Why I love my kids

Because they're so stinking cute!

Meet Sandy

So I already mentioned that we fared well during Hurricane Sandy. These are a few pics I pulled off of Jesse's phone of when we went down to the river. This was on Tuesday afternoon. That is supposed to be the boat ramp. I think that the water level rose several more feet. At one point when we drove by, the parking lot appeared to be covered in dirt and sediment, so I think that eventually the parking lot was covered. Crazy! However, in the past I guess PoR has actually had flooding into town, like past the canal, and railroad station. That was a long time ago though. Glad that there was no serious damage where we were. However, as we were standing there, you just saw tree after tree floating down the river. Like, not just little things here and there, whole tree trunks.

October Overview

So October was a busy month for us. I had stuff going on every single weekend. It was crazy. We started with General Conference, and the kids did pretty well with that. There were so many great talks about love and discipleship.
The following weekend I had the Baltimore Running Festival. This year we did the relay. I have now done the Marathon, Half marathon and Relay. All that is left for me is the 5K. The night before my friends Colleen, Cindi, and Jalene went down to Baltimore to stay at a hotel. It really is a great way to do things! :) We had so much fun the night before. Lots of laughs. I didn't really train for this race, but not many other people did either. It was still fun. Baltimore puts on a great race.
Then the next weekend was our ward trunk or treat as well as a baby shower for my friend Lindy. I did a lot of baking and cooking for that. When I got home from that we all wen to the pumpkin patch together with Grammy and Grandad, and then out to dinner.
After that, a very sad thing happened, my BFF Jana moved to Pittsburgh. It was sad. It still is sad. We had a little going away party for her that week, and that was a riot. It made me especially sad that she was leaving. Then on Friday night we had a primary program practice. Jesse took the kids to that, and had to stay because he is a teacher, so I found myself without kids that night. So Colleen, Jana and I went to dinner, and then to see Pitch Perfect. (Hilarious, btw.) Jana was leaving the following morning, so this really was it. (well, except that she is coming back down next week for the Breaking Dawn premier) I was the only one who cried that night. I guess Colleen doesn't like Jana as much as I do, and Jana doesn't care for either of us.
That Saturday I was supposed to go to a Stake training meeting, but I was just tired of being away from home, so I decided to skip it so that I could be with the family, and also so we could get the yard taken care of while the weather was still nice. We got a lot of things taken care of while we were preparing for the Hurricane to come. That evening, Graham had a birthday party to attend, and then we went to the corn maze after that.
Hurricane Sandy started to hit us on Monday. School was cancelled, although there was just rain for most of the day. There was a little flooding, and later in the day the winds did start to pick up. We however, were able to keep power for most of the day, and even were able to venture out for a bit. The Government was also closed, so Jesse didn't have to go into work. It really hit us on Monday night. At about 7pm we lost power. We were prepared this time. I had frozen 6 gallons of water in our chest freezer, so when the power went out, we transferred everything from inside to that freezer in the garage. We filled it so full that I had to take 4 gallons out, which I was then able to put in the refrigerator, which in turn kept the fridge cold.  On Tuesday morning we woke up expecting to be in it for the long haul, so we were pretty surprised when there was only a little rain and wind, and the power came back on by about 9:30. However, School and work were cancelled again, so we just hung out that day as well. We went down to the river, and it was as high as we've ever seen it. So when it comes down to it, we got off very easy from this storm. No damage or flooding in the house, and minimal power loss.
And that pretty much gets us through the month of October. It was busy one! Unfortunately, that's just life these days, I always look at a month and think, oh wow, this is a busy month. I'm just glad that we are not as busy as some other families!

Halloween

 This year it seems like Halloween lasted forever. It started with an early October trip to the pumpkin patch. Then our ward Trunk or Treat was in the middle of the month this year, then Halloween, and finally Graham's school party wasn't until November. The kids enjoyed the trunk or treat. I had a lot going on that weekend, so decorating the trunk just did not happen. I did make a white chicken chili though, and it was the hit of the night. If there had been a competition, I would have totally won. :) I tried to link it up for you, but my computer does not like the ourbestbites website, so just search for it there if you are interested. Anyway, this year we had Captain America, Cinderella, and Snake Eyes from GIJoe

Oh yeah, and Jesse went as the Avengers. All rolled into one.

Olivia fell asleep on the way to the trunk or treat. Sleeping Beauty meets Cinderella.

Graham and Olivia both got their face painted. Graham got a ghost, and Olivia got a little cat.

 

There were other games there too. The kids all had a great time that night. They especially liked sitting in the back of the van eating their candy.

Then came Halloween. This is our first Halloween in this neighborhood. Our old neighborhood was not a great one for Trick of treating, and we didn't ever go out there. We always traveled to a friend's neighborhood. As it turns out, we have an awesome neighborhood for trick or treating. I took the kids out first, up the street in one direction and back down. Then Jesse and I traded spots, and I stayed back with Olivia handing out candy, while Graham and Nate went out and got a lot of the rest of the neighborhood. Olivia loved handing out candy, although was a little stingy, with wanting to give only one smarties roll to each person.

We finally ended the month long celebration with Graham's preschool party.

He and Ethan having fun at the party.

Pumpkin patch

If you know anything about our family, you know that the pumpkin patch is one of our favorite fall activities. This year we didn't go as many times as we have in the past, but we still got our fair share in. :) We started with Graham's preschool field trip. We took a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch, and they were all able to pick out a little pumpkin.

 

 It was a little misty that morning. It was kind of neat though.

 After that we were able to go and feed the goats. Graham really didn't want to do that, but Olivia enjoyed it.

 So much so, that when we got to this other part of the farm where there a bunch of activities, Graham ran off to do those, and I looked around trying to find Olivia, and she had gone off on her own to see the other animals.

 They had a few different slides, and the kids really enjoyed them.

 Doing the little hay maze.

We next went to Mayne's tree farm, which is our closest pumpkin patch. It was our first time there. We invited Grammy and Grandad to come with us to pick out a pumpkin.

 We did not get one this big.

 We did get some big ones. We left with the intention of just picking one pumpkin for the whole family. However, thanks to Grammy and Grandad, we left with 4 large pumpkins.

 After we did the pumpkins we went to do face painting. Olivia was this pink cheetah. She was so good while getting it done. The painter gave us Graham's face for free because Olivia was the best 2 year old she'd ever painted.

 We ended our season with a night visit back to Gaver (where we went with preschool.) Last year Jesse took Nate to a night corn maze, and we decided to take all of the kids this year. They all had fun doing it, even though they claimed to be scared. We then did all of the activities again in the dark. It was a great way to end the pumpkin patch season!

Catch up

 OK, so I've kind of been absent on here lately. So we'll try to catch up. Graham is in preschool this year. He is in the same school that we had Nate go to. It's a bit of a trek for us, but the thing is, there really are not many options that are closer. One of the disadvantages of living in the country. He really enjoys it though, and unlike Nate, he actually talks about the other kids in his class, and how much he likes them. He can now write his first name, and he knows our home phone number. Little fun fact about Graham: he is a lefty. We've known that for several years now though.

We also are doing a preschool co-op with the people from our ward. We were invited to join in the last few months when we moved in, and now we're starting from the beginning. For our first preschool activity, we went to an apple orchard. Both Graham and Olivia are able to participate, and they love it. Plus, it's a great chance to get to know other people in the ward.

 In September Jesse participated in Tough Mudder. It was a 12 mile race with 25 obstacles in it. We were planning on taking the kids to go and watch with Grandad and Cammi, but the planning of the event was lacking. Mostly, they didn't really plan on the traffic problem, and all of Frederick was gridlocked due to this event. As it, it took people hours to drive through Frederick instead of the 5 minutes it should take. So we took the kids to the park for a bit, and then went to lunch, and then tried to head over to the event. We were ready to wait out the traffic situation (It took us about 2 hours to make it less than 2 miles) However, as we were sitting in traffic the skies opened up and let loose all that they had. It was pouring for a very long time. I decided that the kids were going to whine and complain about being wet, so when it came time to finally get to the part where we could turn left to park, or go straight to exit, we went straight to exit. Oh well, at least we tried. Jesse, I think, enjoyed it, although he didn't feel prepared, so he said that he won't do it again unless he is totally trained for it. Plus, he got a few injuries from falling off of a balance beam.

It seems like September was a very uneventful month. Just getting used to being back in school and having a routine. We have my mom's cat while she is on her mission, and so there was quite a lot of meowing and hissing among the 3 cats in our house now. October on the other hand, there was not a moment's rest for us, we'll get to that one next.