Deal of the Century!

Some friends in our Branch told us about this fireworks store in town that was selling all kinds of discounted, overstock items they bought from amazon.com. They said there was baby stuff, kitchen stuff, everything! I went to check it out right away and they were absolutely right. This store was chock full of stuff and people. Nothing had prices on it so you had to ask one of the workers how much they wanted for everything. They had a couple of jogging strollers that I was interested in. They both appeared to have never been used with tags still on them (but out of the box). We have been going to a local recreation center that has a nice outdoor running track a few times a week and I have been pushing Adele around in our regular stroller - mostly walking because it just isn't made for running. They told me they were both $50. One was a Jeep brand that only had a stationary front wheel. I have tried those before I can't handle them. The other was a Chico. I called Nate to ask him what he thought. I hate spending money like that without talking about it first. I described it to him and he looked it up online and told me to get it - he couldn't find it for less than $350! So I did. Here she is:

And Nate modeling the cute backpack that came with it. :)

Adele loves riding in it. When I first put her in it and pushed her around in the living room she was all smiles and when I tried to take her out she was not happy! We had talked about getting a jogging stroller before we saw this one and I didn't want to spend the money on it but at this price it was hard to pass up. I am so glad we did. It has been really nice to be able to run with Nate. The track has a grass area in the middle of it with a playground. It is one of our new favorite family activities to go running. Liam and Jonas get to play around and then when I am finished running (and Nate is finishing up his run) I let Adele run around for a while.

Halloween Party

I volunteered to help with the Halloween party in Jonas' class. The school is right in the downtown area so there are a lot of little shops. Every Halloween the kids get to go trick or treating to the downtown stores. It was really cold but Adele and I bundled up to go hang out with Jonas and his class. I cannot believe how many kids there were. They bus kids in from other areas to come trick or treating in our downtown. Crazy! They must go through bags and bags of candy. After trick or treating we went back to the classroom for a pizza party.

Jonas was Darth Vader. He did have a mask but it pinched his nose or something like that so he had me carry it the whole time.

He's a little excited about all of his candy!

I have decided that it is nearly impossible to volunteer for class parties (and actually feel like you are helping rather than distracting) when you have a 1 year old. She was dancing around which encouraged the other kids to dance around, trying to touch all markers/crayons/pencils she could find and was dying to try out the teacher's fancy camera.

Heaven...

I feel like we are officially grown up because we bought our very own mattress! We have gotten by over the last 10 years with hand me downs, a bed in a box (yes, the mattress came in the mail in a box and when we opened it up it sort of inflated) and air mattresses. Our very first major purchase after getting a real job and moving to Kentucky was this beauty. It took us months of visiting different stores and trying them out (while our children ran around the store like wild animals) before we decided on this one - a Sterns & Foster something or other. After about 2 days of sleeping on it Nate decided he pretty much hated it. I kept trying to convince him that it was just because it was a new mattress and we needed to give it some time. The return/exchange rules are that you have to sleep on it for 21 days anyways. He kept leaning towards those memory foam types. I was pretty worried that we would get one of those (having never slept on something without springs) and really not like it but be stuck with it. When we tried them in the stores I didn't think they were all that comfortable. But after visiting some more stores and trying out more mattresses (while our children ran around the store like wild animals) we decided we would get a Simmons Comforpedic Loft - it helped that right as we were deciding they had a sale that dropped the price to about half what it was when we first started looking. This is where the title of my post comes in...seriously HEAVEN! The first mattress we bought had a free gift of two fancy memory foam pillows so I feel like I am wrapped in the stuff. I have never slept better! Nate likes it too. :)

Snaggle Tooth

Liam (finally) lost is 4th tooth. This tooth was dangling by a tiny piece of skin for WEEKS! A few different times I threatened not to give him any food until he pulled his tooth out. Nate tried a few times to get it out (with Liam's permission but he had to stop as soon as Liam said so). Eventually he pulled it out himself. It is funny to hear him speak without his two front teeth.

Pumpkin Carving

It was a lot of fun carving pumpkins this year. We hadn't carved any since we lived in Illinois in 2007. I let Liam and Jonas pick out their own pumpkins and I picked one out for myself too. I also got a small one for Adele that I thought she might want to play around with. Nate didn't want one of his own, probably because he knew he'd be carving most of the boys for them. I made them pull all of their own guts out. I love the feel of all of the slimy stuff inside but they were pretty grossed out. :)




We kept reminding them that this was part of carving pumpkins. If you want to do the fun part you have to do the dirty work too! Adele supervised the whole thing. We roasted the seeds but they didn't turn out that great. I had fun doing it though.

Here is what we ended up with...

Liam's pumpkin

Vanessa's pumpkin

I tried to get a picture of Jonas' pumpkin at one point but we had some listening issues and I had to give up before I got too frustrated. So there is no picture of his. :(

What we did was Liam and Jonas would tell us what they wanted - round eyes, scary eyes, lots of teeth, etc and we would draw different things on paper until it looked the way they wanted. Then we would transfer it onto the pumpkin and carve.

For mine I got a book from the library that had lots of different ideas of things you could do with pumpkins and gourds that didn't involve making faces. This was my favorite idea. The book's was much fancier. Maybe next year. We also decided that next year we are going to let/make the boys carve their own and see what they come up with.

Kentucky Apple Festival

I had the Kentucky Apple Festival on our calendar even before we moved to Kentucky. Our landlords sent us some brochures about different things going on in the area and I was so excited when I heard about it. Apple pie, caramel apples, apple dumplings, funnel cake, arts & craft booths...all sounds good to me! Nate had to work on Friday so I took all three kids out myself. It wasn't the "big" day so it was much less crowded. We planned on coming back the next day with Nate but I thought it was a good idea to let the kids ride some things while there weren't so many lines. They had a blast in this blow up fighting ring. Seriously, I wish we had one of these at home. Then I could send them out to the ring to have it out whenever they are bickering and there would only be minimal damage.


Next they wanted to go on this thing - I can't think of what it is called -

This was the best! They had so much fun.

Adele just sat in her stroller and watched. It wasn't long before she had had enough and we went home. Not before we got a caramel apple though.


The next day we went again with Nate. It was freezing and there were way too many people there so we didn't stay long. The lines were massive for everything so we didn't bother waiting in line for many of the foods we wanted to try. I have learned a lesson for next year - go on Friday and enjoy everything and stay away on Saturday. :)