Fall Festival 2009

Meet Peter Pan and Tinker Bell.

This year the kids were once again Disney characters for the Fall Festival at church. (You can see what they were last year here). Jonathan and I also got into the act this year as Hook and Wendy.

If you remember, last year there was a pie contest and Rosemary sneezed on our pie. This year, there was a salsa/dip competition...we chose not to enter. :-) But, Jonathan and his mom got to be judges and I think they both enjoyed that way more than if I'd entered salsa. Since I'm not a fan of onions or tomatoes, I'm pretty sure my salsa wouldn't have appealed to anyone.

The entire evening was so much fun. Janice and Richard came up to enjoy the night with us. Our small group helped with a few booths and I got to take lots of photos. There was even some square dancing this year.

Huggin' before heading out to the Fall Festival. Check out Ben's 'dagger.'

Rosemary loved her shoes and I was just praying that they wouldn't fall apart. They were from Dollar Tree and I covered them with the material from her costume and safety pinned on the white pompom.

Little Peter Pan. He hated his hat, but it really made the costume.

Rosemary was ready to start the games.

Hook and Pan.

Mekayla (as Wonder Woman) and Rosemary

The Peter Pan Clan

Brandi painted Rosemary's face. It was a hit. We even let her sleep with it on...which probably isn't the best idea, but it came off fine in the morning and didn't stain her pillow.

Janice and Richard enjoyed some time with Ben and watched Charlie in the dunk tank.

What a handsome Hook.

Ben and Landon trying to escape.

Cotton candy, another hit of the night.

The Peine's.

Preschool Parade

Last week, Rosemary's preschool had it's Halloween Parade.

Rosemary had decided that she wanted to be Tinker Bell and was soooooo excited that morning. She never gets ready that fast!

Our pixie.

(Please excuse the sink full of dishes and cluttered counter...it was a busy morning!)

When we got to school, Rosemary saw her friend Allison dressed up as Silver Mist.

Here's most of her class. Miss Judy led the way and Miss Debbie was in the back. Hunter, the little boy who told Rosemary that she is "his princess," was in the pirate outfit at the front of the line with Miss Judy.

Tink and Silver Mist held hands the whole time...so cute.

First Steps

Ben's starting to get around on his feet now.

It was a great moment that Jonathan, Rosemary, and I all got to see together. Ben had taken a step or two to Jonathan on Friday (October 23), but nothing more. Tonight (October 25), Ben walked about 3 feet on his own from me to Jonathan and Rosemary got to see it too. Woohoo!

McIntosh 1890's Festival 2009

We took advantage of a Saturday with an open morning and drove down to McIntosh, Florida for their annual 1890's Festival. It's basically a big craft show with some activities for kids and lots of fried festival/fair food thrown in for good measure.

The last time we went to the McIntosh festival was in 2002, the day that Jonathan and I got engaged so it was both of the kids' first time to the festival.

They enjoyed it.

Rosemary got a balloon hat from a clown named 'Rusty.'

Ben rode around on Daddy's back while the rest of us walked around and ate kettle corn.

And Rosemary got her face painted at McIntosh Christian Church.

This, however, will stick with me as something too bizarre to really believe is true. We saw this classic car on our way back to the car. My first thought when I saw the dolls in the backseat from a distance was, "Oh, that's kinda creepy." As we got closer, the 'kinda' dropped out of my assessment.

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Once again, at Rosemary's preschool there's a pumpkin patch. I'd hoped to meet up with some friends from church for a picnic one day to get some photos, but managed to be sick that day and couldn't do it. So instead, I just waited until it wasn't so hot out, packed a lunch for me and the kids one morning, and decided that we'd get their pictures that day since we were all healthy.

I had envisioned getting better pictures of Rosemary and Ben together, but neither seemed interested in making that happen so I did what I could. Maybe next year?

Weekend in DC

Meet Catherine Virginia, our newest niece.

A couple of weekends ago, my mom and I flew up to Virginia to meet Catherine and visit with my brother's family. It was a short visit but so much fun.

We met Catherine, who was so good the entire time.

I had made a sign for Cate's room based on the bedding set they'd registered for...only to actually arrive and realize that it wasn't the same set that they actually got. Sometimes surprises don't work out how you want them to. At least the colors coordinated. :-)

On the Saturday we were there, all 8 of us loaded into Jason's minivan and headed to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for some Boyds Bears shopping and a battlefield visit.

I'd never been to Pennsylvania (beyond driving through a small sliver of it when I was 10) before and was completely taken by how beautiful it was. It was a bit early for the leaves to be changing, but you could see the first signs of fall starting to peek out.

Charles, Emma, and Schuyler

An Abraham Lincoln Boyds Bear. They also have other Civil War Boyds Bears, appropriately named Mason and Dixon.

Outside of Boyds Bears, they had cute little photo op places as well as a place to make a scarecrow, paint a pumpkin or go on a hayride. It made me miss Jonathan and the kids. They would have loved that part.

After lunch and finishing up at Boyds, we headed to the battlefield. We were there a few hours and I only got the abridged version of the tour from my brother. I very much want to go back with Jonathan. Pretty much at every stop I kept thinking about how much he would appreciate being there. For me, it was hard to grasp how someplace that was really so peaceful and beautiful could have been the site of such a bloody battle.

Looking out towards the clump of trees from the Virginia monument.

The Alabama monument (for Charlie)

Me with Charles and Schuyler at the top of Little Round Top.

More from Little Round Top

Charles on one of the rocks at Devil's Den. While we were stopped there, we saw a bridal party getting pictures. While it really was beautiful, it seemed like a battlefield was a strange place for wedding photos.

Me and Catherine. She's so new!

Jason and Nikki at Coastal Flats.

Me, Emma, and my mom at Coastal Flats.

Mr. Independent

Benjamin is into so much. He very much enjoys climbing up the step stool to the sink to wash his hands and attempt to brush his teeth.

You caught me!

Craft Night

Last night, Jen and Susan came over for a bit of crafting. None of us had ever done glass etching before and as it turns out, it was pretty easy and the end result looked pretty good. It was a good craft if you want to talk because you really spend most of your time waiting on the etching cream to 'etch.'

First Day of Preschool

On September 8, Rosemary started back to preschool at Stepping Stones. She was so excited about her first day of school, especially after meeting her teachers, Ms. Judy and Ms. Debbie, and some of her classmates the week before. We snapped a few shots outside before loading up in the car to head over to Trinity and I packed the camera to get a few more once we got to her class.

Unfortunately, as I was getting Ben out of his carseat, Rosemary fell down on the sidewalk and scraped her knee and her elbow pretty badly. Of course, I didn't have bandages with me so we grabbed something to wipe up the blood then I took a screaming Rosemary to her class to get a bandaid. Her teachers initially thought that she was wailing because she didn't want to go but it was really quite the opposite. She'd been so excited! What a start to the year.

And so with such an inauspicious beginning, there are no more first day of school pics other than the blurry ones above. Maybe by the time she's in kindergarten we'll be able to get decent ones.