The Great Pumpkin Patch!

My brothers and I have decided to have a pumpkin contest to see who can grow the biggest pumpkins. David and I are nervous because we can't seem to keep any plant alive! Our family decided to grow Big Max, Competition Hybrids, and Pumpkin Pie pumpkins. The ones we are using for our contest are the Big Max ones. These pumpkins, if grown correctly, can get up to over 100 lbs! We are so excited about this because it should be a lot of fun. I will post more pictures of my brothers planting theirs, but I am still waiting for them to be emailed to me. In the meantime, happy planting harvesters!

Look-a-likes

I have chuckled over and over again at this picture. We were in the butterfly garden at the aquarium and I was trying to take a picture of David and Emma. A butterfly flew by right as I was taking the photo and it caught both of their attention. They are showing the same expression down to the crinkled lines in their faces! I think this photo is hilariously cute and had to post in its on separate post so that you could see how much they look alike. Emma is growing so quickly!

Season Passes!

This past week my brother and girlfriend-in-law came up for a day visit and to pick up our old couch. We decided to take the kids to the Tennessee Aquarium, which we finally got season passes for! Samuel, as usual, enjoyed it and Emma was much more observant. We have a little trouble with Samuel in the butterfly garden because he tries to catch and squash the butterflies! Emma on the other hand is amazed watching them fly around. Samuel's favorite part is watching the penguins. He can tell us what is coming next in many of the exhibits now. It was nice to just have family time. We had a good time and I am glad that Josh and Grace took a day to come up!


Emma watching the butterflies!


Samuel finally (after many visits!) got brave enough to touch the water in the hands on part of the aquarium! The picture below is one that I got of Josh, Grace, and Samuel. Its the only picture that I have of her. Somehow we were the ones taking most of the pictures.





Samuel and Josh getting a close up of the fish!


Samuel with his new penguin(we bought it somewhere else and gave it to him at the aquarium! We saved $5!). Below are pictures of Samuel and Emma posing with the penguin statues. Emma was very amused at the creature that was her size! She was all smiles as usual.

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David and I always joked about this song...he says that he wrote it and someone stole it from him! I like the song, so he learned it. I recorded him playing it on my phone. Hopefully you can hear it! I love him!

"Will Walk For Food"

Emma took her first steps today! There were about 4 of them! David had her bottle and I was on the couch with her. I stood her up and she walked to David! It was so exciting. Watching the children grow and develop is always so amazing to me. They change so quickly. Emma loves Samuel and gets so excited watching him. I call her my "copy cat" and Samuel my "repeat". He will say anything! I will post more later, but I wanted to blog this part sooner than later.

Roller Skates

YAY, David is home for a little while! For those of you who don't know, David is beginning his last year of seminary. While we are so excited, the journey is not complete. He has to take classes on campus for the next 6 months, which means a lot of commuting back and forth to Kentucky. Samuel is especially delighted for our next little bit of time together. Today we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. Emma loves babies; anything and everything having to do with babies she likes. So we were going to get her a new doll, but she pitched a fit and threw it out of the cart (so we left it). Samuel on the other hand (surprisingly)did very good and wanted some roller skates that David had shown him. We thought that he might enjoy it and we both had some similar as children, so we got them. Below are some pictures that I took of his first time using them. Samuel wanted David to wear a helmet too! There is also a picture of Emma...and for those who may be thinking that I am a bad mother, I do plan on getting her a new doll tomorrow! :)

Gigantic Pizza!

There is a wonderful local pizza shop that David and I love here in north Georgia. It is a new york style place, that features karaoke nights and local artists. Due to all of the traveling that our family has done recently, we decided to order pizza one night. Rico's accidentally made our pizza a 20 inch order! This was the biggest pizza I have ever seen. They didn't charge us extra, since it was their mistake. I must say, it was delicious. I hope that the pictures can help you at least get some grasp as to how large it was. Samuel could not carry the box, and I think that Emma could have fit inside!

Give that Baby some Food!

This morning I was trying to fix Samuel some cereal for breakfast and I dropped the container. Cereal went all on the floor and I was able to salvage some of the cereal. Unfortunately I lost most of it in the calamity to the floor. Instead of immediately cleaning up the mess, I poured Samuel a bowl and got him settled with it. When I finally got to the place of being able to clean up my mess, I realized that I had a little helper already doing it! Emma was in the kitchen eating the cereal off the floor! This definitely went beyond the 5 second rule. She had cereal in both hands and in her mouth. I had to take a picture, which allowed her time to rescue a few more honeycombs before being tossed outside for the birds!



Caught Red-Handed!

Where have all the good toys gone?

I love these glasses! Fun toys like these are so hard to find! Well my friend, your search may be over...Dollar General for $1! I find the best toys for Samuel and Emma there. Enjoy!

Summer Vacation

Our family went to the beach with David's mom and brother. We had a lot of fun in St. Augustine, FL. It was nice to be able to spend some time together without the stresses of school and church. We rented beach bikes which helped me train for the triathlon. I wish that I had taken a picture of the bridge that we would run and bike. It was a huge hill that was around 0.8 mile. Samuel liked the beach at first, but then he was ready to go home. However, he talks about the beach almost daily! Samuel is a home-body, not like his mother at all in this way! Emma spent some time at the beach too, but for very short periods of time. In the evenings we would look for crabs. David and Jared tried to catch some, but acted like wheenies! So of course I had to get one first so that they would be shamed in to catching some for Samuel to see! He loved it and looked forward to walking on the beach each night. Here are some pictures of the kids at the beach. There was a turtle's nest right in front of our vacation house, so I took some pictures of Samuel by the signs. Also, the chair he is reclining in was on the back porch. He loved that chair!