annual pumpkin painting

Our family had a really rough week of the yuckies!  It went from one kid to another being sick, but each kid had something different.  It might not have been all that bad if I hadn't gotten sick too.  I'm sure there are plenty of moms that know what it is like to feel like crap, and have to buck up to take care sick babies.  Anyway, it really threw off our annual pumpkin painting.  Since we paint, and don't carve, our pumpkins last for weeks, and we like to show them off as long as possible.  Plus this year we have a covered porch that would make them last even longer.  Truth be told, both of the painting nights we planned wouldn't have worked anyway.  Chad ended up making it home late those nights.  So we strayed from tradition a bit.  We had a great time!  It was fun to see Aimee and Porter do more than smear all of the colors together and coat their pumpkins in the poo color they would create.  Someday it will also be fun to see Pratt not spend the night sucking on the paint brush.  Eating a little paint never hurt anyone, right?

finding dolls

 

One of our new favorite games at our house is hide and seek.  Sadly, my kiddos stink at this game!  They argue over who gets to hide in the toy box, and the one who doesn't win that battle, hides under the couch.  The game goes pretty quickly.  One day, out of nowhere, Aimee went stiff when she was discovered.  Chad played along.  He called Aimee a dolly, and just like that, we had a new favorite game.  The best part of the whole thing was that Aim showed amazing restraint when Chad tickled her while trying to get her to drop the act.  I wish I had got that first game of "dolly" on film!  It has now become a recurring game, and I took the liberty of catching one of them.

 

Not to be left out of all of the attention that Aimee was getting, Porter told us one night that he was going to be a boy doll.  It was his turn to "hide" in the toy box, and as stated, when he was found he did his best to copy Aimee's doll act.  He definitely does not have Aimee's will power.  Porter loves being tickled by his dad, and he just can't hide it!

fetch

 

As I mentioned in the last post, we want to find just the right kind of dog to add to the Williams family.  In the search (and while we are putting it off) we found this great little dog store in the Dayton Mall called Fetch.  You can go into a little cubical and sort of test dogs out.  It has become a favorite past time!  We play with different kinds of puppies and ask lots of questions.  We are enjoying narrowing down the choices!

higgins

When we were in med school and living at Village Green we were not allowed to have pets.  Chad promised me that when we went to residency and had a house of our own, we could have a dog.  Well, we are there.  As we discussed this, some friends of ours asked us to dog sit their bull dog, Higgins.  It was an eight day gig.  Higgins turned out to be one of the worlds most patient dogs.  He was so patient with all of the "playing" the kids did with him.  I can't say I would have tolerated it as well as he did.

 It was a fun eight days that was really good for us.  While I had dogs my whole life growing up, this was great to remind of what it was like, and things to think about.  One thing that was tough was dealing with the messes that my kids (actually just Pratt) made out of his food.  Poor Higgins had to wait until the kids went to bed to have his food and water left down.  Every time I forgot to put it back up I paid for it.  Pratt either dumped the food out, or ate it!  Notice poor Higgins waiting his turn to eat...

 

This experience also made me realize how important the breed is.  Higgins is a good dog but when the time come, and it is looking further away at the moment, we will have to be sure to find the right fit for this Williams family!

young's dairy

One of our favorite fall traditions has been a family trip to Vala's Pumpkin Patch.  We had to leave that behind in Omaha.  I was happy to learn that we would have something to replace it with.  Chad's hospital sponsors an event every fall for all of its residents and their families.  While we knew it would be different than what we have done, we were excited to give the new place, Young's Dairy, a go.

We started by enjoying a BBQ picnic, complete with several products made right there on the farm.  The ice cream was awesome!

Then we headed off to enjoy the activities available.  We hit the driving range.  I have never even attempted to drive a golf ball.  I must say, I think my father-in-law would have been proud!  Chad and the kids did great too.

We hit the kiddie coral as well.  This kid zone had a bounce house, a John Deer bike track, corn pit (like a sand box, but with corn), slides and few other little games.  Porter liked the bikes the best, although he had a hard time finding a bike that was small enough for him.

Aimee preferred the more active activities.  We had a hard time convincing her to give other activities a try once she got in the bounce house.

We checked out the farm animals, which was followed by passing around hand sanitizer.  We were in the company of doctor/germaphobes after all.

We took a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch.  We did this every year at Vala's, so I expected to ride out through fields to select our family pumpkin.  It kind of threw me for a loop when the ride took us from one end of the parking lot to an actual pumpkin patch.  It was about the size of my dad's back yard.  It made me giggle at how different it was from what I had expected.

Aimee chose and cut our pumpkin this year.  We had to just choose one because they were all one size: huge.  Since we only got one free, and we didn't want to pay by the pound, we got one.

We were able to get our traditional family pumpkin patch picture!

This was one of the fun rides they had for the kiddos.  We had to do it a couple of times to appease the kiddos.

Porter, no wait, Pratt enjoying the slides.  We have to work on waiting our turn...

 

There were a few other fun things we did that we didn't get pictures of that rounded out the day (like the batting cages that Aimee loved!). We had to call it a day earlier than we wanted to because it got cold and windy, but it was a fun family day.  It was much less commercialized, and very different from Vala's, but it was fun!

the bug wisperer

It is possible that I may be exaggerating just a tad by calling Porter the bug whisperer on the title.  However, the little cricket, or baby grasshopper as the kiddos call it, is sitting serenely on Porters hand, unmaimed as of yet (yes, yet).  In this house that is enough to qualify you as 'the' bug whisperer.  The truth is that Aimee usually catches the bugs.  Chad was mowing the lawn, so they were a little easier to find.  Aimee also usually stuffs them in a container as quickly as she can.  In fact, we recently found one of the bug bottles had fallen behind the toy box upstairs.  It had been there for a couple of weeks, according to my calculations.  There was a bug inside that was still living.  Hardy little thing I guess.  Porter, is happy to just watch them crawl on him until they get away. Even though this cricket had a leg at the wrong angle when he let it go, it may have a better chance at life than his friend that lived in the bottle behind the toy box. Hence, bug whisperer.

apple field trip

One of our themes for preschool this month has been apples.  It has been a fun means of presenting information, and it's cutsie.  Either way, it works.  We decided a trip to a local apple orchard would be seasonally appropriate, and a fun adventure.  We were missing about half of the crew, and the weather wasn't exactly in our favor but we made the trip anyway.  It was a cute little orchard that was free (my favorite part) and fun for the kiddos.  They started out by meeting and feeding a few of the farm animals.  I am pretty sure this was my kids first experience with a Tina, but they passed with flying colors.

Each kid got a basket and we turned them loose in the orchard. 

 Luckily, the drought reduced the apple crop substantially, so there wasn't a huge selection.  This was good because Porter's muscles couldn't carry very many apples. These apples cost more at the orchard than at good ol' Wal-Mart. 

 Note the muscles in this picture...

 After we paid for the picked apples, we took advantage of their freshness (although we save enough to supply Chad with his favorite dessert, homemade apple pie), and let the kiddos play a bit before heading home.

In this picture, Pratt decided it was more fun to eat the animal food than give it away.  Figures.