Founders Day Festival

The kids and I spent a fun Saturday afternoon at the Founder's Day Festival at Warm Hearth Village. They had lots of free activities for the kids like face painting, a hay ride, bouncy houses, farm animal petting zoo, popcorn and crafts.

Ready for our hayride.

Petting the animals.

They had a few miniature horses, goats, bunnies and chickens.

Playing in the bouncy house.

Enjoying a pizza break!

Apples

The kids and I went apple picking. We went to two different places this year and picked tons of apples, ok maybe not tons but 3 or 4 bushels worth of apples. It was a perfect fall day, not too hot and we ate lots of yummy apples while we picked.

The girls picking a few apples

Raquel eating a few apples.

The ground was a bit wet so Marcus' was content on

hanging out in the stroller watching us pick.

After apple picking we stopped off for lunch and a trip to Toys R' us for a little fun. We all had a great day and now we will have lots of good apples to eat and many more hours of fun making apple sauce.

Patiently waiting for their food at Cheddars.

Checking out the toys are Toys R' us. All the kids loved the ride on toys.

I had to pry them away so they would go look at other things.

Birthday Boy

Marcus turned 1 years old. We didn't do much for his birthday since we had already celebrated a few weeks earlier but we did celebrate his day with donuts for breakfast and dinner and cupcakes at a friends house. Marcus is such a happy boy and loves to be where the action is or very content playing by himself. He loves food and eats everything! He isn't much of a talker yet but sure makes lots of happy giggle sounds. He has started to cruse and I'm sure will be walking soon. We love our little boy to pieces!

Marcus' 1 year pictures.

Marcus' Stats at 12 months:

28 1/2 inches

21 lbs 4 oz

10 reasons why we love you even more...

1. You always have a happy smiley face.

2. You love your sisters and want to play with them all the time.

3. You love wheels and cars.

If you can sneak out the front door you head right for the big car tires to play with.

4. You are a daddies boy, you love your mom but can't wait to see your dad.

5. You giggle when you see your bed, you really like your naps.

6. You already know how to clean up your toys and will help your sisters pick up.

7. You love your binky so much you have to stick the whole thing in your mouth, not just suck on it.

8. You like to snuggle! I can bring you in my bed in the morning and you will just lay there snuggling me.

9. You hold on tight when I carry you. I don't know if it because you are afraid that I'm going to drop you or that you love me so much you don't want to let me go. Either way its very cute to see.

10. Because your my cute little Boy!

Deployment

Mike left for his second deployment to Afghanistan on Sept. 26th. We took Raquel out of school that day so she could come with us to take dad to the airport. Mike spent about a week at Fort Benning, Georgia preparing to head over seas. He then left for Afghanistan today the 2nd of September. With 90 days boots on ground that makes it December 1st he could be back in the United States and home in plenty of time for Christmas.