Fall Festivities

Here are some pictures from this Fall.  We have had a lot of fun.  Take a look...

 The boys used their summer chore money to buy bow and arrow sets.  I guess I should have bought one for Drew as well.  They all spent a beautiful fall afternoon shooting at rotten tomatoes from our garden.

Showing a serious, arrow shooting face

Ahhh...sense my sigh of happiness at this precious moment caught on film

I have recently started a mom's Bible Study at my house on Weds. mornings.  While I get to spend time with 5-6 of my friends, Rye hangs out with about a dozen of his buddies.  Here is a picture of him having a snack with one of his many friends.  I am so thankful for a flexible kid who doesn't mind that his mom invites 12 kids to come play at his house.

And here he is spending time with his best buddy Archer.  They get to see each other all day on Tuesdays and also on regular occasions at the gym.  When I go anywhere with them, people always assume they are twins.  I can see why.

Here Archer and Rye show their masks .  This is one of the activities for a fall party I put together in our yard.  (More pictures to follow.)

Another activity was cupcake decorating.  Noah is trying out the "activity" the day before just to make sure it works.

Ben is clearly proud of his creation.

I was pretty impressed as well.  (just glad I didn't have to eat it)

Archer and Rye are all dressed up and ready for the party in our yard.  It was a beautiful day.  It got close to 80 by lunch time.  I even got a little sunburn from being out in the sun all day.

This is the yard in the morning before people showed up.  It is hard to tell, but there were a dozen games set around the yard for little kids to play with.  We had a treasure dig, obstacle course, putt putt golf game, etc. 

 

The shade moved off the yard just in time for everyone to come and play in the sunshine.

I had anticipated that Rye and Archer would go straight to the obstacle course.  They surprised me by spending a good 15 minutes fishing together.  After some encouragement, they even took turns with the fishing pole.

 

Does a protruding tongue help when catching fish?

This game continued to be a big hit all day.  Here is Silas with Rye during the afternoon play time.

In the morning we hosted a party for younger preschool age kids.  Here some are hanging out at the obstacle course after playing games for over an hour.

Rye had the home court advantage and knew just where to stand to make a basket.

and he enjoyed many trips to the lollipop tree throughout the day

Once the fall party in our yard was over, the obstacles moved inside for storage until our church's Fall Festival on Sunday.  The boys used the foam blocks to set up a store in the play room.

Noah opened up  store next door.  His marketing strategies took some of the business away from Rye.

Despite the competition, Rye did well for himself and spent some time counting his "money".

On Saturday afternoon I got the idea of our family being Monopoly properties for the Fall Festival at church.  Here are the cards all ready to be attached to the individual members of the family.  Unfortunately I did not get a picture of anyone in their costume.

Here is a close up.  I was very pleased with how accurate these were to the actual game pieces.

For Halloween the boys decided to do a different costume.  They dressed up as Bow Hunters.  (I wouldn't let them carry NERF guns)

Ben's "cool hunter" pose

Noah's pose looks a little scary.  I wouldn't mess with this bow hunter in the woods.

We only went down one street but the boys still managed to bring home quite a bit of candy.

They spent a long time sorting through all of their loot.

Rye couldn't believe that all of the candy was for him!  Luckily he was not aware of how much he got and I was able to pick out my favorites from his candy stash.

And finally, the big news...Rye is starting to wear "Big Boy Pants".  He is calling them his "Choo Choo pants" because they have Thomas the Train on them.  He actually wears them on his bottom some of the time.  :)

Amazing weekend near Lexington, VA

This weekend was beautiful.  We had perfect weather, an outstanding place to stay and a whole weekend with some of my favorite people (my family).  Thank you to my fantastic Sister-in-law for sharing her family farm with all of us.

Proof that I loved the weekend...I usually take months to write a blog post, but am doing this one less than 24 hrs after getting home.

Here are some pictures of our time together.

the perfect climbing tree with leaves a plenty for the non-climbers as well

Rye and Betsy enjoying the pile of leaves they made

never one to lay around...Rye tackles his cousin

Philip and Noah

Millie and Uncle Bobo observe from the ground

Grace went to the very top of the tree (so glad my boys were not this daring)

Ben models his winter accessories for the camera

on a hike around the farm...On your mark, Get set, Go!  Race Uncle Bobo and Millie up the hill!

Rye and Betsy took a more laid back approach

Rye stopped to contemplate the various plants along the slope

Is that a ball?

Yucky!  Don't eat that!

At the summit!

from left to right (Patsy, Philip, Noah, Ben, Grace, Rye, AB, Betsy, Millie and Bobo)

walking the cow path through the woods

not sure where the path went, but we made it through anyway

We camped out in the yard (sorry I didn't get a shot of all of us in the tent together) and then spent time warming up inside before breakfast.

This is the view from the front yard.  The horses made it in the top 3 favorite things for each of my boys.

I stood right next to a horse's behind to get this shot

Philip and Noah did a great job looking after Rye

what my hair looked like after 3 days without a shower

...and I wasn't the only one with crazy hair, except that this picture doesn't do justice to the matted look on the back of my sister's head (I would like to explain that I was in the process of crossing my eyes when this picture was taken...the reason for my weird expression)