Pie Time!

I got to go to Zachary's Thanksgiving feast at school.  I was glad that i got to go there and help out and let Zach know that I love and he is important to me.  I just love Schonely School.  They really made this day a celebration by dressing up and organizing craft centers for t each class to rotate through.  I was a fun day for all invovled.
I spent most of my day on Wednesday preparing the turkey feast and baking pies.  Josh was great!  He took care of the kids, running the bacuum and staying on top of the dishes.  He was my hero.  So when he said that he would really like a apple pie I extended myself and made my first ever apple pie.  When my parents got in the first thing that they saw were the pies that I had set out.  Dad saw those and he exclaimed "Ooooo, you know they are better when you eat them fresh.  Do we really have to wait?"  It didn't take much to push me over the edge.  I got out the plates right away.  We stayed up way too late talking and eating chocolate cream pie.  I have to say they were my best pies I have ever made.  I love this time of year.

Nov. 28th 2013 THANKSGIVING DAY

It was a nice day.  We had the McIntyre family and the Koomson family over for our feast.  It was a little crazy but very nice.  I thought everything was delicious.  Josh was on top of the dishes which made everything else run smooth.  I really ennoyed having the Koomson family over they are from Ghana and I got to visit with them a little bet and get to know them more.  We really had a very typical American holiday except the football (bc we don't have sport channels).  We were together with family and friends with lots of food and pie and ate too much.

Nov. 29th 2013 BLACK FRIDAY

I kind of pride myself for never have gone out on black friday and spent any money.  But this year i broke my tradition of not going out and went.  I'm glad I did.

  

Halloween 2013

It was a fun but a little crazy day and I'm so glad that I had a baby sitter lined up and Andrew and that Josh could take a half day at work so that everyone's needs could be met.  Zach and Adam got to walk in their school parade but since I was at Adam's school doing his party Josh got to go to Zach's parade.  I got to walk with Adam in his parade.  I love that the kids get to dress up in their costumes at school and parade around and see everyone all dressed up.
After the school party we rested up a bit and then went Trick-or-Treating around our block.  Adam was a vampire this year and at every door would say with his best vampire voice "trick-or-treat Ha-Ha-Haaaaaa".  He cracked me up.  Zachary was a very cute bat.  I was very impressed with myself that I made is costume this year.  I had one of the other first grade teachers tell me that she didn't get to see it but she had heard that it was very cute.  I really enjoyed watching Zach bound from one house to the other in his cute happy way.  Andrew enjoyed getting candy and really liked seeing people's dogs.  We came up to one house with some cut logs in off to one side and Andrew recognized those as "jobie wood" from a Thomas and Friends' episode that he watches.  He saw the logs and exclaimed over and over "jobie!  jobie!  jobie!"  He made a very cute Clark Kent.  He was a less interested in costumes this year and so it was hard to figure out what he  would let me put on him.  I tried several different costumes and even bought him one but he either wasn't interested or really protested to wearing it.  So I took his superman costume from his first Halloween cut off the legs and arms and put it under a collard shirt with slacks boom Clark Kent.

After pizza Josh took the older boys out for a little more Halloween fun at the high school trunk-or-treat event which emptied out the neighborhoods.  I think that the boys had a very happy Halloween.

Petting Zoo

I got to take Andrew to Green Meadow Farm petting zoo in Hazlet NJ.  I thought that it was the best petting zoo experience that I've ever had.  We got there before the school groups showed up and so we were the first to go through and had our own host.  We started with puppies.  We could have stopped at the puppies and Andrew would have been very happy with that.  We moved onto the other baby animals: chicks, ducklings, rabbits, piglets, calves, lamas etc.  Which we got to hold and pet. We got to feed the sheep.  Andrew tried to feed them like he does our hamster one grain at a time.  We saw a mother pig feeding her 9 piglets and got to pet them.  Andrew wasn't interested in milking the cow and he got a little freaked out when the mule bit down on my purse handle and wouldn't let go.  Other than that he had a great time.

Carve it up!

Our annual pumpkin carving FHE.  Our lesson was explaining what jack-o-lanterns were originally used for (to keep bad spirit away) and we talked about what is it we do every day to protect ourselves from evil influences.  Then we got to it.  I prepped the pumpkin for surgery as the boys came up with their designs for our 2013 Jack-O-Lantern.  Adam and Zach collaborated on what portions of their individual designs they wanted to include into our family masterpiece.  I drew the face out and the carving began.  Adam was most excited about the mouth (it had a vampire flare) and he carved that with a little help from Andrew.  Zach really wanted to do the eyes and I got to do the rest.  We lit our Jack up that night.  I think he turned out pretty good.  I just really enjoyed that everyone got to carve this year and everyone had a good time.

Pumpkin Patch

Something that I like to do every year is go pick some apples and pumpkins with the kiddos.  We met up with the Guriguess Family at Geamarisse farm in East Brunswick.  We headed out first for the apples.  We found the long poles to pick a few apples.  Adam and Zach really love doing that.  It took us a while to find our picking pole so the three of us fell behind the rest of the group but we met back up in the pumpkin patch.  The kids had fun looking at the different pumpkins and horsing around.  Zach found a cool green pumpkin that he thought was super cool.  I refuse to pay $50 for a pumpkin that is just going to wrought on my front porch.  So we look at the big pumpkins, buy the small sugar pumpkins and then I go buy one at the local grocery store for $5.  Some people might call that being cheap but I prefer to call that smart.

Andrew got to have a pony ride.  He got on it and I could tell he had visions of woody on bulls-eye in his head so I said "ride like the wind bulls-eye."  And he said "Yee-Haa."  He is such a cutie!

Belting Up

Since the beginning of the school Adam has been taking Karate and from what I could tell has enjoyed doing it.  I got to see him start in his first class and little glimpses here and there but I haven't really seen him perform.  This ceremony let me see Adam in a different light.  He was so focused and serious.  All of this punches were sharp and powerful.  I was really shocked.  He moved from a white belt to a yellow belt.  It was one of those proud parent moments.

Birthday Girl

My birthday was very enjoyable I got woken up to my boys singing to me, presents and a card that made me cry.  Josh got me what I wanted which was a bike rack for the car.  Jenn Guirguess took me out to lunch at an Indian buffet.  Josh brought dinner home for me; my favorite coconut shrimp form Bone fish grill.  We celebrated that night with cookie cake.   Super bonus was all of the birthday wishes from facebook friends and family phone calls.  It was a great day.

As an extension of the celebrating we went on a family bike ride on the Delaware raretiane canal.  It was a perfect day for a bike ride flowers were out turtles sunning, everything green and new.  I absolutely loved being able to be there with my boys.  Josh gets the best husband award for that day because as he was getting out our bikes from the shed he saw that my bike's rear tire was punked.  So to make this bike ride happen for me he told me to ride his bike and he would ride mine pulling Andrew.  What a guy!  We did the bike trade and I had a great time and Josh got a good work out.  Adam loved being the fastest and Zach rode with me.  We stopped to look a the turtles and flowers and enjoyed our selves.  That was my real present.  I really want to have authentic experiences with my children.  I don't want something that is manufactured and prefabricated.  I want to go out and explore all the different things that this earth has to offer and I want to do it with my children.

That evening we had a gumbo party.  I made a huge pot of gumbo and fed about 25 people and still had tons left over.  It was really nice to have the kitchen done and people over to enjoy a meal together.  Kevin and Morgan got to come too.