It's The GREAT Pumpkin Patch!

No school today for us so we took the family to the BEST pumpkin patch in Kansas... WALTER'S! And they even have a REAL pumpkin patch! Go figure!

AND THEY WERE SOME BIG FELLAS HERE!

Amanda found a cute little yellow one.

Riding down the TUNNELS OF TERROR. (Okay, not terror, but lots of fun!)

LOOK OUT,MOM!

Playing in the corn bin!

We spent A LOT of time here.

Making "corn" angles! HE HEEE
Our fearless Amanda climbing to the top of the barn.

and the view from the top.

Playing "prairie dog" in the hay bail tunnels.

He's goin' to rope him some prairie dogs! Double seater petal car! WHEEEEEEEE!!!

We had a great day... so glad we were able to fit a visit into our busy October schedule.

School Reports

Amanda and Logan both had their school conferences today and both my monkeys are doing GREAT! Logan is getting top marks in reading comprehension, phonics, and grammar. His spelling and handwriting could use some work, but come on... he MY son, you know. That shouldn't surprise anyone. : ) He is following in his daddy's footsteps with all A's in Mathematics and Social Studies and following in my footsteps with all A's in Science. The boy is doing great and is well adjusted especially considering he missed half a year of school last year. His teacher is very smitten with him and loves all the hugs he gives her throughout the day.

Amanda is a star pupil in preschool. She recognises all her letters (uppercase and lowercase) and knows all the sounds they make. She's starting to read a few words and is a very sociable little girl. She gets along well with others and is very independent in the class room. Even though her fine motor skills are highly developed, she's not interested in taking the time to write her letters carefully (sloppily is a better description) and has NO interest in coloring (or staying in the lines). Just scribble and go for our girl... again, no surprise there (right Mom?) She CAN do it, just chooses not to. Her teacher did tell me that she can't sit still... EVER. But she's listening and learning, just wiggling while she does so. This is no surprise to me. The girl can't even hold still in her sleep! But her teacher still wishes she had more little girls like Amanda in her class.

We had a pizza party and movie fest tonight to celebrate their great accomplishments at school. Way to go you two!

New Bling

One of the things Amanda requested for her birthday was to have her ears pierced. Today was our first "free" day since her birthday that we could make the trip to the mall. We took her friend "V" with us for moral support (V already had her ears done...).

Here are the girls before the big event... Amanda is a little nervous but very determined.




She did great... but even though I prepared her by talking about what to expect and that it hurt like getting a shot (or being pinched) I think she was still surprised when the earring when in. She was a trooper though, just laughed it off (like her dad does when he's in pain) and held still for the other ear (even if it was in the fetal position).

So, check out Amanda's new bling!

Her favorite food in the world is a giant salted pretzel. I took the girls to the food court to celebrate this right of passage with some good old fashioned CARBS!

YUM!

A very happy little girl!

Day Two at SDC

Here are a few more pics from day two at Silver Dollar City.

We rode this roller coaster about 50 times... it's called Thunderation and you can choose to ride forwards or backwards. Logan and I rode backwards and faced Amanda and Eric. It's a unique roller coaster in that you start up on the hill and do the dips and spins first then do the big hill last to get you back to the station.

Most of the pictures from the ride didn't turn out... we were just going too fast. But here's the big hill towards the end. What happy faces!

This was Amanda's personal favorite. She rode this big swing over, and over, and over again.

And surprisingly Amanda was tall enough to ride this MONSTER of a coaster (with an adult, of course). It's called the PowerKeg and you are launched from 0 to 50 mpg in 2 seconds. This photo was taken right before we were launched. We then went up and down some pretty steep inclines where you had definite air time out of your seat. Our little dare devil laughed the whole ride and stuck her feet up in the air. I guess she wasn't getting enough air time. That girl has no fear. Seriously.

The End!

Our last picture, leaving the park. What a wonderful birthday weekend.

Skippin' School

So, the Monkey House skipped out on school and work today in favor of celebrating Amanda's birthday at her location of choice... SILVER DOLLAR CITY!! With October being such a busy month, this was the best option for us and the kids were super excited to be missing a day of school in favor of an amusement park.

The first stop at The City was Marvel Cave... we discovered this trip that the cave is what brought The City into being. Apparently the shops and such were built to give people something to do while they waited for their tour! We wanted to do this first thing since it's SO much walking and we KNEW the kids wouldn't be up for after a few hours of walking up and down the hills in the park.

Amanda and Logan were touching some bat guano... until we told them what that was! HA!

One of many awesome formation photos...

Then we had a shoot'm up good 'ol time in the Flooded Mine.

And Rode some roller coasters.

Eric and Amanda are three cars back... Yellow and red shirts. Logan chose the VERY back and he's big enough to ride ALL BY HIMSELF!

We went on to ride a BUNCH more, but since the kids are tall enough to ride with us (on most rides), we didn't get many photos of that. The best news is that we have a two day park pass so we'll be back for more fun tomorrow!!! Lets just hope that Logan doesn't wake up at 5 a.m. AGAIN because he's TOO EXCITED TO SLEEP!

My Baby is 5!

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

She celebrated this morning with her friends at preschool. Then Amanda chose her birthday lunch spot. She wanted to eat at the "purple rice place" which is Zen Vegetarian Restaurant...

Here she is with the highly coveted purple rice. We know she's a little odd... but she's a keeper so we live with it! : )

It was a girls only lunch date.

I guess not many kids choose Zen for their birthday meals so the hostess improvised and made a sucker bouquet for our girl. Very sweet.

We then hurried over to the zoo for the Ewe and Me program... we learn all about BATS!

Back home she discovered a present from Grandma Gayle and Grandpa Phil.

Very pretty to look at, but hard to get into since Grandma used multiple strips of colored DUCT TAPE to dress up the package!

Still working on it...

GOT IT! Opening the box was half the fun!

Then Daddy brought home some dry ice to play with. They made sparkle drinks in the punch bowl and chilled them with the ice. Lots of fun there, I tell you!

For Amanda's special birthday dinner, she chose to have cake, cake, and some more cake.

Sounds good to me, Sweet Heart. For one special day, you can eat all the cake you like.

Our Busy Weekend

October is always a busy month for us... Eric's Birthday, Amanda's Birthday, Halloween, Fall Festivals, pumpkin patches, and so much more keep us a-hoppin. Last weekend we met Eric's sister and the two K's at Melvern Lake for a camping trip. Amanda and her younger K cousin are only 8 days apart in age so we wanted to get the girls (affectionately called The Gremlins) together between their birthdays. I, sadly, forgot to take my camera, but Eric's sister took tons of photos... (Hey, V! Where the heck is YOUR blog???) : ) Maybe she'll send me some... HINT, HINT!!!

On Sunday, Logan had his Camp Quality reunion at a local pumpkin patch... Here are the highlights.

Amanda is showing us all her colored fingers in the mini corn maze... Find each station and color your finger with chalk. Very fun and quite ingenious!

Feeding some animals... Is your momma a lama? One of our personal favs!

Look at the critters lined up for a snack! Logan and Amanda are getting instructions on how to feed a donkey without getting their fingers bit.

Here is their "pumpkin patch". Not at all like Charlie Brown's but I guess we'll take it.

Amanda was smitten with the wedding scarecrow.

We arrived at the patch via a tractor hay ride.

Here's the monster that Logan picked out.

Back on the wagon for the ride back.

We also tried out some caramel apples. This was a first for the kids.

Amanda was not impressed, but Logan said YUM!

Notice how many photos I'm in for a change? My camera (that I forgot to take to the camp out) DID make it to the pumpkin patch only to discover that the battery was dead. These were all taken by Eric's cellphone. By the way, Eric swears that Logan is a dead ringer for George W. Bush in this photo!

And our little princess got her face painted. She was on cloud nine.

Right before we left, Logan's buddies from camp (see behind him... yeah, those big guys were his councilors. And great role models I'm sure) talked him into throwing a ninja star.... Eric wasn't fast enough with the camera to catch the hit, but he was VERY close to the bulls eye. However, I don't think I'll be encouraging this kind of future activity for my little guy.