Tragedy Avoided

Saturday were the first football games of the season....and it was FREEZING!!!!!! I was not prepared at ALL for how cold it was going to be - my poor kids!! Because of this, I didn't get any good game pictures - too busy trying to keep kids warm! I did get a picture of our cheerleaders (they cheer for both teams :) ). Kayla was cheering and was adorable!

We came home for lunch and naps, and I made this cute cake!!

And then we got dressed for a trip to the pumpkin patch!!!

The Schrodt family!!! Trying not to be sad about how much BIGGER I am in this year's fall picture. sigh. Last year's picture was the weekend of my 2nd half marathon & I was in GREAT shape. Hoping that next year's fall picture will be great again!

waht a ham josiah is! 4 feet tall!

jacob - all smiley

my mom gave mary (my sister kim's daughter) this jacket when SHE was 2...now she's almost 13!!!

they had this cool playground with these crazy swings made out of tires. jacob's was a reindeer...

and josiah's was a motorcycle!

judy, i thought of you...wishing christian was here to play with us on Thomas!!!

they had more old tractors there than i'd ever seen in my life!

and then it all went HORRIBLY wrong!! Like call 911 wrong! We walked down to see the animals that they had in this petting zoo area. Sheep, peacocks, deer, goats. Over where the goats were, they had this platform up top and a pulley system that you could use to transport food up to them on the platform. So David was trying to put some of the corn (from those 25 cent gumball-type machines) on the pulley to get the goats up to the top. Josiah came over to try and do it too. Well, then Callie wanted to get in the mix and stuck her hand in while Josiah was pulling the wires and got her thumb stuck IN the pulley under the wire. holy cow. I heard David say "STOP or her finger's going to get stuck.....OH it already IS stuck!!!" and I run over. David was holding Caleb in the snugli, so I was left to try and pull the wire out enough to loosen it and get her finger. Mom goes hysterical and calls 911 thinking the worst - she thought her hand was cut off. I get her finger out and was holding her while trying to get a good look at it at the same time. It got smashed, but thankfully didn't break it. She wiggled it enough to appease me and then didn't move it hardly at all the rest of the night. Poor thing. We got her some ice and then told her we'd go on a hayride to distract her...

Things continued to go downhill from here. The hayride was RIDICULOUSLY overpriced, but we had already promised the injured daughter, so we all got on. It was FREEZING cold, and even started to rain while we were out on the hayride. AND, we discovered partway through that it was a HAUNTED hayride, so there were scary, nasty things around the fields along with some spooky music playing on the tractor! Good grief! Talk about from bad to worse! Callie was unaware since she was cuddled up with me, and we tried to distract the boys as much as possible.

Caleb was nice and cozy however with David, and oblivous to all the drama arround him!

After the kids picked out their little pumpkins in the patch, he woke up and just smiled away at David! :)

That night when we got home, we had some hot cocoa with marshmallows and fed the kids. Jacob got to open his presents from my parents. He got some FABULOUS new clothes from my dad (much needed, and VERY appreciated!!), and...

JUST what he asked for! Some Bakugans! I don't really know what they are except that they are these little ball-like toys that you put on a card that has a magnet in them and they transform!! Anyways, he put it on his list, and my dad came through! :)

And I'm just realizing I don't have any pictures of him opening what my Mom got him! Sad. She got him this awesome airplane K'nex kit - he is SUCH a great builder, and the K'nex will even work with legos too - he was SO excited!

We had cake & ice cream with mom that night - this is Jacob with his "fake cake"....he knew he was having his batman cake on his actual birthday on Monday....

Callie helped him a bit with his candles...and he was gracious about it!