Fall Fun

It is middle of October already, which means it is time for our trip to Daniel's Farm.

Of course, we went with one of our favorite people: Bryan (& his family).

Daniel's Farm is one of my favorite fall traditions. There is so much there for the kids to do.  We will definitely be back year after year!

Overdue Birthday Update

So June is close to being over and I still need to post a Bethany Birthday update. So here it goes:

Keeping up with my tradition of making birthday cakes, I made Bethany a Tinkerbell Cake. At first I attempted a Tangled Cake--with the tower and all. Yeah. That didn't work out for me. So when Bethany saw the pile of cake that was once a tower...she said, "That's ok Mama. You can make a Tinkerbell Cake instead." 

She got a kick out of eating Tinkerbell's head!

Then it was present time.  Which in our house is apparently universal present time and all person under the age of 12 get to open the presents.

And...apparently all persons gets to have equal opportunity to play with the said presents...

Even Daddies...

The kids even got these awesome couches/bed from their Grandma.  What a great gift idea. They love having their own seats.

This was the first year Bethany was able to have her own Birthday Party with her friends.  We decided to go with the classic venue of Chuck E. Cheese. Which, of course, brought back fond memories for Cory, as he used to be Chuck E. back in the day. 

The kiddos has a blast!

Even Owen had a couple friends there to play with!

Lil' Pumpkins

This had to be one of the best Halloweens to date. 

If you don't have kids, I gotta tell ya...they make any holiday ten times better.

Owen really got into painting his first pumpkin ever!

Bethany is an old pro at painting pumpkins, as this is her second year at it.  This year, she had a couple *ahem* issues. The problem was she'll paint the pumpkin, then she decided to wipe it clean after a while and start fresh.  After about, oh I don't know, a million times cleaning off her pumpkin, she finally settled on an abstract color display.

On Halloween, we met Jenny, Danie and Bryan up at the mall to trick-or-treat.  The Newtons totally showed up our family as they were ALL dressed up for the holiday.  Aren't they a smashing group?

Bethany and Owen had a great time at the mall.  Well, Bethany had a great time. Owen wimped out half-way through.  We are thinking that he got himself all worked up because of the kabillion people there and all the scary costumes.  He was just not feeling it & cried & cried.  But when Bethany fell asleep in car on the way home...Owen couldn't stop pointing and laughing at her. That definitely cheered the lil' guy (well, that and the pretzel snack we got at the mall before we left).

Before we trick-or-treated around the neighborhod, we tried to get a classic shot of the lil' ones.   Getting the lil' boogers to sit pretty and pose for me was a little challenge.  When posing the kids outside, I learned you need to move all distracting objects out of the way.    The pumpkin....ya...that will be a prime example of a distracting object...

But eventually, we got a great shot of our lil' Tinkerbell and

one of our lil' SpongeBob.



Day @ Daniel's Farm

I am behind; so, so behind. Forgive me.  Ahem, moving on...

Two weeks ago we went to Daniel's Farm with Jenny, Daniel and Baby Bryan.  I am pretty sure that Bethany still thinks Daniel's Farm belongs to Daniel. But it doesn't. Well, at least not a Daniel that we know. 

The kids had a blast. I took a million (or close to it) pictures.  I clustered a bunch of them together. Click on them and it should become larger...

Daniel's Farm is such a hoot. There is so much to do there. If you are in the region, I totally recommend you load up the family and truck it on over to Daniel's Farm.  Plus, the weekend we went they had a benefit for Children's Hospital. With all the support Children's Hospital provided us during Owen's surgery, why wouldn't we go to an event to support them?

Here is a peek at what Daniel's Farm had to offer us:  They had: mazes, animals, wagons, trains, tractors...

They also had those things you poke your head through, gigantic-bumpy slides, and awesome tire swings.

They had Corn Pits. This was all of our first experience with corn pits. Man, corn pits ROCK! Owen could of and would've stayed in it forever!

At the very end the kiddos picked out their own pumpkins.  Picking out a perfect Pumpkin is a pretty painstakingly difficulty task.  Let the Milles kids help you out some.

So to find a perfect pumpkin, it is no easy task. It is serious business.

First off, your pumpkin must be comfortable.  Be sure to test it out!

You have to be patient and willing to scour the lands hay bales for the best pumpkin available.



It helpful to bring a second opinion with you to help judge your potential pick of the day.

Once you think you got it. Get super excited. No, I mean SUPER-D-DUPER excited and run on over to show your Momma.

She'll insist on taking your picture with your produce. Just get over it and smile already.

Now you are ready to really start enjoying all of your autumnal celebrations!

Party @ the Park!

This weekend we had a party at the park for my two favorite kiddos.

It was HOT! Really, Really, Really, Hot!

But so were the slightly-ironic-in-the-sweltering-heat-underwater-themed decorations...check it out.

Aside from having great decorations, we had our some pretty wonderful guests.
They were really, really cute as you will see in Owen's BFF Bryan.

Bethany had a great time playing with everyone and pretty much losing her weight in sweat. The poor girl looked as if she's been swimming.

Owen managed to stay a lil' cooler by munching on random snacks that he sweet-talked anyone and everyone to hand to him.
The absolute highlight of the party was when Bethany's "Favorite Friend" arrived. She was looking forward to have her long-lost playmate around.

They became pretty much inseparable...even while posing with the fish cake.

and eating their first ever fun-dips!
but....two seconds after that last picture...an out-of-no-where gust of wind came. This wind knocked over full cups of soda, whipped the stacks of plates in the air like nothing, blow over bowls of chips and ripped the fun-dips out of the lil' girls hands. This storm. Came. Out. of. nowhere! We hastily packed up and headed back to the safety our house for present time.

Even though the party went from 90+ degree weather to hold-on-to-the kids gusts of wind...it was still a great way to celebrate the birthdays of the two best kiddos around. They deserved to be the center of attention for a lil' while...even if the party ended all to suddenly.

Besides...they didn't seem to be too scarred from the abrupt and dramatic ending to their party.

Magic at the Magic House!

Bethany got invited to a birthday party at the Magic House. It was her first time there. She had an absolute blast. The Magic House surely lives up to their name!

She missed her friends from the sitter's and she couldn't get over the fact she was hanging out with her friends again!

The party was a lot of fun. They got to decorate Princess Crowns.
They each made lil' magic wands. If you are in close proximity to the wand, you better watch out or you might be turned in to a cat, dog or even a Bethany.

To top off the party, they got to decorate their own cupcakes! Oddly, only a couple kids ate the cupcakes after they were all done. I guess they didn't want to disrupt all their hard work!

After the party was over, the kids explored the Magic House. I am telling you what, we were their in the house for about 90 minutes and we didn't even explore half of the exhibits. The lil' girls were in love with the Water Room. Seriously, if I installed a large water table in our house, she'd never go bored!

We did manage to pry them out of the Water Room long enough to play a little in the pretend house. They loved cooking lunch for everyone and getting to play with the fridge and oven...you know...all the things that they'd never get to do in real life.

I had to pry a crying Bethany out when the Magic House closed. We are for sure going to have to go back...soon!