkin Farm

Caleb had his first field trip today to Pigeon Roost Farm. It is a pumpkin farm with a big play area for the kids. The play area has corn mazes, straw mazes and many other more traditional things for a play ground. There were also many animals to visit. The animals included, goats, bunnies, chickens, turkeys, and camels. All the kids had a great time and Alissa and Leah got to join in on the fun. Caleb played the most with his sisters, but there was a class picture. He of course did not want to smile at all. He can be so difficult. They had one of the teachers trying to get a picture of each of the kids individually. When she came to Caleb, he wanted nothing to do with her and refused to smile.

Enjoy the pictures from our trip!