Fall Festival Cuteness

This picture was taken by someone from my church at the fall festival and I just received it a few days ago and had to share it. I absolutely love the look on their faces and the quick cowboy get-up. Happy Fall, although its winter weather up here.

Homemade Play-Dough

I found this recipe for homemade play-dough a while ago and have been wanting to try it for Will. He loves to play with play-dough, but all of ours has been dried out for a while now. So I finally decided to give it a try and I'm so glad I did. It made a good amount of it and its so easy to work with. It is a little greasy - so we should probably have something underneath when we play with it, but for now its giving my table a nice "shine" as Josh says.

Will made a ramp with Josh for his monster truck. He doesn't let this truck out of his sight!!!

Josh likes to play with it also :). He made this dinosaur which puts to shame all the things I make when I play with Will.

Here is the recipe:

Mix together in bowl:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon alum (found in the spice section)
In a saucepan on the stove stir the following ingredients together. Bring to a boil.
2 cups water
1/2 cup salt
3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
food coloring (if making the whole batch the same color, otherwise knead individual colors in at the end)

Once mixture is boiling, add

2 -1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoons alum

Cook over low to medium heat stirring constantly until dough comes away from the edges of the pan and it becomes very hard to stir. Remove from heat and let cool slightly(until you are able to knead the dough).

Knead until smooth and elastic. Store in an airtight container.

I put the food coloring all together because I didn't know what it would look like trying to do it at the end..... just so ya know.

She got a Pony ...

for her first birthday! Mimi got Abby her first horse! This play horse is so much fun for both kids. Abby got this as an early birthday present from my mom while she was still in town. Will wanted to ride it and play with it right away and had to be held back so Abby could see it. She really loves it. She plays with a lot of Will's tractors and cars, so its nice to see her enjoy a "girly" toy.

Will pushes her around the house and she loves it. This way, they are both happy! The horse has a button on the side that you can push to make music and Abby laughs every time she pushes it because she gets a kick out of doing it herself. Too cute!

Thanks again Mimi!

PUNKINS

Mimi (my mom) flew in Tuesday night and Wednesday was fore casted to be the warmest and most sunny day, so we decided to go to get the kids some pumpkins.
Will and Abby enjoyed themselves more than I thought they would. Will ran from pumpkin to pumpkin looking for the "perfect" one to take home. And of course, I had
them pose for a few pictures.

I didn't realize at first that there was a boy and girl pumpkin, and Will's cutest shot was in the one with the bow - oh well!

It looks like he is telling her something very interesting.

My little sweet punkins!

What a look on that face. I think he is getting ready to tackle me or something.
I had to feed them crackers on the way home to keep them awake and
then we all had naps!! :) We were so excited Mimi was in town!!!

Festivities

A couple weekends ago we celebrated my sister-in-law's birthday on her property about 10 minutes away from where we live now. They have this land on the side of a mountain that is beautiful. The leaves in this picture do not do it justice. We ate dinner, hung out, and roasted marshmallows once it got dark. Josh's other brother, Benn and his wife Mandy and their 6 kids drove in from TN the night before (to stay for 10 days with Nana and Papa) - so they were there for the festivities as well. All of the cousins had a blast together.

The kids enjoying their hot dogs.

Josh is up on the right in that tree. He was the biggest kid there! He hurt his ankle a little doing that which wasn't the greatest because he was playing in his high school alumni football game the next night. I didn't get any more pictures of that night because my camera battery died.

This is a picture of the "oldies" playing football. Benn, Jason, and Josh all played together on the same team. They each scored touchdowns as well. They had a great time playing together and being sore together the next several days :)!!

We are thankful no one got injured!!!

This is Kate, Nana, Mandy and some of the cousins sitting on the bleachers watching the game.

The kids watched and then played in the dirt/sand. Will actually sat for a really long time trying to find daddy out there - it was so cute!
It was fun for me to get to watch Josh play, since I wasn't around during his football days!

Smart Cookie

The girl already is trying to put shoes on by herself. She got pretty close to getting Will's shoe on. What a smarty pants.

(sorry for the nasty snot dripping down her face... i
knew if i wiped it off for the picture, then i wouldn't capture her doing this again for a while...)

FALL PICTURES

Its been so beautiful here lately. With the cool crisp, yet sunny weather and the leaves changing colors....I decided to take the kids down the road to this field and take some pictures on this hail bail. The leaves are changing early this year and they are very vibrant. God is an amazing artist.
If you click on these pictures to see them larger - you can see them in better detail.

Will - my cute boy growing up so fast!

Abby doesn't smile much for the camera.
She also is sick here, so in between shots I was wiping the snot off her face, nice huh!?

Will adores Abby... too cute!

Sweet kisses!!! He was a little sick too, so they are just sharing the germs and the love!

Ice Pops and Jammies

Will wanted to wear these PJ hand-me-downs from his cousins the other night. It was cold out and he liked the feel of these. This is how he woke up in the morning. The buttons were not so good at keeping the shirt closed. He didn't like this because he is very particular about things (firstborn)! So that is the last time he will wear that shirt.... but he looked like a little man!

Both of my kids LOVE ice pops. Will 's favorite place to eat his ice pop is on the front porch in a rocking chair.... even when its cold outside. It was SO cold this day that I made him eat his pop inside. So Abby saw it and wanted one.... I gave in. Well, it isn't the first time. She is my second, what can I say? She usually just takes a couple licks of my ice pop. I really like ice pops when I'm feeling so nauseas. However, this time she decided she could do it on her own.

Even though her hand was cold, she wouldn't let it go.

She looks all grown up with sneakers on and her hair up!!!
But this is a 6 month outfit...
she is still a little peanut.