Pretty trees and pumpkins galore!

Wow!  I've posted three blog posts this week?!  Three!  It feels good to be a gangsta blogger!

(Check out my pumpkin patch/farm post here and our pumpkin patch artwork post here)  

You guys, can I just start by showing you these trees?

This is the view out our kitchen doors looking south and it's even more beautiful in person.  I don't think I've ever really appreciated this view before.  How?  HOW have I never noticed these trees?

So, so pretty.

Oh and I have to share a tree from our yard, too!

Henry was about a year-and-a-half when we purchased our Sunset Maples.  We went to a nursery, hopped in the owner's huge truck, weaved up and down and around his land and picked out two trees.  We initially intended for the trees to provide some much needed shade in the summers (hence why they're so large), but we didn't realize how much we'd actually enjoy just looking at them.

Okay, now that your botany lesson is complete for the day, let's move on to pumpkins.

Here we have a drawing of how Henry wanted his pumpkin to be carved (Jon helped draw the teeth).

 

Ta-Da!

Daddy (AKA the reigning Pumpkin Carving Champion) did a great job carving for Henry.

Spot on!

Then it was my turn to help make a Rapunzel pumpkin for Eliza.

I'm going to go ahead and toot my own horn here and nominate myself as Pumpkin Carving Champion 2016 and tell you that these were the best pumpkins I've ever carved!  In the past years, Jon has made fun of me because I'm so terrible at carving.  Wouldn't you know it that if you take your time and follow directions the pumpkin can actually turn out to be awesome!?  

I was a carving fool for longer than I care to admit, but it was totally worth it.

I redeemed myself...and Eliza was pretty happy about it, too.  ;)

In the midst of carving, we decided that we should carve one more pumpkin, a BIG pumpkin.  I took the kids inside to look at pumpkin ideas on the computer when we came across this one.  The kids thought it was, "fooky" (spooky) and silly.

Toot!  Toot!  Look at that pumpkin-carving-skill.  Yup, that's me tooting my horn again!  You guys, I was so proud of myself.  It was a life-changing moment!  Okay, not really, but still pretty cool.

If you haven't noticed by now, I'm incredibly easy to please.  Hmmm...either I don't expect much or I value the small things.  LOL!  Let's go with the latter.

Do you have any pumpkin disasters?  Masterpieces?

Thanks for stopping by - again!  :)

Happy almost Friday, friends.

Marie  :)

A not so perfect, yet perfect fall craft...

Are you ready to laugh?

After the success of making our marshmallow ghosts (inspired by Momfessionals).  I was feeling all kinds of Halloween-craftiness up in here!

I made this little pumpkin patch art as a sample for the kids and I was thinking, "This is going to be adorable.  My kids will love this!  Candy pumpkins...glue...yarn?  How could they not love this?  These will be perfect.  I'll be posting about these puppies up on the blog, for sure!  It'll probably go viral!"

I showed them how to make the "pumpkin patch" and then I began washing the dishes.  

They seemed all about it.

I mean...look at that excitement...

...that determination...

...that focus...

...that gluing!

When I came back to the table, I found these.

One with mostly pumpkins...

 ...and one with mostly yarn-vines!

I had to laugh and I decided then-and-there that I just had to blog about these works of art, because this is real life and real life is hilarious.  

We see and share so many picture-perfect photos of our kids doing picture-perfect activities all over the internet.  

I'm guilty.  

I'm guilty of shoving things to the side and cropping photos.  Believe me, I'll still be cropping and shoving, because honestly, this mess gets cray-cray, but once in a great while it's fun to share the not-so-perfect-yet-perfect of days.

My kids had fun...and that's what matters.

Any crafts end up like this for you, too?  Do tell!  I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks for stopping by my bloggity blog you nice person, you!

Marie :)

On the Farm. E-I-E-I-BOO!

Halloween is right around the corner and it seems as though we managed to accomplish all things "fall" over this past weekend.

I wanted to share with you guys our little trip to the farm.  

For the past few years we have visited a different farm about an hour-and-a-half north of us here in Michigan.  We wanted to stay closer to home this time around, so we found this cute farm and boy-oh-boy we're so glad we did!

We arrived when the farm opened on Friday at one o'clock.  We pretty much had the entire place to ourselves; which was amazing.  We never had to wait in line and the weather...oh the weather.  

Perfection.  

We started off at the slides.  

They.were.fast.  

Every kid I saw slide down would either immediately fall to their knees or take a few steps forward until they'd ultimately fall.  There was a soft place to land and the kids would run off giggling to do it again.

 

Eliza wanted to go down the biggest slide first.  #notsurprised

I tell ya', this girl just goes for it.

Unfortunately, I took this picture of her coming down and then my camera bonked her in the head. She was pretty upset and I was upset with myself for not thinking to put the camera away while my child was sliding down the slide at lightning speed.

#momfail

She was more scared than hurt, though.  I felt terrible that I had ruined the first part of her fun.  But, being the kid that she is, she stopped crying, moved on and was happy!  She eventually went down the slides again!

Atta-girl!

Okay, so here's me going down the slide!  You guys, I'm not kidding - this slide was sooo fast.  Can you see me trying to put my boots up against the slide to slow down?  LOL!

Up next was the bounce house and then this cute little maze.  

The kids ran through this over and over again.

Then I was a like, "Hey, we should take a family picture!"  Well, here are two of the best shots - you don't want to see the third.  ;)  Someday we'll all look at the camera...and smile...at the same time.  

Someday...  ;)

Obligatory Halloween growth chart photo.

As you can see, Henry was thrilled about taking this picture.

 

They're getting so tall!

Next up was this barrel tractor ride and it.was.so.fun!

Eliza was all for it.  Surprise, surprise.  

Okay.  This picture cracks me up.  Doesn't Jon look like a "big" little kid?!

It took a little convincing to get Henry to go.  We dropped the subject and then within seconds, he changed his mind and I'm so happy he did.

Look at that smile!

Then it was time to go through the loooooong maze.  We had previously went through the shorter "10 minute" maze, but Henry and Jon were adamant that we go through the loooong one, the "45 minute" maze.  I was a tad nervous.  Forty-five minutes?  In a maze?  Is this a good idea?  What if someone needed to go potty?  What if there was a breakdown?  After all, our little maps said not to call 911 if we were to get lost.  What?!  When did 911 get involved?

Ummm...  

Okay, okay.  I was overreacting, I know.

To my amazement, it was fun and exciting and it sure didn't feel like 45 minutes!  Jon did a great job navigating and the kids thought it was so cool.  I swear every time we stopped to stamp our cards, the kids were so curious about the corn on the ground or the corn growing on the stalks; they wanted to pick up every single tiny corn kernel.

Such innocence.

Once finished, we turned in our cards for completing the maze and received candy 'Smarties' as our reward. 

We also bought some pumpkin doughnuts and apple cider.  Yum.

We headed over to the corn bin and Henry began making "corn" angels.

Eliza, of course, had to do the same...

Then it was hayride time!  

It was a beautiful and long ride through the woods.  Some parts of the ride included spooky set-ups for the haunted hayride at night.  Let me tell you that I don't like to be scared, so I was completely content with the rated G version of our ride.

We also read that pumpkins were hidden out on the trail and to count how many pumpkins we could find.  

I was off by one!  Darn!

Last up - a couple more rides down the slide and then we were off to conquer this straw bale mountain!  

Mission accomplished.

Funnest Farm Day EVER!

We had so much fun.

Have you been to a farm/pumpkin patch this year?  

More importantly, do you prefer your apple cider hot or cold?

Thanks for stopping by my itty bitty blog.  Have a Boo-tiful Day!  Ha!

Marie ;)

Five...errr...Ten on Friday - Rule Breaker!

Boy!  Where do I begin?  It's been a busy and hilarious week over here, so I'm going to have to go ahead and break the rules and play catch up.

Here we go!

{ONE - THE ELSA WIG SAGA CONTINUES}

Let's start here.

You guys, this wig.

This wig.  

She cracks me up!

{TWO - PUMPKINS}

So here's the thing, I had originally planned for the kids to be wearing their cute orange and black Halloween attire while picking out pumpkins.

Welp, life happened and we decided, let's just go get pumpkins!  Oh well, every picture can't be planned and blogger-perfect, so rocket-ship-shirt and Minnie Mouse it is!

{THREE - LEAVES}

Is there anything better?

Hopefully we can get an even bigger leaf pile this weekend!

 {FOUR - MICHIGAN FOOTBALL}

If you or somebody you know watches college football, then you know what happened last Saturday.

If not, then let me inform you that our favorite team, the University of Michigan, lost.  Sad face.

I thought about embedding the video for ya'll to see for yourself what I'm talking about, but I didn't have the heart to watch it again.

Let's just say that during those final seconds of the game, I screamed, "Noooo!"  Jon fell to his knees and he now has a rug burn and my Father-in-law just left the room and went into the kitchen.

Then it was silence.

We were speechless, just speechless.  We couldn't believe what had just happened.

That being said, we're proud of our Michigan football team, it was a great game and we can only rise up from here!

GO BLUE!

...and here's Eliza impersonating me after the game...ooooor she just wanted that cheese.

#reallife

{FOUR - KONMARI}

Have you heard of this book?  If not, go and get it.  I'm only half-way through it and it's already changing my perspective on how I clean, organize and fold!  I love the whole idea of only having the items in your home that "spark joy."  Great concept.  It's definitely worth a read.

{FIVE - A NEW BABY NEPHEW}

My Sister-in-law delivered her third baby boy two weeks ago and I must say that I'm in love.

He snuggled with Aunt Marie for an hour...an hour!!  I loooooved it.  We'll be getting together again for Thanksgiving and I've already warned my SIL that Aunt Marie will be stealing him away for lots and lots of snuggles.

{SIX - HENRY'S FIELD TRIP TO THE FIRE STATION}

Henry took a field trip to the fire station with his preschool class last Friday.  He was all about it!  I'll let the pictures do the talking...

{SEVEN - WEDNESDAYS WITH ELIZA}

Every Wednesday, while Henry is at school, Eliza and I meet up with Sara and her little girl, Ashlyn, at our local coffee shop.  I love that Eliza has a little girl friend and I love spending some one-on-one time with my little girl.

After coffee we head to music class and then play in the church nursery while we wait for big brother to get out of school.  

The girls are a hoot and I'm loving all of these fun Wednesday mornings!

{EIGHT - HALLOWEEN CRAFTS}

We've been crafting it up a lot over here!  This ghost craft idea came from Andrea over at Momfessionals and I think it's the cutest.  Henry ended up adding raisins for legs and dry spaghetti noodles for arms while I was preoccupied with washing the dishes.  He also added eyeballs, a nose and smile to his ghost.

I love, love it so much!



{NINE - THIS VIDEO} 

If you've never met me, just know this how I look 99.9% of the time.  I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing!

{TEN - HALLOWEEN COSTUMES}

A couple of days ago I shared with you some of our past Halloween costumes.  It was so fun to share these costumes and memories with all of you!  If you haven't already visited Momfessionals for her Halloween Costume Link Up, then head over there.  You'll have fun checking out other Halloween costumes of the past and present!

Well, that's it for me.  I think I'm all caught up.

Thanks soooo much for stopping by my little blog.

Happy Friday!

Marie :)

I'm linking up with April, Natasha, and Christina for the Five on Friday link-up Paaaaarty!

I'm linking up with A Little Bit of Everything, Momfessionals, and Grace and Love for my Friday Favorites!

I'm linking up with September Farm and The Farmer's Wife for the Oh Hey Friday linky party!