Jaydenisms & Sidneyisms

• After Halloween I sat and smiled while I listened to Jayden and Sidney in the other room trading Halloween candy.  Jayden kept bringing me candy.  "Here, Mom.  You can have all the candy I don't like."  Thanks buddy, for the pretzels, weird candy sticks, and Dubble Bubble gum.  And then I saw how the trade went.  Sidney was giving all the candy, but Jayden "didn't know" he was supposed to give her candy in return.  Her bucket was almost empty.
• The closing speaker at church on Sunday ended his talk by saying something about "many years."  Sidney exclaimed, "He said Minnie ears!"  I had no idea she was listening.

November Fun

We've been getting out as much as possible to enjoy this beautiful fall weather before it goes away.  Fall is my favorite season and the one that never seems to drag on.  It just doesn't stick around long enough.  We went to a farm with friends and the kids had a blast.

Playing on a tractor.

Playing in a fort. 

Wagon ride. 

Farm animals. 

Roping "cattle." 

 

Corn maze. 

Josh scared us with a giant grasshopper. 

 

 

 

The kids and I went to the lake one evening and we had a lot of fun collecting leaves, throwing rocks in the water, and enjoying the view.

 

There's a spot where they were playing peek-a-boo with me while trying to duck down before I could get their picture. They are quick!

 

 

Every so often a perfect day comes along.  We had one last weekend.  I really needed a perfect day.  The weather was absolutely perfect, we were all in really good moods all day, there was no complaining, no one got tired, the kids told us thank you several times without having to be reminded, and we enjoyed some really beautiful places.  We drove to Greenville, about an hour and a half away.  And the kids never got restless from being in the car.  Miracle!  First we went to a gorgeous park that I fell in love with right away.  Waterfalls, bridges everywhere, every color of fall tree all over the place, green grass, just gorgeous.  It's downtown, and usually I don't like downtowns, but I loved this one.  It wasn't really big, had real Southern charm, was really clean, the streets were lined with big trees with leaves falling.  I felt like I was in a storybook.  Super cute!  Anyway, we walked around the park for a while until Sidney fell in the water.  We then had to make a detour to buy her a new outfit so we could continue with our day.  Maybe I should keep spare clothes in the car, but she wasn't complaining about the PINK clothes she got to pick out.  That was the only bad thing of the day, but Sidney was a real trooper and we bundled her up in Josh's sweatshirt and hiked back to the car.

The kids thought this statue looked like someone kicking, so they pulled out their karate moves, and Sidney has the most fierce "HI-YAH!" ever!  Karate classes, maybe?

After the park we went to the zoo.  And the zoo didn't disappoint us either.  The animals were all really active, and had us laughing and ooh-ing and ah-ing the entire time.  It's a beautiful little zoo.

Jayden asked me to take pictures of pretty much every single animal there.  I'm glad I did.  I got some other pretty scary ones of this guy.  If looks could kill. 

 

 

Jayden likes to check out books from the library about all kinds of things.  Lately it has been wild cats, and it was fun to see some of them there and have him tell us all about them.

Jayden thought this was awesome. 

They were eating crackers, and every time Sidney put her arms around Jayden he said it tickled, and the looks on their faces are priceless.

Halloween

Family Halloween themes are over.  It's a sad year for me.  It's not completely gone, because Sidney and I were able to still match, but now the kids both have their own opinions on what they want to be, and for some reason I couldn't change either one of their minds.  But it's ok.  I knew it would end someday.

Jayden planned on being Spiderman for months.  But once he saw there were a million other options out there he settled on Iron Man.  Random, because I didn't think he knew who that was.  But he loved it, and that's all that matters.  Halloween is one of my favorite holidays simply because I love watching my kids transform into their favorite characters.

Iron Man loved getting into character.

You won't find a girl in the world happier to be Minnie Mouse. 

Playing leapfrog. 

 Big protector to little sis.

Sidney informed me I was going to be Daisy Duck.  I was happy to oblige.  Josh was going to be Goofy but we ran out of time to get his costume together.  He wore a t-shirt with Mickey on it to trunk or treat. When I came downstairs from putting on my costume Sidney gasped and said, "I love you!!!"  Totally worth it!  I don't ever dress up for real trick-or-treating, but the kids were begging me to.  And then Sidney said, "But you look GOR-geous!"  How could I say no?  And then while we were out she would say, "Mom, I mean Daisy...." and laugh a little like she made a huge mistake calling me mom.