The Great Pumpkin Patch

While Grammy and Grampa were here, we took the time to visit the Pumpkin Patch. We went to the Amish Buffet first for some tasty food, which was fun in itself.

While the displays and such are the same every year at the Pumpkin Patch, we had a great time. We did get to venture to the larger corn maze this year. Baylee was our fearless leader and got us out pretty quickly. We made a few wrong turns but not many. It was fun to watch her little mind at work using reference points of the other displays that were tall to navigate. From the small gardens to the oversized pumpkins and squash to the animals, it was an enjoyable day that Baylee is still talking about.

Tanner turns 1!

Our little monkey is a whopping one year old. He is a little dude on a mission at pretty much any given time. He definitely keeps us on our toes. We had it pretty easy with the Baylee. She was about perfect less the ear infections in terms of being a baby. Tanner, not so much. And yes a lot of it is simply personality and we are so grateful to have an assortment and love them each for the self that they embrace, yet it's hard not to compare the similarities and differences. And I say a lot of it is just the boy in him.

We have learned he is the reason there is such a thing as child proofing. He has done things already Baylee has still not tried to do. He is tenderhearted with a firm "no" making him cry, yet his thick skull makes him continue to play with plugs, feed my VCR, climb on unstable things, destroy anything that appeals to his destructiveness, stick his fingers in the box fan he turns on and the list goes on and on. It was something of a sign that there is a crash helmet in his near future, while learning to walk, he would take a few steps, stop, giggle and face plant on our not so soft floor. He's a pretty crabby kid, yes acid reflux is at times to blame as the spewing still comes in spurts, with the exception being it's all solid and nasty now. He's cried more in his year than Baylee has in her 4. We tend to lean towards bipolar as a summary for him. Though, through all of his fussing, his new habit of screaming and screeching, I know that at some point during the day he's going to throw his head back, squish up his face, crinkle his nose, squint his eyes and give me the biggest cheesiest grin he can muster and once I laugh, as I always do, he's going to do it again until he's cackling with us. Sadly, I am yet to catch this one on camera. He is hilarious (when he's not making horrendous noises that make you want to scratch your eyes out). He's a showman and loves to get us laughing. He has an obsession for placing things on his noggin and the things he comes up with are quite entertaining. And my, oh my, he brings a whole new meaning to Momma's boy.

We celebrated very simply for his birthday as I still believe he's too small to remember so he doesn't need a big shindig. Grammy and Grampa came to town and were here for the festivities. I was a little sad for his cake, in the middle of getting it done, Baylee got the stomach virus and I threw it together in between her sick sessions. They both were very sick. Terrible timing on it too! (of course that's how it usually goes)

All in all, we love this small guy and are so blessed and glad he's in our family.

Speedy September

In a nutshell, the month seemed to fly by. Maybe it was the Tanner walking or the fall weather coming in, no matter what I want to blame it on, it came and went faster than I had expected. (does it give me away since it's November and I'm just blogging Sept?)

You lucky ducks, I'm going to take the easy way out for the sake of trying to get caught up(or maybe it's the ever growing to do list stalking my peripheral vision as I type) and get these pictures posted....Enjoy the September slide show it speaks for itself :)

August Adventures

I just realized about 15 minutes ago that I failed to finish out the month of August with pictures and updates. August was definitely a month jam packed with new adventures of all sorts.

As most of you already know, one of the most unexpected undertakings was dealing with the ferocious little crit

ters that heartlessly attacked our chickens. It was simply put, a blood bath around here and our count went from 18 to 5 in a matter of 4 days. We finally caught up to the weasels, they might be sneaky but they are no match for Team Lowe...after we figured out what we were dealing with :) We also got an opossum in that whole fiasco as well. We are proud that we still have 5 hens. Though, we very sadly lost She-ra.

I also began our homeschooling preschool with Baylee. We now have the Izzy with us everyday and she has joined Baylee in the Lowe Learning Locale. We've had our trials here and there but seem to be settling down with a great schedule that works for us(mostly). Tanner is going through a rough time trying to figure out the perfect nap schedule. That has resulted in usually 2 days a week of alternating rest schedules and I have no break but I seem to somehow be making that work. Those days do whittle away my slight stash of sanity, more excuses for me to be even crazier when I'm old right? Baylee has loved having Izzy here with us Mon-Fri and on the weekend has to know when Izzy is coming back.

We visited the apple "oranger" as Baylee calls it, aka the apple orchard. We met friends there. We had a great time. They got to pick apples for A week, play on all of the play equipment, have a picnic and be kids.

I then used our handpicked apples to make and can homemade applesauce. Baylee and I both dislike applesauce. However, homemade is unlike anything I've tried. It was fantastic and our supply is already almost depleted.

We visit the park often...what kid doesn't love to play? We go after story time pretty much every Wednesday and take or pick up some sort of picnic. I for one look forward to Wednesdays.

One Sunday afternoon, Hannah and I cranked out some 48 half pints of grape jelly. It was a new experience that was entertaining. Of course the jelly was delicious.

I had my planning meeting for Teen MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) one Saturday. Cody took Baylee and Tanner to the airshow. From what I was told, they had a great time. The pictures will support the conclusion as well.

Between Baylee's birthday and party and everything preschool related we stayed a fun kind of busy.

The Tangled Party

I thought this event needed it's own separate post. In case you haven't picked up on it, Baylee has her first obsession with anything that has not seemed to let up. She loves Rapunzel/Tangled. She plays Rapunzel with her dolls, Barbies, me or Tanner on a daily basis. Of course I always have to be mean Mother Gothel and Tanner is usually Eugene. (Go figure) She ties things to her hair or headbands to make it appear longer. She cracks me up with it. So when asked to pick what she wanted for her birthday party and cake there was no question in my mind or hers what it would be. After last year's blue, star, moon and tree cake, I was a little relieved. I ended up taking the easy way out and we ordered, as Baylee called it, a tattoo for the top of her cake.

We prepped with the making of the pennant banner and painted the side of the shed a plain color. I gathered mistints from all of the local paint stores. I made braided breadsticks and, of course, the cake. We had quite a full schedule of things to do for her party. We ended up having homemade pizzas of all kinds for dinner. We had great friends show up and we celebrated Baylee's birthday Tangled style.

We let the kids paint the side of our shed any way their little hearts desired. It turned out super cute and yes it is still painted like this.

We also got the floating sky lanterns. I was a little concerned about burning down the county but we let them go anyway and they were super super super cool. They were huge and so we only let 5 of them go. We have let a few go on nights when the moon is not out. You can see them farther away. They were probably my favorite part. It was all a surprise to Baylee. She loves the lanterns but also had a blast painting the shed.

We put together little goody bags for the kiddos. We had to include the Pascal blowers we made and Tangled themed items that Baylee picked out. The boys lucked out and got hot wheels and balls instead though. I figured their appreciation for Tangled stamp sets and notebooks was not at the same level as our little Baylee's.

We had a blast. Baylee loved it and is still talking about her Rapunzel party. That was my goal a memory of having fun with her friends, not presents. I would say we succeeded!

The Baylee girl is 4!

It's hard to believe our little army crawler is a 4 year old spitfire! But it's happened she's turned a year older(again) and somehow, not sure how, she seems to take up more real estate in our hearts every day. She is an amazing little(big) girl.

We had plans to spend her actual birthday with Miss Hannah and Izzy, getting Miss Hannah's classroom ready for school to start. The girls had fun rearranging chairs. They also took "naps" in the hotel(under Miss Hannah's desk). They were so funny. We then ended up at McDonalds, mainly because the day before we had Baylee's requested Chinese food already. The girls wore themselves out and then we went and played at their house.

We had Baylee's requested dinner of chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes and broccoli with dip. She got to open her presents and had a blast with that. She got her Rapunzel dress so that she could dress the part for her birthday party. She also got scissors, a booster car seat, and a battery powered toothbrush, all 3 being things that a "big" girl uses and we figured she would be thrilled to be deemed a big girl. We were not let down as she took turns brushing her teeth and "cutting coupons" all night while wearing her Rapunzel dress.

She did make me laugh as the day approached, she was so excited to be four. Upon many questioning sessions, the answer pretty much was the same. 4 is better than 3 because she can be a bigger sister to Tanner. The best thing she did though was on her birthday as we were trying to figure out the perfect birthday dress. I had stashed a new one away for her but she ran to her closet and pushed up on her tiptoes and stretched her arm as far as she could and then shifted and repeated. I asked what she was doing. She replied "I'm bigger now, I thought I could reach my own clothes." She thought that because she turned 4 in the night apparently that meant instant growth spurt and she would be able to reach the 6 foot high bar in her closet. Too cute. It made me giggle for sure. Boy, am I glad it doesn't work that way in reality. She is definitely entertaining. Happy Birthday to our Baylee!

Rest of July

Our remaining July days were spent getting back to our "normal" life without our Lilli. We had a lot of work to do with the garden. We conquered plenty of canning events. Baylee was my special helper almost every time we needed to can. She went out to the garden and picked with me and then hung out until it just wasn't fun anymore. We had friends come and help us with some of the beans one day. I got to the point where I was so sick of seeing beans and threw them in bags to in the freezer to have for the winter for the goats. We canned peas, pickles, spicy pickles(which are fantastic), salsa, tomatoes(which we are still working on) and a few jalapenos(which are also still in progress). I'd say we have well gotten our time and money's worth out of the garden. Not to mention the endless fresh items we had and still have.

We did get to fly the kite some. It's funny how when we start flying kites, oddly enough it quits being windy in the windiest place that I have ever lived.

We also had a test run day for new icing techniques. Hannah had a party to make things for and I had Baylee's birthday party coming up. So we had a fun day of just playing. The girls each helped out and ate more than their weight in icing. Good thing we had plenty to go around, we might have reused some icing a few times as we are not advanced in our techniques.

We had a lot of play time in the pool and hang around the house time, which was super nice. We had fun times with friends as always and really enjoyed our trips to the pool. The little Lowes are both doing well and growing like weeds.