Neighborhood Fall Festival

Our neighborhood has started the tradition of having a Fall Festival in October. It's a great time and it's right in front of our house. We live at the back of the neighborhood in a culdesac so it's the perfect place. We built our house 8 years ago and we were the 2nd house in our community. So everyone whose on our street and around us - we know.

Our homeowner's association puts the festival together. We have a hayride, a dunking booth, a bounce house, a cake walk, pinata's for the kids, popcorn, and lots of hotdogs and drinks. It's a costume party so most people dress up and that makes it fun.

Here's Ben in the bounce house ....

 Andy in bounce house

Andy loves LOVES monster trucks - so imagine his excitement to find out the bounce house was a monster truck. He was thrilled!

Will : )

me and Kuma in the background

Kuma and Andy looking at the festivities

Kuma's dressed as a skeleton. Isn't she cute : )

David said Kuma would be humilated in this costume.

She wasn't humilated - she was pure sweetness : )

Kuma, Will, Andy and I

Kuma, Andy and David on the hayride

Will and big spider

We typically have 2 pinatas. One for the little kids and one for the big kids. First one: Spongebob.

Here's Andy taking his turn : )

Will taking his turn : )

 Ben taking his turn at knocking Spongebob down : )

Still around the pinata's. But funny, all 3 of my boys are in this shot : )

Some candy fell out. All the kids coming to get it.

2nd pinata: A red powerranger (well half of it anyway :)

Andy

Me and Kuma walking back to the Festival (from home)

On the hayride: Will, Scott and Jacob

Ben's taking his turn at the dunking booth. He threw his ball and it's in the air next to the kid in the gray shirt.

Remember me posting about my frontdoor being ditched knocked at 11pm at night about a month or so ago? Well - see the kid in the gray shirt? Yep - it was him! Doesn't even live in our neighborhood. And the good news is .... later - he was on the hayride w/me .

And believe me - he won't be doing that again.

Kids bobbing for apples.

On the hayride (in motion). I am in white shirt and sunglasses and Andy's in orange and white striped shirt : )

Ben in the dunking booth. He's brave ....

and he's hit.... there he goes : )

And here's my wet boy - still happy : )

Hayride and a view of the festivities ...

William : )

Going home: This is blurry - but I thought it was funny b/c this is the way Andy hangs onto me. Not by holding my hand - but by always grabbing the back of my shirt.

The party was fun. All the kids enjoyed themselves. They didn't dress up this year -which was okay. Ben wanted to do the dunking booth and Will wanted to play in the bounce house - so we opted for no costumes.

All the work that our neighbors/HOA put into it - was Awesome and Much Appreciated! Thank you guys! We all had a great time (as usual). Can't wait for next year!

Owen's Pumpkin Patch

Will had his first field trip of Kindergarten to the Owen's Pumpkin Patch. Both of the Kindergarten classes went and we went via bus - even the parents. It was a beautiful day outside so it's was a great day for the pumpkin patch.

Here's Will on the bus. He sat in the very first seat and I sat across from him with his teacher - Ms. Cole.

On the bus waiting for the other buses to get loaded so we can leave. Here's Will's class and some of the mom's on the bus. See Will and his friend in the first seat? Signing up as a chaperone meant I was assigned to Will and one other child. The little boy next to him was our Pumpkin Batch buddy. He was really sweet.

Explaining to us about rules for feeding the animals. We got there first and was one of the first classes to feed - so the animals were hungry. See the goat? He's cute and ready to eat....

Still listening for instructions.

Will's in the white jacket.

Finally - we get to feed the animals : ) Yea!
Will's in the white jacket.

Riding on the hayride. My sweet boy : )

Me and Will on the hayride. Not a real good picture - but it's hard to turn the camera around and take a photo : )

Will and a few of his friends from his class.

Will and our pumpkin batch buddy admiring the scarecrow.
Ha! Actually one of the teachers was 'gently' (insert sarcastic laugh here) telling them not to touch the scarecrow.

WGA Kindergarteners : )

Will : )

The kids had a lot of fun and it was fun .... at first. By the end - I was tired and ready to leave. Something about 44 kindergarteners all together wears you out....

Happy Pumpkin Patch!

Getting Older

Okay - let's be honest. Who is freaked out about getting Older? If you haven't reached 35 - probably not quite yet. But the minute you hit 35 - the worry comes.

I turned 36 this year and I can't even believe it. Just like I thought my 20 year old cat would live forever, I thought I would never turn 35. I thought I would be in my 20's forever. Well, turns out - forever is alot shorter than I thought.

So today after I dropped off Ben and Will at school, I started running some numbers in my head:

Hypothetically .....

If Ben gets married and has his first child at 25: my age will be 53, add 10 years and that's David's age - 63.
If Will gets married and has his first child at 25: my age will be 55, add 10 years and that's David's age - 65.

and here's the kicker....

If Andy gets married and has his first child at 25: my age will be 58, that's right .... add 10 years and David is .... 68.

If you didn't have to worry about the whole 'getting older' business, I would tell my boys to wait till they are 30 to get married and 35 to have kids. Because really - we all know in most cases, people who get married young - get a divorce and those that marry later, typically stay married. This isn't always the case - but it's been true in my research. Not to mention, you hope at 30 and 35 they have more job and life stability.

So, if Andy has his first child at age 25 - David will be almost 70. Wow! People say 70 is still young. But holy cow - really? At 70 - can you get on the floor and wrestle and play? I want he and I to be ACTIVE with our grandkids.

So - that brings me back to what age should my kids get married (pretending like I have control :) ... I am now thinking it should be young - like 22. I would have never wanted to get married that young - and it's not what I really recommend, but if they don't - I may not be around for my grandkids - much less enjoy them. And I really want grandkids.

And what if it doesn't all happen at age 25 for them??? What then? Then we are REALLY old!

I am now thinking David and I should of gotten married when we met at age 20 & 30 and had kids then. That would have been a much better scenario (age wise)......

Okay - I am done rambling ..... It's time for some changes....

William and his love for costumes!

William got the werewolf costume as his Halloween Costume and then the Rock and Roll Dead Guy (?) for letting us leave the Fair yesterday and not having to play anymore games or ride anymore rides. Blackmail you think? Oh yes!

Everyone who knows Will - knows he loves LOVES costumes. I was cooking dinner, and Will comes in and asks me for my camera. I think "Unsupervised w/my camera. Are you crazy? Uh .... no!" So I go in to see what he wants to take a picture of and this is what I find.

He had dressed his costumes and made them into people. I, tell you, my boy has got quite the imagination. He's so creative!

Ben on the bed playing his DSI and the costume people on the floor while William watches TV (not pictured).

Here's a few other pictures of Will in his costume.

Wolf wants a kiss from Daddy : )

and Wolf is very tired ... needs sleep : )

William is a blessing for sure. His personality really is a joy! I love my boy so deeply.

Boys Fair Day!

Ben and Will had Fair Day today, so David and I were excited to be able to take them while Andy was in school. We don't get much of an opportunity to spend time with just the two of them. Andy's in a different school district so his school's Fair Day is actually on Wednesday.

Since I had already taken the boys (on Sept 26) - we had done a lot of the traditional State Fair stuff already. So we just hit a few spots and mainly ate Fair food and played games : )

David & Ben eating the traditional Fletcher Corndog. Yum!

and Will being silly : )

Smile boys  : )

Will didn't want a corndog ...... well, at first! He ate most of his daddy's....

Trying to get a family photo (minus Andy : )

Me and two of my sweeeeet boys (Ben & Will)

David, Ben and I 

(Will's taking the picure. My boys love using the camera : )

David, Will & I

(photographer: Ben : )

Me & David.

Oops, David's still eating. haha!

In the carshow now....
Ben on the four-wheeler

Will on the four-wheeler



We had a great day at the Fair - as always! We all love it so much! The boys played a couple of games and rode a few rides. They each won a stuffed animal (Will a banana and Ben a blue dog). It was a fun day!

Finally .... the Tooth Fairy can come!

William has had this lose tooth for what seemed like months. However - it was only a couple of weeks. This is his 2nd tooth to lose. The first one I pulled when it got loose enough to come out. I tired to pull this one 3 or 4 times, before I was finally able to pull it out. David cringed everytime I tried to pull it out. And you know what Will did? Came back everyday for me to try and pull it. No wimps in the Wilke family .... well, accept maybe David. HA!

Bagged and ready for the Tooth Fairy.

My sweet boy with one less tooth. Smile!