Apple Orchard!

Grandma Johnson is awesome! She took us to Eckerts Apple Orchard. It was so much fun and we got SO MANY APPLES!

Zach ready to go apple picking! Just look at all of the apples out there ready to be picked!

Grandma you can't go until I put lipstick on you.

Driving the tractor.

Ready to go. . .

Mommy and her kids on the wagon! Take us to apples Farmer Joe!

"Ball?" "Ball?" "Bite?"

Look at that perfection!

Perusing the merchandise. . .

Got it! This one is PERFECT! The hard part was convincing Loren not to eat every apple she picked. She was on a spree of "take a bite, chuck the apple, pick a new one, take a bite, chuck the apple. . ."

Zach got a taste of apple! He loved eating out of his meshie. He also loved whacking it in my hair. Rotten kid! My hair was kind of crusty by the end of the day :)

Tuckered out. See the bag of apples behind her head? That was 1 of THREE! YUM-O apples!

Apple Meshie and apple juice. . .what could be better?

We put the apples in the car and then checked out the rest of the Orchard. There was a petting zoo, pony rides, a giant slide, pig races, tractor rides, corn maze and ice-cream parlor.

Waiting for the pony rides!

Loren's first pony ride!! Her horses name was Red.

Trying not to smile! She had a blast! When the ride ended she bawled and bawled. She just loved riding her pony!

Zach and Grandma watching Renny ride her pony.

Zach got to sit on a pony for a bit. He bawled and bawled when he had to get off too!

Zachary had a long day. He didn't last through dinner :)

Just for Lisa Klamer

Lisa frequently posts about her coupon bargains. . .so I thought I would post my amazing coupon finds!!!!!!!

I saved $83!!!!!!! I got everything from cookie dough to baby formula! I was proud!

The past couple freezing days!

It's really turning cold here! On this day, I realized that I didn't have any "closed toed" fall/winter shoes for her. So, we did the best we could! Heavy socks and sandals. She looked like such a goober I had to take a picture!

What good is rain if Mom won't let you play in it? I let her go out on the deck for a bit in her rain coat and her umbrella. She had a blast until she realized that rain = wet. She wanted in after that and claimed she was "Chilled to the bone" and needed "A steaming cup of hot chocolate" to make "her feel so much better." Rolling eyes at my drama queen!

So. . .I love it when boys are dressed like BOYS. I'm not too into all of the fru-fru frilly boy things. Mom bought Zach this outfit and I just LOVED it! It screamed "All American Boy" to me. So I snapped a few pictures of it. He wasn't happy being on the bed while sister played. So I will entitle this next series of pictures. . .

Pride Before the Fall

I'm getting off this bed whether you like it or not mom!

Ooof! That kind of scared me!

Yeah, somehow this is your fault mom! (Grandma Johnson thinks he looks like a coyote when he cries. I agree).

Here's the big man standing on his own! It won't be too long before he's walking! He's already taking 2 - 3 steps between objects. He's really trying hard! Also, I wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU to Grandma Johnson for the beautiful new shoes for both Loren and Zachary! Get this: Loren wears a SIZE 11 shoe and Zach wears a SIZE 6.5!

Loren before her first day of school (mom's day out).

Such a big girl!


Can I get anything else into my mouth? I swear this kid has to taste everything!

Wonderful Day!

1. It's 64 degrees, we are all in sweatshirts and sweatpants! It's freezing and feels GREAT!

2. Zach figured out a name for Loren. He calls her "Na-na." It's cute! When he sees her he goes, "Na-na, na-na!" Then whenever I yell at Loren he yells at her too, "No no Na-na!" Adorable!

3. Got to spend the morning with mom. She and I went to Garden Ridge and then out to lunch. It was fun.

4. GASP. . .both kids are sleeping at the same time :) Fun times!

Rain, Rain, DON'T GO AWAY!

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate summer. Every stinking thing about it. I especially hate summer in St. Louis. It's so muggy and nasty! However, this summer has been AWESOME! The rain has kept our weather relatively mild! The other reason I hate summer is the unnaturally long days. I hate the sun rising at 5:30 and setting at 9:30. That's just stupid. It's so frustrating to have my kids awake in bed until 9:30 pm and getting up at 5:30 am. Therefore, this is another reason I LOVE rainy days! The kids slept until 7:00 this morning because it was so dark! I'm so lucky!!!!! So, I'm sorry for all of the flooding but I love the rain too much to be sorry it's here!

Lorén enjoying the rain!

Zachary enjoying the rain

In other news. . .never ever under estimate a 2 year old at play!! I was outside reading a book while she played on her swing set. Suddenly I see her climbing into the baby swing. Go figure, she got stuck. I made her stay while I went and got the camera! It was hilarious! I took a picture of her pouting from the window. She was mad. After I rescued her from the swing I sat back to my book. She decided she wanted to swim. We got her swimming suite on and she swam and did her sprinkler. Later she went and was playing in her Play House. She came busting out of it BUCK NAKED and tore for the water to "Take a bath." After snapping a picture of this and giggling hysterically under my breath we had LONG talk about the appropriateness of taking our clothes off outside. I won't post that picture as it is just to embarrass her later in life but it was funny. Mike and I had a great crack up about it later before he gave her the same "stern" speech. I'm telling you, sometimes its hard to discipline when you just want to go laugh hysterically somewhere!

Pouting while waiting for Mom to rescue me. Do you ever want to say, "Told you so!"

Still stuck. Mom. . .aren't you going to save me?

Zachy is such a stink! His new favorite thing is to tell us "No, No." I caught him twice today with the camera telling me "No, No" when he was doing something he shouldn't. His other favorite word is "Boo!" He thinks it's a greeting! I go and get him in the morning and instead of saying, "Hi mom" or something, he says, "Boooooo!" When he sees Loren for the first time in the day it's "Boo!" When daddy comes home, "Boo!" It's precious!

10 Months old!

"No no. . .I know I shouldn't stand on the chair." And yes, he did climb up there himself! I think my kids are 1/4 monkey.

"No, No climbing the stairs."

Peaches for breakfast! He's telling me "Bieeeet (bite)".

Well, I've got the house opened up, a hot cup of cherry tea and I'm going to go and enjoy the rain while Loren colors and Zach naps!

Have a great RAINY day!!

An Overdue Update

I know it's been a month since I updated our blog! Sadly, not too much has happened in the past month. Nevertheless, we've been super busy!

Waiting for Daddy to get home!

Mike has begun classes yet again! He is so brilliant. He constantly amazes me. On top of his classes he is also a strong leader in our growing church. He is heading up the finance committee and is on the leadership team that will eventually phase into elders. He really enjoys it although it is very time consuming. Around the house he has little projects always going on. Okay, let me phrase that better. . .I always have projects for him to do and he does them for me :)! His new project will be replacing the lights on the front of our house! They are soooo ugly and GOLD. Gag.

Telling Daddy about my day. Daddy rough-housing with his boy!

Loren has grown and changed so much in the last month. Her new favorite phrase is "I CAN DO IT MYSELF." That's starting to get old pretty fast! She is such an outdoorsy girl! If she had her druthers, she'd be outside 24-7. She loves her swing set, sandbox and trampolina. She has begun to really get into pretend play lately. I'll hear her making up some story and it melts me! She's working on her ABC letter recognition. She knows most of them. She is also working on her 1 to 1 counting correlation. That's not so easy :).

Eating her pizza with a ladle. Hey, she's eating!

Ringlets and her "Back-pack"
Loren in Daddy's sweater!

Loren Zach is taking a nap. Do not go in his room. . .too late. . .

Climbing Out

Zach was attacked by the tooth bug this past month. He had to endure 4 new teeth :( Poor guy has been MISERABLE (thus making us miserable in the process. He is walking between objects and is standing on his own for up to a few minutes. He is starting to have an opinion about life too! He'll tell us "No no" when he doesn't want to do something, he'll point to what he wants and try to say a name for it. He says, "Bieeeeee (Bite), Buhbieee (bye-bye), Bu-bu (bottle), No, Moe (more), Mom, Da-da, Dad-dad (granddad), Mama (grandma), and gooo-girrr (good girl)" He too could be outside all day but with him, I have to watch him like a hawk. Every dang thing under the SUN has to go into that child's mouth. Loren was never so oral!! Gag!

My beloved Sippy!

One of my favorite toys. . .the spatula!

If he survives Loren, he'll be able to play for the Bears!

My paci is my friend!!

I had a fantastic month! Robyn Clover came down to visit early in the month! We had a great weekend together! We went to 6 Flags together and were kids all over again! We got "Flash Passes" for the day and we were able to skip to the front of the line. We rode SO MANY rides that way! I was severely sore the next day! Not to mention the headache of being whipped around so much! It was a blast! I also was able to go out for a weekend with mom to Osage Beach (Lake of the Ozarks) and get some Outlet shopping in! It was BLAST to spend an entire weekend alone with mom. We laughed until our sides split! The following weekend we went to MI for 1 day to drop of Loren for her week in Michigan. Mike had his dorm reunion in Chicago that weekend too. So on Sunday we went to Chicago where I spent a day with Jessie (Cozad) Houston and her family. It was so fun! Her son and daughter are almost 6 weeks older than my son and daughter. It's funny how she's called 2X now and said, "I'm 12 weeks pregnant!" and I've gone. . ."yeah, I'm 5 weeks!" Every time she calls now I FREEZE! :) Anyway, it was great to catch up and spend some quality time with her! When we got home on Monday we began the project I've been dying to do since we moved in. . . . . .LOREN'S ROOM! Finally all of that awful purple paint is gone! The ugly stencils have been washed away! Mike and I had a BLAST doing her room! And we were able to do it without it looking like Strawberry Shortcake threw up all over the room :) I just have to brag that I laid the hardwood! It's amazing what you can get done with only 1 kid :)

Well, nap time is up. I'll try to keep more updated throughout September!