We Ran a Race

Well not sure I'd ever be posting about a race that my whole family participated in. We just aren't the running types. Or maybe all that's changed. This year, as part of our family weight loss bandwagon that many of us jumped on, we decided to all do the Pumpkin Classic, we even got Dad in on it. The Pumpkin Classic is a  10k race or a 2 mile run/walk. Paul ran the 10k and did an awesome job. I feel pretty good about his run since this year he at least trained for it unlike last year when he kicked my butt in the 2 miles with no effort. Matt and Dennis and Amanda ran the 2 mile and also did pretty awesome. The rest of us walked/jogged the 2 mile. We had four stroller kids, three running kids and four adults. It was so much fun and a good pre-pumpkin pancake workout. I made us all shirts which worked out really nice for keeping an eye on everyone and getting some compliments. Jack said his favorite thing about the Pumpkin Festival was the race and he will exuberantly tell you that he won, he won!

Possibly one of the best pictures ever of these three. Jack, Micah and Hailey

Papa and Grandma with the running kids.

A little pre-race fuel.

All the stroller kiddos!

Megan and I before we had to chase down the older kids who took off like bullets from the starting line. Although a bullet goes straight and those three definitely did not run straight at first. 

So fun to race with my boy!

Look carefully and you'll see Paul running in his orange tie-die shirt. Kinda on the left side. 

These two pictures were taken from the Pumpkin Festival facebook page. The first picture is us at the start of the race. The second picture is Hailey, Jack, Mari and I finishing the race strong!

So proud of these guys! Killer times for all of them.

Grandma and Papa with the grandkids. Fun times!

Pumpkin Festival

Another P-Fest has come and gone. It's always such a whirlwind of activity and excitement and fun. Jack is old enough to remember previous years and the anticipation he had was a lot of fun. He was quite eager for the festival to start and his excitement spread to his brothers. We made it to the fest every night, which I'm thinking is overkill, but the kids love, so hmmm. We did the opening ceremony with the balloon release and the kids did really well with my 5 ride per night limit.  Of course the first ride Jack picks is the Octopus. I think he's crazy but he insists and the carnie says he can ride with me. Jack was excited as we climbed into our seat and before I could utter a word about how we don't need a crazy spin before the ride start, the carnie whips us around and we spin into oblivion. I felt sick before we ever moved. Then the ride started. It was aweful! I used to like this ride. I don't ever remember fearing for my life on this ride. Darn you old age. We spun wildly around for what seemed like forever. I had my feet braced to the floor, my right hand grasping the handle with all my strength and the left arm wrapped around Jack as tight as possible. I was sure we were both going to fly out of our seats. I was honestly scared. Unfortunately, Jack was scared too and almost instantly started asking when the ride would be done and telling me he was scared. I know he get's motion sick like me so I told him to just stare at his knees, I had a nice little rip on the seat I was staring at. He seemed so scared and upset I started telling him to talk to Jesus. He didn't know what to say to he just asked for the ride to be over. Poor kid. Finally it stopped and we climbed off and I hugged him. He was such a champ. He didn't cry or get worked up he just stated how scared he felt and that he didn't like that ride and we moved on. Of course I felt sick the rest of the night and four rides later while we were standing in line for food Jack got really pale and puked. Then he was fine. He would still tell you he had fun though. 

Balloon Release.

Probably the favorite ride since all the kids can do it.

We drove the cars a lot.

My cousin Lexi (and Terri and Gage) has a booth at the craft fair. She knows how to turn Alpaca fur? into yarn. Jack was giving her a hand with the spinning wheel.   

We enjoyed the pancake breakfast as we usually do. Logan hardly ate anything, but once he discovered the butter he was all set. In all he licked up three containers of butter and enjoyed every minute of it.

School and Teacher Visit

Jack started his second year of school the other week. He is in Mrs. Suttles' 4 year old preschool class at Bethel and as expected he is having a great time and has already wont the heart of his teacher. He runs in his classroom every morning and greets her with a big smile and "Good morning Mrs. Suttles!" Last year I would always tell him to go into class and say "Good morning Mrs. Hart!" It always made her smile and so on the first day I reminded him to greet his teacher and now he does it on his own. No reminder needed. It looks like he is in for a fun school year.

The week before school started his teacher came over for a home visit. Jack was super excited and could hardly sit still while Mrs. Suttles talked to him. He also couldn't stop talking! She was asking him questions and he would just talk her ear off telling her all sorts of stories from the summer. She heard about how Papa shot a snapping turtle and how he threw up repeatedly the day we went to the St. Louis Zoo and how we visited John Deere tractors. I had to tell him to stop talking about throw up because he just kept going on about it. Mrs. Suttles finally made it to the last question and she tried to steer Jack back to the intended conversation by saying, "I have one more question for you Jack." He immediately responded with, "Ok, but let me ask you a question first" and proceeded to tell another rambling story. Finally the questions were done and the meeting was over, but Jack couldn't let his new teacher leave without dragging her up to his room to show her is turtle bones. Later that day we were asking him how he liked his teacher and he seriously announced that he was being shy when she was here for her visit. Perhaps he talks incessantly when he's shy?

Good Deal, Great Fun

For a while I've thought it would be fun to get one of those giant inflatable water slides for the backyard. But the kids are little so I was trying not to rush into anything. I did keep my eye on craigslist though in case a great deal happened to come along. I also had talked to Nicole about this and she was interested in splitting the cost and sharing one. Sounded fantastic to me, but still we were going to wait, no need to buy a brand new one at full price at the end of summer. Then last week I was clicking through craigslist and came upon just what we had been looking to buy at some point and it was over 2/3 cheaper than brand new. I emailed the people and texted Nicole and picked it up on Friday. I think it was definitely a good deal and splitting it with Kevin and Nicole makes it even better! With everyone having work off yesterday and with temps near or in the 90s we decided to give it a try and make sure everything worked. The kids had a blast and we are very happy with our purchase! Kyle, Haley and Jack slid and slid and slid. Hayden played for a long time and never once got upset about being sprayed with a water canon or slid into by the sliders. She was one tough little cookie and seemed to love every minute of it, despite having her swim suit on backwards and thus sporting a 1980s high cut aerobics look. :-) Schaeffer and Logan loved the water canon and thought it was hilarious to spray people, especially Hayden. They also enjoyed climbing in and out and sitting on the edge and bouncing. They both went to the top of the slide a few times, but Schaeffer only slid down once and Logan never brought himself to try it. I think next summer it might be a different story. I have a feeling we'll be getting a lot of use out of this.

One Funny Kid

Schaeffer is a funny kid. It's hard to explain what makes him so funny but if he's in a good mood, it's hard to look at him without smiling and giggling a little. I thought maybe it was his shaggy hair but now I've decided that perhaps it's his eyes. He just has this kinda goofy, mischievous look about him. The other day we were playing out front and my parents stopped by to pick up Jack. Dad started pulling weeds out of the front yard...helping us not get kicked out of Morton for poor lawn upkeep! The boys started helping him. Then they started pulling out this flowery vine that was growing in the middle of one of our bushes. The boys, Schaeffer especially started bringing the purple flowers to my pot of purple mums and adding them in. Then Schaeffer brought over the whole vine and placed it just so with the mums. Then he picked up a single leaf and careful placed it just so among the flowers. It was just so funny how he went about it, like he was really doing something to help me decorate the front porch. 

John Deere Day

We kept ourselves busy this August by squeezing in a few mid-week day trips before school starts (tomorrow!). We did the zoo in St. Louis which Jack's teacher heard all about on her home visit, puke stories included. And a few weeks later we went for a visit to Iowa to spend the day with Megan, Dennis and George. With four little boys one of our favorite things to do when we visit Iowa is play on tractors. We first went to the John Deere headquarters where they have a big display floor filled with a variety of tractors, many of which they allow you to climb into. Jack has been several times before but this was Schaeffer and Logan's first time. It did not disappoint. They all ran from tractor to tractor climbing in cabs, buckets and wheels, pushing every button and testing every control and of course pretending to run me over. Jack even took me on a safari in one of the Gators. If you've never played on huge tractors then you nee to know that climbing in the giant buckets, shovels and wheels is a must. Especially for little kids. It's a wonder to them to see how huge these tractor parts are and that they fit right inside and often many of them fit right inside. After getting our fill at the headquarters we grabbed lunch and headed over to the John Deere Pavilion. This is like a show room with information and several more tractors and a kids area. Jack's absolute favorite was a forestry machine that actually walks in a strange bug like way. He didn't get to climb in it but he got to see a video of how it works and he thought it was really cool that the tractor could walk. I'm with him, it was pretty neat. The kids played and played and then we went over to the gift shop where they have play tables with lots of tractor toys for the kids to try out, so we played and played some more. My three will all thrilled to walk out of there with new John Deere shirts and a new little tractor toy each.

It takes a lot of little people to operate a huge combine!

Jack in the combine, another favorite of his.

Megan and George

Schaeffer and Logan taking a sleep in the bucket.

Nearly impossible to get a good pic of these four.

Georgie!

Fisherboy

We have been at the lake a lot lately. Did I mention that before? The day after my Dad's birthday we hosted a party for our small group at my parent's house. It was another beautiful day and we had all sorts of different activities we could do. But it turns out our small group is full of fisherkids. We had 14 adults and 18 children and kids and dad's fished almost the entire time (when they weren't driving the skid steer and floating in the paddle boat). The fish weren't biting much that dad but lots of baby catfish were caught a few walleye and many tiny frogs. I think perhaps the older boys inspired/influenced Jack. Up until that afternoon he had always fished with his special pole with a rubber fish on the end. He would cast it out and real it in over and over, each time pleased that he had a fish. This method works well for little kids because it's much safer than having them fling a hook around. And it allowed him to develop a pretty impressive cast for his age and size. This afternoon however, he decided he wanted to try a hook with a worm like everyone else was doing. I wasn't involved in this but Paul said he did a great job being careful and he even caught some fish! In my dad's lake it's not hard to catch a little fish. You pretty much just have to drop a hook off the side of the dock and bam, you have a fish. The hard part it catching a big fish. Anyway, he was super excited and told my parent's all about it before we left that night. And boy does he have a good fish story. He told with much excitement how he caught a really big fish and it bent his pole and it almost pulled him off the dock! Pretty sure he was talking about the sunfish in the second picture, but hey it's all about the fish story, right? We've tried to remind him that fishing requires patience and you don't catch a fish every time you go fishing. But so far Dad's lake hasn't let him down and he catches at least a little something every time he goes out. Ever since this night he has been on a fishing kick and has begged to go back out night after night. We've taken him a few times and he even got to spend several hours fishing with just Papa and no pesky little brothers running around. From the stories I heard after that night, I'd say they had a good time. And I'll admit, I think it's cute and fun and sentimental that he enjoys fishing and fishing with his papa so much. 

Happy Birthday Dad!

My dad just turned 60. I used to think that sounded old. But the older I get the younger those big numbers seem. My dad doesn't seem old, he just seems like dad. But since it's kind of a big number and a new decade and all that we decided to throw him a little party. My family is not really big into birthday parties. I normally send a text or a phone call when it's someone's birthday and if they are lucky they get a card. But this year my sisters and I decided we should all get together for the day and have some fun and call it a birthday party for dad :). So that's what we did. We hung out all day. We took the kids on a nature hike around the property and managed to find the remains of the snapping turtle that lost it's life at the hand's of my father earlier this spring. The snapping turtle has been a favorite story of Jack's this summer and without giving it much thought I told him he could take some of the bones home to put on his dresser. I was thinking, "wouldn't I be a cool mom if I let me son display bones from a turtle shot by his papa in his room?" I wasn't thinking how dirty and gross they were and how would we clean them or sanitize them. So several of the kids collected lots of bones and carried them the rest of our hike. Later that afternoon we tried boiling them...cause that's what they do with bones on the TV series "Bones" according to Megan. That created a terrible stench in the kitchen just as we were cooking dinner. It was awful and we got concerned that we were destroying the bones so that only lasted maybe 10 minutes. Then following some hasty Internet research we decided to soak them in a bleach/water bath for a while. I have no idea if we succeeded in cleaning or sanitizing but regardless Jack now has a pile of turtle bones on his dresser. The first night we put them there he was up long past bedtime with his light on just sitting in bed looking at his turtle bones laying on his dresser. Not accidentally everyone else left their bones at Mom and Dad's house when the drove home. This will always be, "Remember that time we boiled the turtle bones?"

Besides collecting bones, the kids also got to go on tractor rides which is always a favorite activity. Dad drove round and round with one grand-kid after another on his lap. And when Micah and Jack couldn't agree who should go first Dad took them both and miraculously I snapped this great photo of the three of them. Dad is rarely looking and smiling when we take pictures and getting a three and a four year old to do the same is almost impossible. 

 Much fun was had a Grandma and Papa's house this day, both inside and outside.  

George being goofy.

A favorite activity of the little ones.

We played hard all morning, ate a yummy lunch and then put as many children down for naps as we could. The older kids got to watch a movie. Then Mom and I went shopping for dinner supplies and we spent the rest of the afternoon figuring out what to make for dessert, what we forgot at the store, cooking dinner, tie dying shirts for the P-fest and generally enjoying each other's company. We do have fun together. That evening we set up tables on the deck to enjoy the really beautiful evening and ate a very yummy dinner all together. It was really a wonderful time celebrating Dad and enjoying some much needed time as a whole family. After dinner and dessert we cleaned up and fed the fish. I find the dock crowded with just my three boys so to have 7 kids out their plus several adults was REALLY crowded. I stayed away, I was sure someone would fall in. Just look at those boys laying on the edge. 

In my opinion it was a wonderful day. I hope my dad agrees, I think he does. We love him so much and we are so thankful to celebrate his 60th birthday with him. I think he is blessed beyond measure and because of him, so are we. 

Fish Food

I can't even remember the last time I blogged. We've been having Internet issues so I haven't been on the computer in what seems like ages and blogging on an iPhone is not worth the effort. Typing with all of my fingers is much more efficient than typing with two thumbs.

We've spent many evenings in recent weeks at my parent's house feeding the fish. The boys have come to love this activity and I've bought many life jackets in an effort to ease my (and my mother's) fears of someone falling head first into the lake. Schaeffer and Logan are particularly terrifying as it seems they have no concern for the edge of the dock or perhaps they are far more confident in their balance than I am. But with the life jacket's at least they'll float and that's enough to ease my stress and allow me to mostly enjoy their careening around what suddenly seems like a very small plank of dock jutting out into a vast body of water. They seriously get so close to the edge and seemingly show no concern for falling in! It's constant activity and excitement when we feed the fish. The boys run to the bucket, scoop out as much food as their fists can hold, spill most of it on the dock and then run to the edge to throw it in. Jack and Logan mostly stick to feeding the fish. Schaeffer, however, is often throwing food on the shoreline or in the paddle boat or stuffing it down his life jacket. He seems perfectly content to do his own thing regardless of the silliness of it. They love throwing the food about as much as they enjoy seeing the fish come to eat it. Their delight is infectious and it doesn't matter if it's a few of the tiniest fish that come for dinner or a whole gang of giant catfish, they are excited just the same.