Leaf Jumping

Javin's goal was to build the largest pile of leaves ever. We did pretty good. The pile was almost as tall as him. The best was jumping in. Oh the joys of doing a "cannonball" into a pile of leaves! Watch the video below and see him in action. Look carefully at the end and you will see Kailyn pop out of the pile.
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I love ballet video

I am loving video sharing!! How fun!!A 3 year old's song about her love for ballet...
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Dog Power

Here's a little clip of Molly pullng Javin on his scooter when we were at the Rails to Trails.

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Of Games and Story Hour and Leaves

One of Javin's goals in life must be to be able to play every game before the recommended age on the package! This week he added 2 new games to his repertoire of games - Rook and Speed Scrabble. Both games are for age 8 and up. He has played Hearts before so he had the concept of tricks already for Rook. He's got the name a bit skewed though; he calls it Brook. Speed Scrabble was played at a not so speedy rate, which was fine. I gave him some help but he understood the gist of it. He was coming up with words on his own. He loves words and does excellent on his spelling tests!

Kailyn loves to go to our little Story Hour program that is not so little any more. Well, the only little part about it is the space. Last week there were 20 kids and their moms and siblings packed into this tiny space. Such excitement over Story Hour. They sing songs, listen to stories and make crafts. She loves it!

The leaves are falling all around us this week,which provided us with some great leaf jumping opportunities. What a great childhood past time. I have many fond memories of jumping and burying myself in leaves as a kid. The funny thing is that now MY kids jump in the leaves that fall from the SAME trees that were there when I was a child. Isn't that weird?

Kailyn had some friends over to help in the leaf fun one day. The leaf-stuffed man also came out this fall. This year he is stationed at Mimi's house. I think he needs to go on a diet! He is looking kinda chubby.

October News

So I've got some catching up to do. Last weekend was quite different for us. Javin went camping with a friend. So it was just the girls at home. Javin had a great time, although I haven't got many details out of him. Males - they just don't think details are important! :) Kailyn and I had a fun shopping date on Saturday. We went to a restaurant and she was quite the social charmer, making friends with everyone around us.

When Javin returned we decided to enjoy the beautiful fall day at the rails to trails with Molly. Kailyn took her bike and Javin had his scooter. If we would have been tourists we would have hit it just right. But we are not, and all the buggies we met on the trail did not impress us. Kailyn freaked every time one passed us. We never last very long it seems. Kailyn got tired of riding after only a short distance and wanted to hold Molly. Well, they start running and Kailyn tripped and fell and it was all over. She cried and whined the whole way back to the car. Plan B kicked in and we headed to a playground to burn some more energy.

It is so easy to get frustrated when things don't go the way I plan. I'm envisioning a fun time enjoying God's creation and then I have to give myself a reality check. What's more important - having a good time at all costs or helping my child handle the bumps of life? Oh yeah...life's a journey; enjoy the process! I tend to get so focused on the end result that I can miss the point altogether. Does anyone else suffer from this disease?

Soccer Energy

The kids were sure blessed with great weather this soccer season. We have had a very mild fall so far. Javin has one game left, then soccer is officially over for this year. He has had a great time running up and down the field. This is truly a sport that Javin can readily apply all that energy that God has blessed him with. His favorite position to play is fullback. He played in the goalie position one time. He did well as goalie but had a hard time staying focused on his own game. He kept stealing a peak at Tre's game when the ball has at the other end.

The boys have had a fun time and have been improving too. We will be sad to see the soccer season end this year. Way to go Berlin Gray! We are not supposed to keep score but IF we were keeping score I think they only lost one game. ;)

Me and my little helper

Today I bravely took on the the task of painting my picnic table and chairs. Truthfully, I don't do well with big projects like this.

My first task with preparing the furniture. Okay, so I blasted it with the pressure washer. Well... I got the green buildup off and some old paint. Are all those wood splinters supposed to come off? Not a good sign! Then I got the paint from the hardware. No problems there. Thank goodness.

Today I finally had some time, but the weather called for rain. It didn't look very rainy and the radar showed the rain just missing us. So I decided to try it. Kailyn join in on the "fun". She was a really good helper, seriously. She just didn't last very long. The painting went alright until the rain came and I had to stop. Kailyn and I were a bit sloppy and got some paint on my patio. I figured it was water-base paint so it should wash up. Well it soaked into the concrete and DID NOT wash up fine.

After looking at the furniture tonight, I am definitely going to have to sand the seats down or we'll have splinters in our rears every time we eat outside. So, the job is not over yet.

Top Two Tips Today: Don't put me in charge of your next fixer-upper job. And you gotta watch Kailyn or she'll lick the paint! :) Better luck next time, I guess.

Fun-Filled Farm Day

Sunday afternoon Kelly and I loaded her van full of kids and headed up to the Ramseyer Farms. That is one cool (not in terms of temperature) place. The kiddos had a great time running around on the obstacle course, corn maze, stationary horse and a bunch of other neat things.


The corn maze has the roads of Ohio as the passageways through it. You are supposed to find the hidden stamping stations throughout the maze. We found one before we were just too hot to go anymore.

Okay so this is October but the temperature is 90 and no breeze. Talk about crisp fall weather!! :) We were so very hot and thirsty. The little ones needed naps so that didn't help the situation any.

But then we found the corn pit, a wagon filled with field corn, that was out of the sun. They played and played in there burying themselves in nice, cool corn.

Lastly we tramped out into the pumpkin field with our wagon and picked out pumpkins.

So many good memories are created each day!

Chop, chop!

Kailyn is one busy little girl. I guess this story starts a week or so ago. Kailyn snipped a little bit of her hair. It wasn't much and we had a big talk about it. I thought, well that's over with now.

But no, it wasn't. Over the weekend she decided to try out Mimi's big hair cutting scissors and really whacked off a chunk of hair right in the front. So we headed for the hairdresser as soon as we could with our hair emergency. Now she has the cutest little haircut. It is really short in the back and longer it the front with bangs, of course. Thankfully she didn't cut real close to her scalp so bangs work well.

Overall it didn't work out that bad. I think she knows she is not supposed to do that now. I hope!

Tribal Praise

Today was Javin's big day. He has been practicing for a Men's Tribal Dance for church for the past month. He was so excited to be a part of this. Some of the men from church had a vision for worshipping the Lord in a powerful, manly way. It was just awesome!! (I wish Kevin would have been here for it. He would have been right up there with them. But he is up in heaven right now doing his own dance before our Creator!) The guys had sticks and pounded them to the beat of the African music. Javin and his friend, Tre, got to start it it off with their part of the choreography. What an opportunity to praise the Lord.

A Hunter in the Making

Javin never ceases to amaze me. The opportunity to go deer hunting on Saturday came up and he jumped for it. He just about couldn't wait until it was time to go. Pastor Bill generously invited him to a big boys hunting trip with Tre. Let me remind you that this is Javin, the boy who lasts about 10 minutes at fishing and then is bored.


The report that came back was that Bill covered them up in camouflage and they sat outside for 3 hours watching for deer. Now this is Javin and Tre who have about as much energy as 2 space shuttles. And the amazing thing is, they did it! They sat so quietly and without moving that they actually saw a small buck. Too bad it was too small to shoot.


So who knows, maybe Javin will grow up to be a hunter. Who would have thought?