A plan for fun

Today is the day. The circled day on the calender that we have been waiting a whole month for.its our Halloween Party !!!! We have so much fun planedA pla ahead I am tickled with spooky excitement.

Fall at the farm

There is a farm about 10 minutes from here that we visit every year. There are so many things that the children can expend their energy on we spend hours of enjoyable fun there. It has a huge boat that they climb all over. I wish we had a yard that could support one of those Noah's Ark play sets. Maybe one day, until then there are a few around town I can take the children to play on.

They have tricycle race tracks, tunnels of fun, hay piles, and hay barrels to climb over.



They have a small animal feeding area. You can feed sheep, cows, and goats. The boys definitely was the goats. Those billy goats climbed up ramps super high only to await the food that was being sent up by kids. Mine feed them over and over as they got a big kick out of turn the wheel making the can go up.



There is a huge hill. I am not sure if it is a pile of the dirt that was collected from leveling out some of the fields or if it was just an abnormal mound there. Either way it is great for sliding. Up and down we all went time and again. It can be a work out to run up that hill that many times.




One thing that is really neat is they had two corn mazes one for adults and a half the height one for kids. How cool we made our way through that one and it prefect size for Gregory.



We had fun. We will be back and if it were up to two little boys we would have never left. Their unhappy faces are apparent as we hulled them out of there crying. Oh well a quick nap and then they will be happily charged to play again.

Away for the day

Today we are jumping in the car and heading south to my parents and the home I spent most of my childhood years in. I primarily grew up in Washington D.C. and I loved it! I wish my kids could grow up there too but that is not in cards right now. My husband hates it there. And yes he did give it a try. We lived there for a little while and he just got to claustrophobic. He does not like lots of people, big crowds, heavy traffic (who does?)and many other reasons. His dislike for it is the main reason we do not live there. The second being the high cost of living. We simply can not afford to live there. So I will go down there today and enjoy it while I can but then return to my small quaint affordable country home. We both love it here in Amish country. What a difference?!

The life of boys

What are you two doing? Stop, stop, but wait let me get a picture first the STOP jumping on the couch!

Big Boy

This big boy is sitting next to me. He is my baby but you can't tell that to him. He won't even admit to being a little boy. I am a big boy he says in his 3 year old baby voice. Big or little I love him! He is so soft, cute and cuddly. My baby who is begging me to play rock paper scissors.

A drive today

I can't sleep. In Fact I have been up for hours. Tossing and turning. I finally decided it is time that I need to go get some coffee. So I jumped out of bed and jumped online. Coffee is brewing.

I fell asleep real early last night which leads to my not being able to stay asleep now. But I can get lonely quick and curious George is about to come on. So I ran upstairs to waken the best two buddies to watch curious George with. Ahh snuggled up on the couch with them that is better. DH is still upstairs, he has no problem sleeping.



It is a beautiful morning and that is good because I will be doing a lot of driving today. About 5 hours. I am going out to Altoona. This will be my first trip there. It is about an hour east of Pittsburgh, another place I have not been too.




On my "to do" list is visit many of the nearby cities. Unfortunately none of these cities are really that nearby. We were going to go to Philadelphia this upcoming weekend but for a variety of reasons that trip is now pushed back indefinitely. One day I will make it there but today I am going to grab my coffee, grab my sun glasses and head out to Altoona. See you soon.

Berkeley Springs West Virginia

It was a warm day after a cold and rainy weekend. I had to work that weekend so I did not get to spend much time with my family. Work was ruff and I missed my boys so we decided to go down to Berkley Springs West Virginia. Berkley Springs is a natural warm springs that promotes itself as the countries oldest spa. It is so old and that it has been visited and used by many famous dignitaries such as George Washington.



Now it is used and played in by my two wonderful kids. The water there stays a constant 74 degrees so we all jumped in. Gregory outlasted all of us to no surprise. He really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed them.



After hours of playing I tried to talk DH into getting some ice cream just down the road but we wondered across this interesting looking restaurant. We peek at the menu and decided to have a late lunch instead. Upon walking inside we also discovered it was an art museum. Wow we thought as we looked around at all the beautiful sculptures. Oh no we thought as we looked down at our kids. How were they not going to touch? I wanted to touch half of the stuff there. But I wanted to stay as far away from those hefty prices as I could. We decided to stay and eat since the children were all ready excited. They did remarkable. Such good kids! We were there for over 2 hours and they sat and ate and were impressive that even the owner complimented us on them.

It was a great day with my family. A wonderful time at Berkeley Springs West Virginia, we will return soon.

Carpentry runs in the family

We took the children to Lowe's the other day to a children's workshop. They had a great time. They made firetrucks. They turned out so adorable and the kids did a really good job. There was so much noise. Everywhere around us were little ones beating away with hammers on a concrete floor.



"Where did this man get these things?" they asked. "What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! 3Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph,[a] Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.
Mark 6:2-4

Outdoor Challenge

We got another addition to our Wii collection, outdoor challenge. It is yet another game that requires you to get off your couch and pretend to do something you really could do outside your front door. For instance running, jumping on a trampoline, but there are somethings you just cant do that normally like canoe, or glide through magic tunnels, even log jumping. Its a lot of fun! Boy what a good time my Mii has.

Marriage Monday:Finances

Want this button?



We are looking at finances for marriage Monday. In particular how to deal with this tough economic time. Somethings that my family has been doing to help make our dollar go further are:

1. Eat at home more often.

2. Pack more snacks to take with us when we are out so we are not always dropping $20 at an unhealthy drive through.

3. Buying groceries from a store that offers points towards discounted gas.

4. Not buying the kids anymore toys until Christmas.

5 Throwing away catalogs as soon as they come in. That reduces to temptation to unneccissarily buy.

6. Canceled a trip...well indefinitely put off. We have really wanted to take a vacation to Philadelphia but after looking at how much it would cost us in gas, hotel (the biggest expense), food, museum fees and other stuff we decided we just needed to put it on the back burner.


Well these may not be the best ideas to save money and they are working for us. The times are tough and we still need to dramatically cut back. Our big ticket spending is through the roof.

Fall Fun Fest

Fall is an absolutely wonderful time of year! Our family LOVES festivals. Surly, fall ranks the busiest festival time of year. And why not? The weather is perfect, the colors are beautiful, the food is plentiful (thank the LORD), and the fun is everywhere.

September 20 we packed up the kidos and headed over to a farm a just down the road, (yes we are blessed!) where they were having their annual fall farm day. It is a very large working farm.

They had all different sort of "booths/events" set up everywhere. We started on a hayride of the 300 acre farm. They hay ride stopped and 4 different stands where different environmental and community groups would give you a lesson. We learned about the dangers of quarry's, the importance of recycling, agricultural spraying, the efficiency of steamy tractors and their hot drawbacks compared to the gas gussling combines but their time saving capacities, and the modern innovations in farming.




We got to pet baby calf's.




Even milk cows. However, when my youngest saw it he thought the cow was peeing! It was cute at the time.




They had the same barrel train ride that the children have been on many of times at different events around the county. I never knew it traveled but none the less the children were over the moon to see it and oh so excited to ride it in the fall too.




But the best thing that comes from cows is of course ice cream. We filled up for FREE!!!!! Our Favorite dairy and I am not just saying that because the ice cream was for free but it truly is and has been every since we moved to Pennsylvania. They had ice cream for everyone.




They really did the farm up making it look so nice and inviting. Autumn decorations were everywhere and the feeling of fall was abundant. The lesson to be learned was do not try to capture that perfect photo for mailing out on Thanksgiving cards AFTER you gave your kidos ice cream.

chess or choo choos