Holiday Farms

Pumpkins!

Halloween snuck up on me so fast this year. I don't know how it happened! On Monday, I realized we were less than a week away with no pumpkins to show for it! We went to a pumpkin patch about a month ago, but I didn't let the kids pick out a pumpkin because last year, we ended up with 10 pumpkins from going to so many pumpkin patches! I felt so bad for not going ahead and letting them pick out a few when we had the chance but we finally got to go to another one on Tuesday morning.

Brent was supposed to be out of town for most of the week, but he ended up being able to come home for a few hours on Monday night and Tuesday morning. We used the few hours to our advantage and were able to go to a really cute little patch close to our house before he had leave again. It was actually the very first pumpkin patch we took the kids to when they were 9 months old and it was so nice for the four of us to be there together again.

The kids picked out two really cute little pumpkins that they painted to match their costumes like they did last year. They love painting but I only rarely let them do it because it sends me into an internal conniption just imagining the potential disaster that two three year olds can make with some paint. Anyway, we paint them, let them dry, put faces on them, and glitter them up. They love it so much that I hope we can keep this tradition up every year.

Save the Ta-tas!

This weekend we went to Jacksonville for Spooktacular and Race for the Cure. Spooktacular was on Friday night at the zoo and so cute! It didn't start until 6:30 and there was so much stuff to do that we could have easily stayed until 10pm when it closed. There was a bunch of scary sections too for the older kids which seemed really fun. The new jaguar exhibit was open and it was HUGE! It was great to see how much space they had to explore and roam around in compared to the very small one they had before. It was great! Even just being at the zoo when it was dark was pretty cool but combining that with a Halloween party too was so cute!

On Saturday, we did Race for the Cure. I hadn't participated in it since I was in high school but this year it was kind of important for us to do it because my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer this past year. She had to go through chemo, lost her hair and all that horribleness, but fought it off like a champ. Since she lives in Holland, I never got to see her while she was going though everything and definitely wanted to walk in her honor this year. My mom, other aunt, and uncle came with us too and we had a great time. The kids tried keeping up with us for as long as they could but quickly ended up in the jogging stroller. I'm looking forward to doing it again next year.

Exit Issues

"I fought the turd and the... turd won,
I fought the turd and the... turd won."

Deliriousness has no trouble turning me into a rock star at 4ish am. Callie hates pooping. She wants to keep it in her guts for all of eternity. She can fight having to go for five days straight - piece of cake. On Monday night though, she fought the mother of all battles that kept us up the entire night. If I ever needed reminding about what it was like to be up with a newborn, this was it!

By midnight, we were both crying. I had already been sitting with her for almost four hours while she was screaming in pain and begging me to help her. Her entire body was shaking and I felt so helpless. Brent was out of town, of course, and I had no idea what to do. Is it even legit to take your kid to the hospital and ask them to do what?! Whip out a shovel and backhoe on her?! I thought not. But, I called a 24-hour nurse to ask and told me not to panic until the 7 day mark. She obviously had no idea how much pain my kid was in.

The week before, both of them had the flu which didn't even register as a blip on the radar compared to this. It was a major problem. We stayed up the whole night and were finally victorious later the next morning but in desperate need of sleep. I'm pretty sure the gods know when Brent goes out-of-town because the drama is like clockwork. Obviously, I still have some toughening up left to do but to be honest with you, I'm not interested.

Best flush of my life though and any thoughts of a third kid got flushed down with the turd.

Lack of Pickage

We had a really great weekend up in Greenville although it was pushed back a day because Wyatt was battling the flu or something all week. He was puking and all that gorgeousness but they both had the flu shot already so I don't know what flavored virus this was.

So we left on Saturday and only stayed up there one night. Our main intention was to go apple picking which ended up being a flop. To start at the beginning though, we went to Furman first just to poke around. The weather all weekend couldn't have been anymore perfect.

We drove to the top of Paris mountain knowing the view would be awesome with such clear weather and then headed back downtown to explore Reedy River Park. Downtown Greenville is seriously one of the cutest little cities ever. I miss it. We ate and shopped a little bit before trying to get the kids settled for bed. I really love the beach, but the mountains are such a striking opposite that they can sometimes be equally as gorgeous, especially at sunset.

We met some friends up in Flat Rock, NC on Sunday morning at Sky Top Orchard. We knew it was towards the end of the season, but it seemed like we pretty much missed it completely. Although the orchard was still swarming with people, there were ZERO apples left to be picked. We walked around for quite awhile and finally found a few crab apples for the kids to pick which served the purpose, but nothing we found was bigger than a golf ball.

It honestly didn't bother me (or them) at all because our main focus was on the hot apple cider donuts. Ohmagah! I can't even describe the perfection of these heavenily donuts to you in words. They were worth the trip alone in all their warm-appliciousness-rolled-in-cinnamon-sugar glory. They are fried in hot oil too which gives them a kiss of crunchiness on the very outer edges. I'm sure they are hugely unhealthy but we still managed to kill a quick dozen.

None of us were really ready to come back home, and we probably wouldn't have if Brent didn't have to get home to head right back out-of-town again. Overall, it was a great little fall weekend getaway but we will definitely be visiting the apple orchard earlier next year. I heart Greenville.

Furman Pics

3rd and a Nudge

This weekend we went to the Citadel/Chattanooga game up in Charleston. We ate at the alumni center before the game where they were displaying South Carolina's very first flag of the confederacy they call "Big Red". I'm terrible at history and had no idea that a Citadel cadet was responsible for firing the very first shot of the Civil War. Anyway, Big Red was captured during a Civil War battle and just recently turned up in 2009 at a museum in Iowa - 150 years later. The Citadel has the flag on loan from the museum while raising funds to purchase it. The shocking part of the whole deal was that the original flag depicits the palm with an inward facing moon!



No one knew that the flag was duplicated INCORRECTLY after the first one was captured! So technically, South Carolina's current state flag is a misrepresentation of what it first was! However, the mistake occured on the design of the initial flag because in actuality, the crescent moon will always face outward when positioned to the left of a palm. (Which is probably why the second flag maker assumed the moon was facing outward.) Crazy trivia for South Cackalackians whose hearts beat a little stronger when they see the palm and moon emblem! It rocked my little pea brain fo sho!

Anyway, the game was fun even though the Citadel lost (of course). Callie was obsessed with the cheerleaders and Wyatt did pretty well too although he needed a strait-jacket by half-time.