Waterman's Fall Festival

Ella and Daddy in the corn maze

So cute....."How tall this fall?"......Nicholas and Ella (below) are big kids!!

Nicholas posing in the corn maze

Niko speeding down the combine slide (the slide is attached to a combine.........clever!)

Ella on the combine slide

Nicholas racing against Mommy and Mae....I'm not sure who was having more fun!! Woo hoo!

Mae playing "peek-a-boo" from inside a tractor tire

We had the most fun last night at the Waterman's Fall Festival on the east side of Indianapolis. Waterman's is a pumpkin patch, farm, market, etc with lots of fall fun activities for families to enjoy. The kids played and played and then as we were preparing to leave, it was time to feed the dinosaur. They have this mechanical dinosaur who is probably 10 feet tall that growls rather loudly and eats pumpkins. It was great! Nicholas and Ella were mesmerized and Mae was slightly terrified.......she didn't totally melt down but she was shaking in Lenn's arms. What says fall like a pumpkin-eating dinosaur?

Jack-o-Lanterns!!!

"Ariel" and "Golf" jack-o-lanterns

Ella and Nicholas and their pumpkin creations

Nicholas and Daddy working hard on Niko's "golf" pattern

Ella concentrating on her "Ariel" carving

Ready to start carving!

We had a great time this afternoon carving our pumpkins for this year. We bought pumpkins last night, printed off patterns from the computer and got to work. Ella, of course, wanted to do a princess so she chose Ariel from "The Little Mermaid." Nicholas had a tough time deciding between baseball and golf but ended up with a very cool golf picture. (You can click on the jack-o-lanterns picture for a bigger image.) It felt a little strange to be carving pumpkins outside in our shorts and t-shirts. It was a beautiful day but it didn't feel much like fall.

Now we're going to roast up our pumpkin seeds.......yum!

Mae's Birthday Cupcake

I decided I should do a separate post about Mae eating her cupcake so that I can include lots of pictures. On Nicholas and Ella's first birthdays, there had been very few sweets prior to their parties. So when they were presented with their first cupcakes, they approached said cakes as though they were strange and forbidden. They were ever so cautious. Not my Mae Mae. She's had numerous encounters with sweets in the past few months so when it was cupcake time, it was game on. She grabbed that thing with both hands. She had two hands full of cupcake so she couldn't quite get herself a bite so Ella helped. Then Mae got it figured out. She seriously ate the entire cupcake except for the chunk that fell down beside her in the high chair. That's my girl!

Happy 1st Birthday, Mae!!!

Our Blessed Mae Mae

Yummy

Mimi and Mae Mae

Sarah and her boys.....Joshua and Ben

Mae's Presents along with the resident gift bosses Ella and Niko (who is on the couch but did quickly assume the other boss role as soon as the first card was opened)

Our little Mae Mae turned one today. I have been a wreck for the last few weeks thinking about my "baby" turning one. She is such a blessing and I cannot believe how fast the past year has gone. I'm so proud of her. She was born into this busy household and she has learned to take it all in stride. She loves her brother and sister. She loves her big stinky dog. She LOVES her Daddy and grandparents. She is pure delight.


We had a nice little party for her this weekend. Mimi and Papa Don drove up from Columbus. Our friends Sarah, Joshua and Ben Waggoner also joined us. Meemaw and Papa Carl were missed while they are traveling out west. Mae liked her dinner, LOVED her cupcake, and could have cared less about her presents.......which was a good thing because her brother and sister really didn't let her help open anything. She did seem to really like the walking/talking Cabbage Patch Doll that we had bought her........I wasn't sure if she would like the doll or be terrified because she's really loud! Mae received so many sweet presents including many beautiful new outfits. Yippee!! I love dressing up my girls!

Small Group Kiddos

Joshua, Joel and Josiah helping me wash Nala (Ben in the background watching!)

Joshua, Joel, Josiah and Kylie washing Nala

"Freeze Dance" with the BLE (Best Lifegroup Ever!) kids and Miss Mary

Last Thursday evening, Lenn and I, along with our friend Mary, babysat most of the kids from our small group while most of the rest of the adults did a service project. So that means 3 adults and 12 busy kids.........oh my! But it was super fun. The kids did so great together. Many of them helped me give Nala a bath........the kids thought they were big stuff. We played lots outside and lots inside and had an overall great time.

Greek Festival September 11, 2010

Last night we had a super fun time going to the Greek Festival with Papa Don and Mimi. They treated us to an evening of yummy food and Greek dancing. The weather was perfect, the food was abundant and the dancing was......challenging. We watched lots of people dancing while the Greek band played. Then we watched young elementary and older elementary-aged children do some of the traditional Greek dances. Ella was ready to roll. She was so eager to dance, and Nicholas wanted to try it out too, so we hit the dance floor. It was so fun and it looked like such simple steps.......except for the fact that I was trying to learn the steps in real time while holding the hands of a 3 and 6-year-old. They don't slow down for beginners!! We had so much fun. We, o.k. I was out of breath.

The dancing was almost as great as the food. Oh my. Greek Salad. Lamb dinner. Appetizer plate loaded with giant chunks of feta, authentic Greek olives, hummus, dolmathes (meat/rice/yums wrapped in grape leaves.......yum), meatballs, spinakopita (which Nicholas promptly reported that it was nowhere near as good as Mimi's.......I agree!!), tiropita (cheese pie), and other yummy stuff. YUM. Then, after you've stuffed yourself, then there's the dessert. They don't have just a few choices.......no.......there's an entire huge tent where you wait in a long line (worth every minute) to walk through the assembly line pointing at that and that and that as you fill your box with tasty delights. The only thing we ate that I can even begin to spell and pronounce was baklava but we sampled probably 10 things. YUM. And Papa and Mimi bought "diples" which were little tasty morsels of deep-fried dough covered in some sweet glazy yumminess. Warm. Bite-sized. Tasty. Oh my. So after all of the taste-testing, some Greek dancing was in order to try to work off some of those calories. Nicholas asked us today when the next Greek festival is........you should have seen how much that boy ate!

Ella's first day of preschool!!

Last Tuesday, Ella started back to preschool for the fall. This year she is in the 3's class with Miss Joni and Miss Nancy. She was very excited to get back to school and meet some new friends. When Nicholas had Miss Joni and Miss Nancy, I cried at the end of the school year because I loved his class and teachers so much. Miss Joni is also the early childhood minister at our church and God created her to work with young children. She could not be more gifted at what she does........we think she's the best!!